BEDSIDE MANNERS

 I received a call from the nursing home where my dad had been sent for rehab, after being released from the hospital in an attempt to help him recuperate from a major stroke. He had fallen in his room and his vital signs were almost nil.

“It looks like he will be transported to the local hospital. Why don’t you just wait ‘til we know more. I can call you back.”

To which I responded,

“Uhmmm, no. I am leaving right now. I will pick up my mother and we’ll head to the hospital from there.”

Having stopped by my mother’s house, and having explained the situation, I got her in the car, and we made a beeline to the ER. Stepping up to the front desk, I gave the clerk my name. It happened that a nurse was walking past at the exact same time, and she had heard me.

“Oh, are you the family of Henry McDonald?”

I replied in the affirmative.

“The family of…” There’s just something obvious and ominous about those three words. I knew. I just knew. However, I didn’t express my growing concerns to my mother.

“Just have a seat over there, and we will be with you shortly.”

We had hardly sat down when a different nurse appeared, walked up to my mother and me, and said,

“Hello, you can follow me.”

Mama and I followed her to a small office, (another ominous sign) and she told us the doctor would be in in a couple of minutes.

My mother still seemed oblivious to my father’s fate.

Suddenly, the office door opened, and what I surmised to be a doctor appeared. She looked to be 45 or 50, she wore much more makeup than her role warranted, and she was “dressed to the hilt” in what would have easily passed for an evening gown.

Now the doctor spoke.

“I’m sorry. He didn’t make it!”

And then she disappeared out the door, as quickly as she had appeared.

As the doctor had spoken those six devastating words, my mother visibly flinched. It had hit her like a jack hammer.

The nurse who had ushered us into the office appeared immediately behind what I might describe as the “twelve second doctor.” For all of the callousness of the physician, this nurse displayed true compassion. She wrapped her left arm around mama’s left shoulder and escorted us to the room where the body of my dear father lay.

Pt. 2

Our little Queenie, a 16 year old white and auburn Shih Tzu, had been exhibiting increasing symptoms of dementia, and I knew it was just a matter of time. Taking a cue from the movie, “Marley & Me,” I had spoken the same phrase to her several times during the course of the past couple of months.

“You tell me when it’s time.”

While her unspoken answer had begun as a proverbial ‘whisper,’ the decibel level had increased by now to a ‘shout.’ It was definitely time. The evitable could not be put off any longer.

I finally called her vet’s office, and arranged what would be Queenie’s final appointment. It would be the last time she would ever ‘darken the door’ of the local pet clinic.

Having walked through the door, the receptionist quickly ushered us into an exam room. The vet came in almost immediately. He was holding two hypodermic needles; one was a sedative. The other was a, for lack of a better term, termination drug.

As Dr. “Bryson” grasped one of Queenie’s rear legs, she resisted. It was obvious that the vet had long since lost his patience (and didn’t know where to find it). He had been in practice for just short of 50 years, and his next words indicated a very low degree of tolerance for any animal shenanigans.

“You are going to have to hold her, or I’ll be forced to put a muzzle on her!”

It seemed like a bit of an over reaction for a 15 pound dog. However, I held her more tightly now, and it seemed my anxious Queenie invested her trust in me. She had never liked shots. But then, what animal (or human being, for that matter) does?

Now Dr. Bryson injected my beloved pooch with the sedative, and it seemed to have an immediate effect. Her hind quarters jerked a couple of times, and she fell into a deep slumber. In retrospect, given her age and condition, I was convinced that the sedative caused her to fall into her final perpetual sleep.

It was time for the second injection. As the vet inserted the needle into one of her forepaws, he “came out with” what I perceived to be the most blatant, callous, unnecessary statement that he could have possibly mustered up at that sensitive moment.

“You will need to dig a hole deep enough to keep any wild animals from unearthing her. And you don’t want to drop her next to the road. Her body contains poison and it will kill anything which eats her flesh.”

At that moment I felt like punching him! He could have given me that precious bit of information after I laid her in the little bank box we had brought for the occasion, and snapped the lid in place. He could have told me that when we were in the process of paying the bill. He could have avoided telling me this while the noxious chemical was in the process of being injected into her veins.

Of course, I thought, (and almost said),

“You should have retired twenty years ago!”

Afterward

My father. My precious pooch. A human being and a beloved animal; both of whom meant more than life, itself to me.

Bedside Manners, Indeed!

I came away from both experiences determined to display true affection and empathy towards not only my clients, but towards any hurting individual or needy creature which God sets in my pathway.

 

Both good and bad role models have something valuable to teach us.

by William McDonald, PhD