Care

Barbara Fisher

Without
Care
Chapter
XI
 Barbara Fisher

Care
Without
Care
Chapter XI

First published by Avon Books

(a division of The Hearst Corporation)
in September, 1972

© 1972 Barbara Fisher

All rights reserved.

For information address
Ten Penny Players, Inc.
 February 1971. We’re back at the hospital. It
was a weekend. Pediatrics was quiet, only one
nurse on duty and one doctor. It’s always sort of
funereal up at pediatrics on weekends. Because
there are so few people, those there feel conspicu-
ous and whisper a lot.
Athelantis had fallen in love with his blanket.
I had hoped that we wouldn’t have to go through
that. I was wrong. I’d had a blanket and my genes
are very strong. It’s luckily a washable blanket,
flannel with pink and blue angels printed on it,
banded in blue satin (very faded now). Two of my
neighbors made it for him. I keep darning it. I try
to wash it every week and it’s getting a little thin.
He watches possessively as it goes into the
machine. He then stands, waiting for the laundry
to be finished, holding onto the machine and croon-
ing. For some reason he isn’t as upset as he sees it
leave the washing machine and go into the dryer.
He doesn’t find that as threatening. The last time
I pulled it out of the dryer he grabbed it from me
and brought it over to where I had gone to sit for a
while. He draped it over my knees and then start-
ed patting it and singing to it as you would to a
baby.
At the hospital he demanded we take the blan-
ket out of the suitcase He stood in front of the
1
offending case (it’s zippered and he couldn’t work a
zipper yet), feet spread wide, one arm out-
stretched, squawking like a broken machine. We
took the blanket out. He hugged it and draped it
around his shoulders. He then paced the length of
the room dragging the blanket behind him.
We were called into the examining room. They
call them stations. Athelantis began wailing as
soon as we entered the room. I knew the tempera-
ture would be over one hundred. It was. The doc-
tor arrived. He was wearing a bright blue shirt
instead of white jacket. It matched his eyes. I
remembered him from neuro, when he had been a
resident. He remembered us, too. They don’t get
an Apert’s baby all that often. He was very good
with Athelantis. The wiggling didn’t cease, but he
didn’t thrash about quite as much as usual and at
least allowed the doctor to examine him.
He said that the ears were red. I expected him
to say that. I said, “I guess you’ll be sending him
home and cancel the operation.”
He answered, “No. I have four young sons.
They raise their temperatures when miserable.
Their ears get red because the blood rushes to
them when they cry. We’re admitting him.”
I was overwhelmed, really impressed. Now
this was a doctor. I heard later that he had an
2
excellent reputation with staffers and parents for
good medical judgment coupled with common
sense.
I rushed outside to tell Ernie the good news.
He was all set to go home; he’d heard the wailing
and expected the usual results. He was as thrilled
as I.
There was no pink lady that day, so Ernie and
I took the baby and suitcase through the tunnel
connecting the main wing with the wing housing
only babies; we then walked one flight upstairs to
his floor. Several of the nurses who knew him
were on duty. “Hello, Mr. Baby,” one of his
favorites said. He dipped his head in hello. We
took him down to his room and he was assigned a
bed. He was now in a bed at home and they decid-
ed to try him in one at the hospital. It was a short-
lived experiment. The following morning when I
came back he was in a crib. He had climbed out of
the bed instead of going to sleep when it was time
for lights out. I had expected that he would, but it
was worth a try.
Ernie had decided that he was large enough for
a bed at home. Ernie had never slept in a crib.
He’s from the North Carolina backwoods country.
The only thing that belongs in a crib to Ernie is
corn.
3
 We were sitting in the lounge area opposite the
ubiquitous telephone. The surgeon arrived to meet
us. He was middling young, dark-haired, wearing
glasses (heavy black frames), and very intense. He
was always at the hospital. He’d come striding
down the corridor at all hours, every day, carrying
his metal case. It was a large attaché-type case,
only metal. Many of the younger doctors carry
their things in metal tackle cases.
He asked me to come down the hall into one of
the treatment rooms. Ernie stayed in the lounge
watching Athelantis running up and down the
ramp. There are no doors separating the babies’
wing from the adult wing. At the top of the ramp
to the right is the physiotherapy room. To the left,
at the top of the ramp (we discovered) is the adult
contagious ward.
After we left, Athelantis figured out that you
could keep going when you hit the top of the ramp.
He went right on into the contagious ward. He
also went further down the hall, later on, after
they’d caught him in the contagious area. Luckily,
an orderly found him wandering around near the
elevators at the other end of the building. He’s
also been found in the plaster room and on the ele-
vators. The nurses all know that he escapes, but
there is no way to stop him, barring locking him in
4
his crib, since there are no doors. He even took
several other children with him one time.
In the morning, after they bathe and dress him
they put him on the floor. And he’s gone. One of
the aides told me that he’s so fast, you can put him
on the floor, turn your head, and he’ll be gone out
of the room, down the hall, and up the ramp before
you can turn around. He’s quick and smart. He
hides from the aides and nurses in cartons, behind
doors, under covered tables.
It makes me nervous knowing that he has the
run of the building. I’ve often wondered whether
or not he could be kidnapped. Barbrah says that
people only want well babies. That nobody would
kidnap a child from a hospital. I hope she’s right.

The surgeon perched on top of an examining

table while we talked. There are locks on all the
room doors where they keep supplies, but the doors
are always wide open. The narcotics closet is
always closed except when a nurse is inside getting
medication. The other rooms are open. This par-
ticular room had row upon row of bottled solutions
sitting in plain view. Boxes of wrapped one-shot
needles were sitting on a table by the door.
Bandages, rolled neatly, slings, and other orthope-
dic-type supplies sit temptingly on open carts.
5
 The first thing he wanted to know was what is
the meaning of your letterhead. Barbrah and I
have one letterhead for the children’s theater, and
another with a different name for our profit-mak-
ing concepts. We tried to think up something that
represented what we’re like and we came up with
Dufflepuds. These are C.S. Lewis creations, with
one big fat foot, who often hop around backwards.
They have their own way for doing things most
often exactly opposite to the norm.
I explained to him about Dufflepuds. I then
asked him when they had scheduled the operation.
He said that even though they had admitted
Athelantis, they still weren’t convinced he was
healthy. Since he again had a temperature, rather
than cancel the operation as they had all those
other times, they had decided to admit him and
then track his temperature to find out whether he
was ill or whether this was normal for him. I said
that there was nothing wrong with Athelantis.
That he wasn’t ill, and hadn’t been ill for most of
the other cancellations. The surgeon was going to
observe him for four days. If nothing developed
they would then operate. I was very upset by that.
I knew there was nothing at that time wrong with
Athelantis. But it’s dangerous keeping a well child
in a hospital. There are so many germs floating
6
around in the air, on the shoes, throughout the
halls, that it’s inevitable your healthy child will
catch something. Especially Athelantis, since he
moves freely from one place to another.
Also, four days in the hospital for a well child
can be pretty hairy. He’s feeling zippy, yet he
can’t go outside. He wants to run and be free, yet
he’s constantly being put to bed to have his tem-
perature taken or to zap when he’s not ready for it,
or to eat different food than what he gets at home.
He’s separated from his family except for short
visiting hours. The child is miserable; the parents
are miserable. This is then (if you’re lucky ) fol-
lowed by a day for the operation and about seven
others for recuperation. It was conceivable that
Athelantis would be hospitalized this time for
twelve days. That’s a long time to separate a twen-
ty-three month old from his family. It’s a long time
for one simple orthopedic procedure.
When your child is in the hospital you feel like
a part-time mother. You feel more intensely that
you are a mother, because you focus so much of
your energy and emotional forces on your child.
Yet because your child isn’t home, your entire rou-
tine is disrupted and someone else really bears the
major responsibility for looking after your child the
whole day. You feel very displaced. The first time
7
he was hospitalized, I was slightly intimidated by
the doctors and nurses. I worried that I wasn’t
picking him up properly, or changing him correct-
ly, or feeding and burping him in the prescribed
manner. That wears off. You quickly realize that
the only right way is the most comfortable way for
your child and you.
Every day you have to pack things to take to
him . . . little presents, favorite toys, fresh clothes.
Every day you bring things back from the hospital
to be laundered. You feel more tired then usual. I
fall into bed usually about 9:00 P.M. right after the
dog’s last walk. I’m out until the next morning. I
always lose weight. Some of the mothers eat more,
sitting in the lounge, eating and smoking, drinking
sodas, and they gain weight. I always lose from
five to ten pounds.
The mothers who have lots of children are so
busy that their lives are one dizzy whirl. Forever
getting up early in the morning, taking care of chil-
dren who are home, fixing the house, cooking hot
meals, arranging for baby-sitters, going up to the
hospital to spend time with the child who’s there,
rushing back home for dinner, and then falling in
bed from exhaustion. Some of the mothers work at
office jobs. Their lives are further complicated by
having to do all the necessary home-type things
8
before leaving for work; then they go to work; they
go to the hospital; they return home exhausted.
When possible, parents arrange to take their vaca-
tions during the time the child is hospitalized.
Since you don’t always know in advance that your
child is going to be admitted it makes for a difficult
scheduling problem. It also makes for a miserable
vacation. It’s even worse for the child. If the par-
ent has been able to take his vacation so that he
can be at the hospital as much as possible, the
child becomes used to the constant attendance.
Then the parent goes back to work. If the child is
in traction, he stays in the hospital for weeks
sometimes months. The older children become
very lonely. If you’re working it’s hard to spend
much time at the hospital, except on weekends. If
you work in midtown Manhattan, the trip to the
hospital takes almost an hour. By the time you
get to the hospital after work it’s 6:00 P.M.; Visiting
hours are over at 7:00 p.m.
Because the hospital is so noted for its orthope-
dic staff, children are brought from all over the
state, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The first
time Athelantis was admitted, another little boy
was also there. He was undergoing his last finger
separation. His family lived in Pennsylvania. The
mother drove one hundred miles every day, back
9
and forth, to be with her child. The procedures had
taken about two years to complete. I think the
child had undergone about six operations. There
was another child at home. That child, too, had
had to undergo finger separations.
The hospital rents a limited amount of rooms
in the nurses’ residence for use by mothers who
travel long distances. It’s such a huge complex
that most parents go to private hotels or travel
back and forth from home every day. Either way
it’s expensive in time and money.
I don’t know what’s worse—when you’ve got a
little one inside or an older one. When they’re real-
ly tiny, a couple of months or so, it doesn’t seem as
crucial to be there all the time. You figure, what
does the kid know anyway? He just wants to be
cuddled. So if the hospital staff seems to spending
time with the children, you’re not as upset as when
you leave an older child. They’re not very vocal at
a couple of months. They don’t express their ire as
often or as loudly. As your child gets older you feel
the need to spend more and more time with him in
hospital. At Athelantis’s age they’re talking, but
not much and not very clearly. Only those who
spend a lot of time with them can really under-
stand what they’re saying when they stretch their
hands out imperiously and cry fumajay . . . fuma-
10
jay, or miwa, miwa (juice and milk). If you’re not
at the hospital, you really worry that your kid’s
suffering—or worse, being neglected. He’s not
probably. But that doesn’t make it any easier on
you, at home, worrying that he might be thirsty or
hungry.
The older children are very vocal in their dis-
dain for hospital living. Some hospitals make spe-
cial provision for the phenomenal adolescent
appetite by providing small refrigerators in which
they can store soft drinks, yogurt, ice cream, sand-
wiches, fruit, and teen-style snacks. In an orthope-
dic area where the kids are convalescing from bone
repairs and can eat anything they want (except
when they’re postoperative) it’s rather insensitive
to only feed them at prescribed hours, to bar them
from the pantry, and force them to rely on their
families to bring extras during visiting hours.
Since most of them hate the hospital diet anyway,
and return practically full trays to the carts, their
nutritive needs wouldn’t be impinged upon by
allowing them a refrigerator in one of the storage
rooms that’s never locked anyway or even out in
the lounge. There’s certainly enough room on that
floor for one small refrigerator.
Even though they’re terribly harassed by hav-
ing one child in the hospital and others at home, I
11
think those mothers are probably luckier than I.
It’s awfully lonely when your only child is away
from home. If it’s an older child and you’re used to
his being in school part of the day, and with friends
another part of the day, it’s an easy adjustment.
But when you’re used to a bawdy, tirading toddler,
it’s oppressive when he’s in the hospital. The
house does stay ordered. There’s less to clean, not
that I clean much anyway. I’m a demand cleaner.
But it’s too quiet.
I always promise myself to accomplish a lot
when he’s in the hospital. It is easier cleaning and
shopping, but I don’t really accomplish that much
more of either house things or my own. My head is
always geared to the clock and departure hour.
And when I get home I just want to sleep. I’m
often even too sleepy to read mysteries. Mysteries
play a very important role in my life. I’m very par-
ticular about the ones I read. They have to be well
drawn, plotted, characterized, and generally proce-
durals. I like series’ characters and no unneces-
sary blood and gore. If I’m upset or blocked in my
own work, a good mystery unwinds me. When I’ve
only one left on the current books-I-am-now-read-
ing shelf, I get very squirrely. I especially rely on
them when he’s in hospital. I have very finely
honed selective hearing. When I’m reading I block
12
everything out. It helps me get through the sub-
way ride, the nap time in the hospital, waiting for
him to wake from anesthesia, altercations with
hospital staff. I read lots of other things, too. I
have to do a lot of research for plays we’re doing in
the children’s theater or my proposal assignments
for the state.
There was one period where I was doing noth-
ing but research on narcotics and the narcotics-
addicted. It was very depressing, because I had to
do research at one of the state agencies and also
had to go into the field to work with the director of
a narcotics project. It’s important work, but makes
me very sad. When I completed the assignment (it
took several months), I had a veritable orgy of mys-
teries. I averaged two hours a book. I went
through fifteen or twenty of them, getting my head
in order for the next assignment—pollution—and
the baby’s next operation. It all sort of came
together.

Some of the parents can’t wait to sprint out of

the hospital into the nearest bar. You need some-
thing to unwind from the hospital. Aspirin and
vitamins get me through the visiting hours.
Mysteries uncloud my head so I can relax and get
to sleep fast. You need something to prevent you
13
from thinking. Thinking is a short jolt away form
brooding. Once your child is in hospital, bar the
battling that I do with the doctors and staff, there
is very little you can do for your child. You can’t
make him heal faster. You can’t make the experi-
ence any more easy or pleasant. To sit and worry
just aggravates you and makes life at home with
your family or your husband tense and dreary.
Although it’s hard to make the experience eas-
ier for the child, you can make it a hell of a lot
harder. The last time Athelantis was in the hospi-
tal, one couple had their daughter in his room. She
had been in traction a couple of weeks and would
remain so for several more. The parents were wor-
ried about her and their other child. They also
hated being in the city. They lived in Westchester
and had to commute every day. They bickered
endlessly. They called each other names, put each
other down at the slightest provocation. They
were at each other in the ward, in the lounge, in
front of other parents, their daughter, and the
staff. It embarrassed the daughter. It was ugly
and unnecessary. It also made the child feel as
though it was all her fault. She also felt that they
didn’t really want to spend time with her. They
were constantly in the lounge, smoking cigarette
after cigarette, while their little daughter lay alone
14
in traction at the other end of the corridor.
There are also the screamers-at-their-own-
children type of mothers who seem to feel that they
are instilling strength into their child if they are
able to take the verbal abuse on top of their physi-
cal problems. One mother, a very proud lady from
Brooklyn, shrieked at her son, full blast, all
through visiting hours. You’d get off the elevator
and could hear her screeching at the other end of
the floor. The son was a very bright, sweet-
natured little boy who needed a walker and leg
braces. She was very hostile with strangers until
she became more familiar with them. She said, “I
don’t want anybody’s pity. It’s our problem, we
have to live with it every day. And I don’t want
pity.” She also didn’t want help unless it was nec-
essary. She was trying to train her child to be as
self-reliant as possible. Once you got beyond her
tough façade, you realized just how hurt she was.
She used to go to the park with him every day
when he was home. She said that she wasn’t going
to hide him at home in the dark. Yet she hated
having people feel pity for her when they saw her
with her baby in its carriage and her son in his
braces and walker. “I don’t need their pity,” she
said. “I don’t want them looking at us as though
my son is something horrible.”
15
 When your child is born with something wrong
you start looking around at other families. Every
once in a while you hear, from the park mothers, of
another case of a child being born with defects or
some other physical or mental handicap. But you
hardly ever see the children. You know they exist.
Societies are forever fund raising for these chil-
dren. Yet where are they? A friend of a friend was
just returned from England. She said that it’s the
same over there. You hear stories of retarded or
handicapped family members never seeing the
daylight or outside, always being hidden away
from society in a back room or private nursing
home, locked away from normal family loving.
People feel shame when an unusual birth occurs in
their family. How sad. So many of the problems
are treatable. So many of the retarded and handi-
capped can lead rich lives if they receive the prop-
er medical, educational, and emotional upbringing.
One little girl in the orthopedic floor was born
with something wrong with her spine. I don’t
think it was fused. She has never lived at home
with her mother. She stays at the hospital and
then is moved to a nursing home to recuperate.
When it’s time for another operation she comes
back to the hospital. She’s sweet, pretty, quick,
and very patient. She’s always prone; she has a lit-
16
tle life in her legs now, but not much. She never
complains, hardly ever cries. Her mother visits
her sporadically in the hospital. She talks con-
stantly about her mother, but rarely sees her. It’s
always an event when the mother comes to visit.
The staff and other parents all comment. The lit-
tle girl is ecstatic. But she’s never taken home.
I don’t understand why they do it, but many of
the parents dress up when they come visiting. I
can’t believe it’s to make their kids feel better.
They’re so obviously pulled together, painted, and
pressed that you know they’re dying to get home
into something comfortable. I asked one of the
mothers if she was wearing a wig, because I could-
n’t believe that it was her own hair. The construc-
tion was very elaborate—pulled up high and then
tiny little rolled curls piled up. It looked remark-
ably like a croquembouche. She said that it was
her own hair. She went to the beauty parlor every
day before coming to the hospital. Every day!
Maybe they’re trying to impress the hospital per-
sonnel. There’s one woman who wears a tight gold
lamé sweater on the weekend with stretch pants.
She’s a rather large lady. She paints her finger-
nails silver and her lips are mauve and shiny.
If Ernie has come from the office he’ll be
dressed. If he’s in from the field, he’s very casual.
17
If he’s come from home, it’s old dungarees. I’m
almost always in jeans and sneakers. I’m often sit-
ting on the floor with Athelantis. I don’t see any
point in getting all done up to sit on the floor with
Athelantis. It’s not ever a clean floor. They sweep,
wash and wax often, but the floors are always
mucked up by a lot of feet, stretchers, pushcarts,
and spilled milk and juice.
Many of the parents who come to visit their
children don’t seem to spend much time with them.
Most of them spend their time talking to each
other or on the telephone. When that telephone is
out of order tempers get wild. They arrive with
fists filled with change and make call after call,
even long distance. One father even called his kid
in Florida to tell him not to come home for the
weekend. The son arrived anyway.
I was incredibly offended by one upstate lady.
I really didn’t like her. The daughter was
adorable, but the mother unspeakable. She was
constantly on the telephone. If she wasn’t making
calls, she was receiving them. When she had to go
out other parents were forced to take messages for
her. The queen of the orthopedic floor. She treat-
ed most of the rest of us with utter contempt. One
afternoon she made phone calls to many relatives.
The following day they all arrived at the hospital.
18
I was coming down the hall with Athelantis. I was
driving him in his stroller and he was holding onto
his corn popper. It’s one of those wonderful Fisher-
Price toys that never break and that makes a lot of
noise. He loves it. I suddenly heard what sound-
ed like a football game in progress. Only the noise
was coming from the lounge. The parents of the
adorable little girl had presented her with a cas-
sette tape recorder. Before arriving at the hospi-
tal, they had gone from house to house of relative
and friend taping messages to her. She was now
replaying the messages to her entire family of
about twenty people and they were taping new
messages. Weekends are always busy at the hos-
pital.
The hospital rule is two visitors per patient.
It’s very relaxed on ortho so the nurses don’t say
anything if other visitors come up. At the most,
generally, it’s the mother and father and maybe an
older brother or sister and a grandparent. One set
of parents arrived with an aunt and two nuns. But
clergy are always admitted. They’re quiet, unob-
trusive, and stop to talk to lots of the patients. I
find them very wonderful because they behave as
though they care about all the children, not only
the one they’ve come to see. It’s very endearing.
But this family had an extraordinary amount
19
of people crammed into a lounge that’s only about
nine feet by fifteen feet. There were other visitors
belonging to other patients there as well.
What bothered me even more than all the
noise and extra people was that they were very
busy visiting with each other and pretty much
ignoring the adorable hospitalized daughter. In
fact, they were there not to see the child, but to
help the poor harassed mother through her ordeal.
She was the one who was suffering and needed
sustenance.
Forget the kid in her neck and torso cast.
Mother was having the vapors. She made many of
her relatives promise to come back during the
week, because weekdays seemed longer to her.
Then most of them gathered their cigars and plas-
tic bags together and went out for a late lunch,
leaving the child alone with her cassette…mother
was hungry and needed conversation.
I worry about the baby a lot when he’s in hos-
pital. Especially now, that I know he can escape so
easily. I was at my doctor’s for an examination.
Going to her office is always a treat. She’s a talk-
er. Before being examined she took me out to her
backyard to see her ferns and caladium. Amazing
angel wings, beautiful colors and huge, the largest
I’ve ever seen. I had brought her an asparagus
20
fern. She has wonderful plants, but I knew that
was one she didn’t own. Ernie went with me to her
office on very snowy days when he was afraid of my
slipping on the ice a couple of times when I was
pregnant. He never could understand why a sim-
ple blood test, urinalysis, probing of stomach, lis-
tening to heartbeats, and so on could take so long.
It was because we’d also be sitting inside compar-
ing perfume formulas. She started me making per-
fumes. We liked lovely, light pure scents. Some of
her favorites are rose based. Mine too. Then we
talk plants. I told her about Athelantis’s great
escapes. And she wondered about his hands.
Since he leaps onto elevators and rushes around by
himself in the hospital, what were his chances of
getting his hands caught in an elevator door? Who
was responsible for him when we were not there?
That massive amount of surgery isn’t going to help
if his hands get caught in an elevator door.
She also thought that maybe this book should
be written under an assumed name. But why
bother. All the doctors and nurses reading this
will know it’s me anyway. If there are going to be
reprisals, they’ll happen, real name or phony.
In worrying about him up at the hospital, I
also worried about anesthesia. You didn’t always
meet each doctor who participated on t e case, but
21
the anesthetist always came down the night before
to introduce himself. It’s a marvelous human kind
of courtesy, always appreciated. I know they’re
careful about the way they administer anesthesia
and the amount they use on a child. That’s why
they only want to work on one separation at a
time. Yet each operation takes so long and we’ve
cheated death so often that I fear for him each
time. It’s not a very logical fear, certainly, since
they are so very careful. But each time it’s over,
and he’s out of danger, I gulp and say thanks.
Athelantis is very difficult to live with; he’s
muleheaded and pig stubborn, but he’s mine.

One of the young residents on duty at that

time was rather handsome. He was used to having
his whims deferred to by the ladies. I was in
Athelantis’s room rocking him when he came to see
a young Puerto Rican mother who had just brought
her son into the hospital to have his feet treated.
He was six months younger than Athelantis. The
resident walked to the mother and said, “We think
you child is retarded.” The mother was stunned.
The child had had no tests taken as yet; few doc-
tors had even seen him. The resident asked if the
child was toilet-trained. The mother said no, he
was only a year and a half.
22
 “When you pick up a pencil and draw a circle,
does your child reproduce the circle?” the doctor
asked. “No,” she replied, “he scribbles.” “We don’t
know how much help we can give your son,” the
doctor continued, “but it’s obvious he has neurolog-
ical problems.” He said a few more things along
these lines and left.
The mother turned to me and said, “I came in
with a perfectly normal baby who needs casts on
his feet and suddenly I have a retarded child. How
will I tell my husband?”
The woman had had no preparation for such a
report. It had been handed to her in a public ward
and hardly any tests had been run on the child to
determine just how accurate the resident’s state-
ments were.
Later, when I was in the lounge, the resident
came over to me and asked, “Is Athelantis toilet-
trained.” “No,” I said, “He’s only two.” “What’s the
matter, is he retarded?” the doctor asked. “Not
that I’ve noticed,” I retorted, and he walked away.
After going through the four-day waiting peri-
od they confirmed the fact that his temperature
fluctuated and that there was nothing wrong with
him. They were going to operate the next morning.
The surgeon told me that they would be working
on the right hand again since it had been so long
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between operations. The nurse handed Athelantis
to me and I put him into a bathtub to soak for a
half an hour in Phisohet, so that they could then
shave his arm hair and wrap the arm to keep it
clean until the surgery. He hates staying in the
hospital bathtub for such a long period. It’s differ-
ent from home. At home one wall is a big sized
window filled with plants. The tub is full of boats
and floating toys. The dog is in the bathroom with
us, throwing her ball into the tub. If the baby gets
attention she demands equal time. He loves his
bath at home. He hates it at the hospital. It’s the
slowest possible half hour when I’m soaking him
there. It passed finally.
I took him out of the tub, toweled him off and
then the nurse came to shave the hair. He loathes
this process, perhaps even more than the soaking.
He screamed the whole time she was working on
him. We finally finished and his hand and thigh
were wrapped.
The surgeon arrived. He had just spoken to
the head of the orthopedic hand who had decided
that they would operate on the left hand as they
had originally planned. Athelantis had to be
resoaked and reshaven. I told the nurse to please
do it after I left, because I couldn’t stand to listen
to him screaming again. She promised that she
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would. She handed me the scissors and I started
cutting away the bandage. He didn’t even wait
until it was completely severed. He yanked on it;
pulled it off, and stalked away to get his
dinner…the milk and fruit part. He ate greedily,
messily, with his hands.
They operated on him. They almost duplicat-
ed what they had done on his right hand. They did
a split right down the middle separating the clus-
ter of four fingers into two clusters of two fingers.
They took a very large patch this time, double the
size of the last patch. I don’t know why they need-
ed to graft so much skin since they only did one
procedure. They didn’t touch the webbing of his
thumb this time. He was in the operating room for
a very long time.
When they brought him down from recovery,
he was bouncing around in a pretty good mood. He
didn’t want to eat any of his dinner though. They
kept him on intravenous feeding until I returned
the next day, since he continued to refuse all the
food that they presented to him. The head nurse
promised that they would take him off the I-V if I
could get him to eat and drink at least eight ounces
of anything. I asked for yogurt and they brought
purple flavor. He was reluctant to sample it, but I
forced him and succeeded. I also got him to drink
25
a little juice and some milk. It took three and a
half hours of continual prodding, but I did it. He
was finally taken down from the I-V. I was able to
take him out of the crib and he was out and down
the hall in a flash.
He was finally released after eleven days in
hospital. The patch looked red and huge. The doc-
tor rebandaged the hand and said it was coming
along well. We went home to begin the round of
outpatient visits and to wait for the next call.

(To be continued)

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