By Erik Dolson
Last Monday I was on my boat in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I was doing boat work, which I complain about but love, preparing to transit the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the boat’s summer mooring. Life was good.
The previous couple of months had been “difficult.” Around the beginning of February I called an old friend who had been having trouble with his legs and learned he had fallen, with help had struggled into his chair but had been there for more than two days.
He did not want to go to the hospital. He wanted a miracle.
"Those are in short supply," I told him. “But you spend two more days in that chair and you’ll die in that chair.” He agreed, finally, to go to the emergency room.
Oh, My Friend is destitute. And a hoarder. It was nearly impossible to move around his packed cabin. And over 300 pounds. It took five EMTs to get his massive bulk into an ambulance.
He’s also often funny, occassionally brilliant, and I’ve seen him be kind.
Three days later he had surgery on a spine which had degenerated to the point his spinal cord had flattened into the shape of a fettuccini noodle and nerve roots in his lumbar region were almost as bad. Hence the loss of feeling in his legs and feet, which over the last couple of years had made walking, getting in and out of vehicles, etc. a challenge.
Before the surgery he made me his personal representative and health advisor because … I was standing there and no one else was in line. But after the surgery he still had his feet, which was a major concern for me that we didn’t talk about much.
A week later he was transferred to a “transitional care” facility to learn how to care for himself. He’s been there for about a month.
A few of his other friends and I worked to make his cabin livable for a giant man using a walker or a wheel chair, including extending ramps, getting a new bed, removing carpets, rearranging every piece that was an obstacle. Finally, I took off to the boat for about three weeks, or so I thought.
Four days later, My Friend called to tell me his insurance company, Humana, decided he was healthy enough to go home. They were kicking him out of the care facility in three days, despite a month of diuretics that had no effect on feet that were still the size and shape of footballs, lower legs still like giant purple sausages, and with no cause identified.
He had not been seen by a doctor since leaving the hospital.
On Wednesday, from Canada, I spent a half day making phone calls and filed an appeal. Thirty hours later the order expelling him from transitional care had been overturned, and he had an appointment with his doctor set for Friday afternoon. I needed to be there.
On Thursday I made the 11-hour run back from Victoria to the Middle of Nowhere, Oregon, arriving at about 8 p.m. After a bite to eat, I tumbled into bed knowing I’d have time in the morning to write up a few questions for both My Friend and his doctor the next afternoon.
How did things get to this point without anyone knowing? What needs to be done now to make My Friend self-sufficient? Who will cook his food and bathe him? Is he willing to lose a third of his body size, or more, relearn to walk, to live in pain? These are decisions he has to make, no one else.
While writing this I got a call from the care facility. Transportation they’d arranged to get My Friend to his doctor’s appointment fell through. They wanted to know if I would take him or if they should cancel the appointment.
“No, I want you to find alternate transportation and get him to his doctor’s appointment,” I replied. I didn’t try to soften my message. They found an alternative.
Life is in session, conversations are tough, death has a seat at the table. I can’t make the decisions, but somehow it’s my role to see they are made.
You mention that miracles are in short supply, but I belive you are being a miracle to your friend! Sometime we can choose to be the miracle for others
Hey Erik
I’ve enjoyed reading your words
This last one being more personal and less political resonated more for me. I hope you make it up to desolation sound again this year. If you do and you are passing by Texada Please feel free to call
Till then continue hooting
Jim sepkowski