Small Steps and Giant Leaps

It snowed overnight in Manhattan. In the wee hours it was picture-postcard lovely, but by the morning rush hour the snow turned to sleet and rendered midtown a slushy mess, every street corner a guessing game of which step will not leave you shin-deep. This, and some other crap, kept me from getting to Beth Israel as early as I had hoped. I mention this only because when I walked into room 3 Dazian 3 at quarter of eleven, I was greeted with a breathtaking sight: Mickey, sitting upright in the chair beside his bed, talking animatedly with Andrea, the daytime private-duty nurse; Gerry, a physician’s assistant so sharp I assumed she must be the head of something; and Kristin, the physical or occupational therapist (I heard her referred to as both). Our boy had managed to sleep for about four uninterrupted hours during the night—a very good thing, except that when he awoke he was acutely reminded that four hours had passed without his using the pain pump (if you have never seen one, they look exactly like what you hit your thumb with when you want to answer a question on Jeopardy.) Meds were adjusted, and a brief crisis averted. Minutes before I got there, Mick had, with these sterling ladies’ help, for the first time risen from his bed, walked to the door of his room (a distance of ten or twelve feet), and back to the chair. Based on his condition the day before, I would have been only marginally more surprised if they told me he had levitated.

Gerry changed the dressings on the incisions, a delicate maneuver that increased Mick’s comfort level considerably. Penny and Susan arrived just after I did. Mick was back in bed, tired from his excursion, but obviously happy and empowered by it. Andrea (a spirited woman with a melodic Caribbean brogue and a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of how handle post-spinal surgery patients) is a cat owner and lover, and she and Susan and Penny and Mick traded animal stories.

Later, the bright-eyed Kristin (whom we’d met and liked on a pre-op visit to the hospital, and who has the charm of your second-grade teacher and the will of George S. Patton) returned and said it was time for another walk. She and Andrea got Mickey out of bed and across the room and took him for a walk out and around the immediate area and back, a total distance of what I would estimate to be close to a hundred yards. He said it was like learning to walk all over again, and I have no doubt that that is true; rising and sitting are the hardest parts now, but getting all those joints and muscles to perambulate in their new configuration is no picnic, either. It will come as no surprise to you that while none of this was anything close to easy, Mick approached it all with methodical calm, determination, and amazing good humor. When he returned to the room, he sat in the chair and had a great phone chat with his father, Tony. Soon after, he was understandably exhausted, and got back in bed. As Andrea and Mira, the staff nurse, did one of their periodic checks of his vitals, he talked about how good he felt about what was going on. Mira referred to him as a “one-of-a-kind patient”—attentive to and cooperative with his caregivers, and reaping the resulting rewards. I know that this, too, will come as no surprise.

At 4:00 Adele returned, and Andrea left, and so did I. Mickey had a very good day, and deserves a very good night.