Saturday
morning: The report I got from the off-going nurse was that one of my
patients was a big, hairy 50-something Russian man –let’s call him ‘Ivan’ -
who’d been found wandering around the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport.
He spoke no English, had an empty bottle of psych meds in his pocket but no ID,
was supposedly from New York City but had disembarked from an incoming flight
out of Tampa, nobody knew what to do with him and he was probably getting
discharged today. I got that twist of
excited dread in my gut; excited because this sounded more interesting than the
usual indignant drug seekers, dread because tracking down his back story was
going to take a lot of extra time I didn’t have.
I made my assessment rounds, saving
Ivan for last. The report was right in
that he had the size and pelt of a bear, wrong in that he did speak English – exactly three mushy words, “Yes”, “No”, and
“Happy”. I called the translator
service, which involved the tedious process of asking them a question, handing
the phone to him for them to translate, him responding, handing the phone back
to me, them translating the answer. The
translator told me “I’m sorry, he’s not making any sense; he’s speaking Russian
but the words are all jumbled - he did say the word ‘uncle’ a couple
times.” Grasping at this I asked the
translator to see if my patient knew the uncle’s phone number. “I’ll try”, he sighed “but I doubt we’ll get a
real number”; I handed the phone back to
the smiling bear, who rattled off a long reply, sounding like his mouth was
full of oatmeal. “I think maybe…” the
translator told me - “here, write this down….”
I jotted down what looked to be a genuine phone number, thanked the
translator and hung up. “I’m going to
call this”, I said “I’ll be right back.”
He grinned hugely and nodded his bushy head – “YESH!”
I was thrilled to connect with
‘Abraham’, a kindly older man who spoke excellent English with a thick Russian
accent. He lived in Brooklyn and sounded
tired, but was pleased to hear from me.
He told me he wasn’t really Ivan’s uncle, but was dating his aunt, who
spoke no English, so he’d become a sort-of de
facto guardian for Ivan whom, he said, was “like a young boy in a man’s
strong body – he has, how you say, the schizophrenia.” I explained how he’d ended up in my
care. “Yes, yes – he sometimes escapes
the house and disappears for a time.” I
said, “Disappears to Florida!” “Yes, well, not usually. He’s not right,
you see, so only he would know why Florida, but I tell you this - he knows no
one in Florida!” I asked if Ivan knew
anyone in Charlotte – friends, family, anyone
that would care for him after discharge and see him safely home. “No, no one there; I am sure he got off the
airplane because he thought he was home – he’s like a child, really.” “If he’s that confused, Abraham, how did he
get on a plane in the first place?” “Oh,
I wonder sometimes if perhaps God speaks to him, tells him what to do, you
know. Ha-Ha - don’t be worried, my friend, he’s normally quite docile – if you
tell him what you want, he will do it with a smile, until God tells him
otherwise!” I swallowed, praying that God would tell him, in Russian, not to
pull out his IV and wander the hospital halls, because I surely couldn’t. “Could
you fly to Charlotte and pick him up?” I put forth hopefully. “Oh no, my
friend, I am much too poor, plus I am almost 80 years old – I don’t fly, no,
no”. I knew Abraham driving down would
take a full day, but tried anyway; “Oh no, my friend, Ha-Ha, you are not
familiar with New Yorkers – we do not own cars!” Chagrined, I gathered what
little information I could from Abraham and we exchanged e-mail addresses to
save money on phone calls. I started to
really worry about how Ivan would get back to New York. I hoped he wouldn’t be
discharged today and I could dump this hassle on tomorrow’s nurse, until I
realized that tomorrow’s nurse wouldn’t care that he was just a giant child,
would call Social Services to collect him and he would languish in linguistic
isolation until Abraham could fly down to escort him home, which would be never,
no, no. It seemed, to my consternation, that no one
else on earth understood the situation and could return Ivan home, but me.
The doctor discharged Ivan on paper
that afternoon, unconcerned that Ivan had no money, nowhere to go and no one to
take him there. If I wheeled him out to the curb, that’s where I’d find him at
the end of my shift, sitting in the November chill in his shirtsleeves. Since I
was in charge of his actual, physical departure, I could delay it as long as I
wished, so I just turned up the TV and kept him fed until I could formulate a
plan. “YESH!” he grinned happily, his beard larded with crumbs. I sent Abraham
an e-mail, asking if he could wire money for a plane ticket; he replied “But you said he had no identification – how
will he pick up his money? How will he
get to the airport? How will he buy a ticket?
How will he know where he is going – he could end up in Kansas! No matter - I cannot afford it anyway.” Crap. Ivan
was stuck until I could deposit him on whatever mode of transport we could
finagle. Planes were out, trains were
too expensive, a cab would be ridiculous, what about… a bus? I checked the schedules and prices online and
sent the link to Abraham; an idea was beginning to germinate. I told Abraham to wire the money for a bus
ticket to me – I would cash it, buy the ticket for Ivan and get him on the bus
myself. It took a lot of faith for him
to wire $200 to a stranger, but he did – Western Union confirmed the transfer
20 minutes before my shift ended. I
called my wife, Tammy, and explained the situation, inviting her along for the
adventure – in reality, I wanted a witness in case the hospital took umbrage
with me spiriting away a patient in my private vehicle. But, I reasoned, he wouldn’t be a patient after I discharged him –
he’d be a free man, and I’d be off the clock, a free man too!
Saturday
night: My shift ended, I finished the discharge paperwork, discontinued his
IV, helped him change out of his voluminous hospital gown, plunked him in a
wheelchair and rolled him to the front door just as Tammy pulled up. I bundled him into the van, tossed the
wheelchair at the sliding hospital doors and we zoomed off to the nearest
Western Union. Tammy felt sorry for him
in his short-sleeved shirt and wanted to stop at Kohl’s to buy him a
sweatshirt. “Would you like a sweatshirt?” I shouted, hoping the volume would
compensate for the language barrier.
“NO!” he grinned. We bought him
one anyway, triple extra large. “YESH!”
he beamed, spraying crumbs as his bushy beard sprang from the neck hole. The money changed hands smoothly at Western
Union and we hustled downtown to the Greyhound station. We went in and Tammy sat with Ivan while I
purchased the ticket. Bad news: Ivan’s bus wasn’t leaving until 1 a.m., which
meant five idle hours for him to wander; there was no way I was watching him till the
wee hours after working a 12-hour shift. I pulled the young stationmaster aside
and explained the situation: “He doesn’t speak English, and he’s a little slow,
so someone is going to have to watch him to make sure he stays in the station
and gets on his bus. Also, I see there’s
a stopover in Virginia – please inform the driver not to let him off the
bus. I can’t stress that enough – DO NOT
LET HIM OFF THE BUS!” The stationmaster
sullenly agreed, but I was left with an uneasy feeling; I wasn’t convinced he
understood the gravity of the situation, or really even cared. I called
Abraham, gave him the ticket and travel information then handed the phone to
Ivan for Abraham to translate; Ivan grinned and nodded as he listened. I gave the stationmaster Abraham’s phone
number for emergencies, tucked the ticket and his hospital paperwork into
Ivan’s pants pocket, ridiculously explained once more to an uncomprehending Ivan
what his itinerary was, pointed out the stationmaster as his go-to for
questions, pointed out the snack machines as his go-to for food, pointed out
the bathroom as his go-to for everything else, explained to all the other bored
passengers sitting around Ivan what was happening and how much Ivan needed
their assistance , slipped him $20 and a CLIF bar, gave him a hug, breathed a
silent prayer, and left. “HAPPY!” he
yelled at my back.
Not an hour later, Tammy and I were
eating chili at Lupe’s when my cell
phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number so I silenced it and we carried on
with our conversation. My phone gave a little
chirp, telling me I had voice mail.
Curious, I logged in; it was the nursing supervisor at the hospital - my
heart sank. I felt what I’d done was
right, but I knew, too, from an administrative view I’d bruised a few
rules. “Mr. Morris,
I just got a call from a Mr. Abraham in New York, who had received a call from
the Charlotte Greyhound station regarding a patient you recently discharged –
can you explain the situation to me, so I don’t look like an idiot?” Uh oh.
I called Abraham. Ivan, it seemed, had come up to the
stationmaster multiple times asking questions in rapid, mushy Russian, then had
tried to board the nearest bus. The
stationmaster, unsure what to do, panicked and called Abraham, who then called
the hospital looking for me. The hospital
switchboard operator transferred him to the floor Ivan had just left and
Abraham found himself talking to a floor nurse with no idea what he
wanted. She found her charge nurse, who
was just as mystified, transferring Abraham to the nursing supervisor, who
spent twenty minutes in the computer trying to identify who Ivan was and which
nurse had discharged him. She then had
to dig into my employee file to find my emergency contact number and by the
time she got my voicemail she was, in a word, livid. I told Abraham I wasn’t with Ivan anymore,
that the stationmaster was aware of the situation but wasn’t that bright
himself. “Call him back and tell him to
hand the phone to Ivan, then you can explain to Ivan, again, what the plan is”. “Yes, yes, - I should have thought of
that. Ha-Ha - like the blind leading the
blind, yes? Thank you so much, my friend; I will not trouble you again!” I called the nursing supervisor, mollified
her with an edited version of events, went home and went to bed.
Monday
morning: 36 hours after telling Ivan goodbye I received an e-mail from
Abraham – Ivan had just walked through the door, wearing a filthy Charlotte
Bobcats sweatshirt and an enormous smile.
Abraham got a call Saturday afternoon from a Virginia state trooper. Despite
my warning, the bus driver had let Ivan off the bus in Virginia; he promptly
wandered away. Charlottesville police found him several hours after his bus had
left, shivering on the sidewalk in front of the Blue Moon Diner. He was
placed on another bus, the driver given a stern warning, this time with some authority
behind it. He was allowed off the bus at
the Port Authority in New York City late Sunday night - I imagine him peering
around, grinning, and shuffling off into the dark. It took him seven hours to walk the ten miles
through Manhattan, across the Brooklyn Bridge to his aunt’s house, but he made
it home, deliriously happy.
Next time I’m lost, I think I’ll
try Ivan’s approach: “YESH!” “NO!” “HAPPY!” They say “God
watches out for children, drunks and fools” – that’s true, but maybe He
uses us to do the dirty work.
(If
you’re interested, Abraham is a master with stained glass - http://public.fotki.com/legr/ )
No comments:
Post a Comment