Diagnosis: Heart Attack. Karla Weller

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      The room was sparsely furnished with two beds next to each other against the wall, a small table and two dressers. The wardrobe was locked! So, every time I wanted to put Gerd’s clothing and underwear inside, I had to ask a nurse to unlock the doors first!

      Luckily, a young employee soon took him under his wing. He was able to hold a decent conversation with Gerd by asking him about his job. That helped a lot and the two were quickly deep in conversation about countries, people and travels so my consternation slowly abated, but my fear remained.

      I still felt like I was betraying Gerd when Beate and I left the secure ward and he remained behind the glass door. Waving his hand, he tried to smile bravely. My heart broke again at the sight of him standing there all by himself. How many times can a heart break before it finally kills you?

      I felt numb as I drove home and tried to convince myself over and over again I had done the right thing and acted in Gerd’s best interests. But why did I feel so terrible then? My sister sat glumly in complete silence in the passenger’s seat, giving me the feeling she would have preferred taking her brother-in-law right home with us.

      The next day, I wrote this letter to the doctor who had admitted and examined Gerd to his new clinic:

      Dear Doctor Gut,

      Let me thank you very much for the friendly manner in which you received my husband and me yesterday.

      During your examination, I noticed that my husband was completely off-center. One shoulder seemed higher than the other and he didn’t put equal pressure on both feet while walking and instead only stepped down on the balls of his feet. His speech was also very slurred when normally, it is very clear. On your professional opinion, is there any chance he suffered a mild stroke?

      I still have a lot of paperwork to complete, but would like to first provide you with the medical reports I have at hand.

      Unfortunately, I am not in receipt of the reports from the initial intensive care clinic, so perhaps you might request them directly?

      You asked for a brief resume enabling you to get to know your patient better and talk to him about topics that might interest him in order to obtain his attention.

      Résumé

      Gerd is 49 years old; we are married for 25 years and are raising 2 children together.

      Daniela, 23, currently living in Chicago, has not seen her father since he awoke from his coma. However, they talk on the phone regularly.

      Justin, 16 years of age, is attending secondary school.

      He was there when the heart attack occurred, notified the emergency doctor and actively performed first aid himself. The emergency doctor later said he had saved his father’s life.

      For the last 20 years, Gerd has worked as a project manager all over the world, commissioning complex machine systems. That includes, in particular, cooperating both with clients and sub suppliers in order to obtain optimal working conditions and, finally, training the employees on site. He was therefore often away from home for a couple of months in a row.

      He partook in all kinds of activities, aiming to get to know each country and its people when he traveled. He was always a very active person and was therefore appreciated and feared as a “Doer”. Now, it seems he gets to know the other side of life.

      In his free time, he likes to hike or play soccer where he recently started coaching the youth team.

      The next day, when I returned to the rehabilitation clinic, they had put diapers on Gerd. He wasn’t able to go to the bathroom on his own I was told tersely when I asked the head nurse. Oh yes he was, he just needed someone to show him the way there because he couldn’t find it on his own anymore because he lacked orientation in the new and strange environment.

      At the clinic back in the Alps, Gerd was always dressed in casual clothes or his pajamas but no one had ever put him in diapers. I couldn’t handle this awkward situation. Going to the toilet was part of human dignity in my opinion. I had several discussions with the head nurse but without success, because I continued to find Gerd in diapers. It was a pitiful sight. I could only hope he wasn’t aware of this humiliation.

      But Gerd proved I was very wrong. Once, he was even wearing two diapers, one over the other. “Double protection,” he tried to excuse himself. Obviously, that is what they had told him. Presumably, he had been given a laxative so he now required this “double protection”.

      He was suffering terribly under this helplessness which was both humiliating and discouraging for him. This must have been torture for Gerd, who had always placed great value on personal hygiene and was never seen in his sweatpants and would never have gone to the bakery on a Saturday morning in inappropriate clothing!

      Besides, he continued to worry about his future. He was particularly concerned that Justin might suffer because of his dad’s sickness. What did he mean by that exactly?

      In any case, he repeated this statement over and over, “Justin mustn’t suffer from me being like this.”

      Since he still had the gastric feeding tube, although he had been taking part in the communal meals in the dining hall, I was called to the clinic one day during the week. I was supposed to accompany Gerd to the municipal hospital in Constance where the tube would be removed.

      I wasn’t confident enough to drive alone with him because my nerves were shot at that point, so I requested an ambulance.

      Unfortunately, the ambulance couldn’t stay until the operation was over, so Gerd and I spent way too many hours at the hospital where we first had to wait for his surgery, which was performed under local anesthetic, and then we waited for a second ambulance to take Gerd back to his clinic.

      Instead of lying down and resting right after the procedure he had to sit on a regular chair and wait in the hallway until paramedics came back. I was deeply concerned about his condition; after all, he now had a hole in the middle of his body that was only provisionally taped up.

      Now, he was strapped to a seat in the car and the trip back started. It was very bad luck that the seat was only attached to the floor of the ambulance by two bolts instead of four as it should be, so he swung back and forth every time the ambulance went around a curve!

      This was both a dangerous as well as a horrible situation for Gerd with his limited perception and especially after the excitement of the surgery. So I tried to get a grip of Gerd’s seat from where I was sitting right behind him, so he wouldn’t tip over.

      It was quite a miracle his wound from the gastric feeding tube didn’t get infected after waiting for so long in a hallway at the hospital and the dangerous ride in the ambulance! But once again, Gerd’s guardian angel protected him.

      Quite often I received calls from the attending physician early in the morning while I was on my way to work. She usually would tell me Gerd had had a restless night. He was crying a lot and went back and forth between being depressed and aggressive. She wanted to know if this had been the case at the previous clinic too. If so, how had they handled it there?

      On the one hand, I was glad the doctor was seeking close contact with me, but how was I supposed to answer that question? I was just a regular wife who was being confronted with such a situation for the first time and not a trained psychiatrist! Why didn’t she just call the other clinic directly and have a detailed conversation with the doctors there? And why, СКАЧАТЬ