Old War Stories From The Hospital

My late mother worked for a number of years at the local hospital before rheumatoid arthritis finally side-lined her. Before that she often brought home tales of things she had encountered in the hospital, going into a fair amount of detail. The result of that has been my possessing a relative immunity to gross-out stories. Another result is a better appreciation of the difficulties of caring for patients and resolving to be a good one myself if and when the occasion arises. (Reality check: Well, I like to think so but probably not).

Her stories covered a wide range from the absurd to the tragic. She often recalled with amusement of the little boy (perhaps three or four), hospitalized for some ailment. He didn’t like where he was, didn’t like the nurses and especially didn’t like what they were doing to him. His favorite tactic (though probably not very effective) was to stand up in bed and threaten to pee on the nurses if they came near. Another story was the birth of a baby boy to a couple who had been long childless. It was generally agreed among the nurses that this was one of the homeliest babies they had ever seen. They nick-named him Mister Magoo because of his resemblance to the cartoon character. But as far as the delighted parents were concerned, he was absolutely beautiful.


Long ago our local hospital was the go-to place for mothers in labor from a number of the surrounding towns. One winter day a laboring mother was being driven frantically by her husband (this was before 911) when control of the car was lost and they wound up ejected into a snow bank. This saved them from being critically injured as this was in the days before seatbelts were mandated. The ambulance duly rescued them and brought the couple to the hospital. However it was then discovered the mother was no longer in labor for the simple reason that she had given birth. Where was the baby? This entailed an even more frantic drive back to the accident scene where the baby was found thankfully unharmed though a bit chilled in the snow bank. Delivery by auto-ejection.

One day my mother came onto her shift and noticed a new patient in one of the rooms, a man with his arm in a sling looking very, very glum. According to the other nurses, this particular gentleman had been partaking of the copious refreshments at the local Elks club which has a very well supplied bar. He became so intoxicated that he fell off his bar stool and in doing so, broke his wrist rather badly. He was immediately rushed up to the hospital. A problem arose after he arrived there, as he was convinced his injury was non-existent. He proceeded to demonstrate his wellness by flapping his hand back and forth, much to the horror of the nurses who could hear the broken bones in his wrist going *crunch*crunchety*crunch***! He was truly feeling no pain, a situation that corrected itself once he sobered up.

More bizarre was the patient who was brought in for frost-bite to his feet. He was an avid mountain climber who had over-estimated his endurance to cold. While he kept all his toes, his heavily callused feet soon showed the effect of the frost bite. The calluses began sloughing off in huge disgusting chunks, some quite thick. Apparently during the summer, this guy often walked barefoot, before it was fashionable to do so, building up quite a layer of calluses as a result. After this rather gruesome process had completed itself, it was discovered that underneath the skin was pink and healthy. It was theorized that because of their thickness the calluses had insulated his feet and kept the frostbite from being worse than it was. Nowadays we obsess about having soft smooth skin on our feet, fretting about the least little corn or callus we develop, forgetting that for countless ages we walked barefoot and got around just fine.

Because it was a hospital, tragedy was never far off. The most dramatic event that happened when my mother was still working was the derailment of one of the trains at the Cog Railroad back in 1967, when 8 people were killed and over 74 injured. The flood of patients that poured in severely tested the skills of the hospital staff. This was at a time before the modern day emergency medical training programs became a recognized specialty taken for granted today. Still the doctors and nurses rose to the challenge. My mother’s shift was usually 3:00 to 11:00 PM but because of the situation she worked straight through until the morning. It was something she always remembered for a long time afterwards with a sense of accomplishment.

It was in the late seventies (78 or 79) that she finally had to quit work due to her arthritis. In her later years there was one patient she helped care for just before she left who she always wondered about. A young man, a tourist up for the skiing, was brought in by a friend. He was very ill but the doctors were having difficulty diagnosing what was wrong with him. Although it wasn’t too openly talked about, it was understood by the nurses that both men were gay. Since the doctors were having no luck treating the young man, unable to even pin down what he was ill from, he was shipped down to a hospital in Boston, his eventual fate unknown. The question that was always on my mother’s mind was this a case of AIDS?

Since the first recognized cases of the disease in the gay population were noted in medical literature in June of 1981, it’s entirely possible AIDS was the source of this patient’s illness. Since 1981 was the year it was officially recognized, there were almost certainly early cases that came and went, the patients dying without it being suspected what was ailing them.

My mother had originally gone to nursing school before she was married but had to discontinue it, when her mother died suddenly and she returned home to assist her father in raising her other siblings. She subsequently returned to Littleton but met and married my father without picking up where she had left off in her nursing education. It wasn’t until after the stress of a hysterectomy and dealing with a mentally ill son that she finally went back to nursing as a way to cope and return to something that had been a dream of hers. She made many friends, both nurses and former patients and had many good memories about her nursing work. Oddly when I went looking for a picture of her in her nursing uniform (complete with little white hat) there was none to be found. She evidently never got around to posing for one. But I think the picture below captures her spirit well enough. Thanks Mom.

There’s No Place Like Home

Several months ago we were treated to what had to be one of the more bizarre publicity stunts I’ve seen in a while. Elon Musk, business magnate (think billionaire) and owner of Tesla Inc launched his enormous new rocket, the Falcon Heavy as part of his recent endeavor for SpaceX, a company he created, to usher in the future among the stars (Mars in particular) that we’ve all been dreaming of.

As the payload for the test launch of this mammoth creation, Elon placed a cherry-red Tesla roadster complete with a space-suited mannequin at the wheel inside the capsule of the payload rocket and blasted it off to a presumed rendezvous with the planet Mars (or at least show he could get it out that far). Pundits lost no time in speculating whether this was a legitimate scientific effort or just a weird art statement by Mr. Musk.

Elon is of an older world outlook which envisions a Star Trekky universe where humanity zooms about the cosmos pursuing whatever destiny has in store for us. Part of this vision includes human colonies on Mars. He’s already stated we should have had a moon base by now and has begun calling for one (I’m guessing he’s going to offer his services in its construction.)

There are some significant problems with the blithe assumption that it is somehow predestined that humanity will launch itself from Earth as easily as it did from the sea shores where it launched its ocean borne vessels. As some of you have already noticed, the promise of flying cars, floating cities, faithful robot servants and other Jetson-like gimmicks have not quite come to fruition despite after fifty years of promises.

Money is a big factor. It just costs a hellacious amount of money to finance any of these amazing creations. The second law of thermodynamics puts more than a few constraints on our ability to even produce these visions of the future. But the modern day fascination with the concept of progress blinds us to the reasons many of us are still chugging along in a gas powered auto instead of flitting about high above in our flying cars. Tom Wessels in his book The Myth of Progress, discusses the numerous problems with this world view and why it is having a devastating impact on the environment and on ourselves.

Planting a working colony on Mars is fraught with issues. Since Mars has a very thin atmosphere, there’s nothing to shield against dangerous radiation both solar and cosmic so initially the colonies would have to be underground. To understand how problematic that is, we only need to take a look at the science outposts located in Antarctica.

Here is about the closest we can get on Earth to the situation on Mars. Even with breathable air and water fresh enough to drink (once you melt it first), life at the bottom of the world is grueling. Since Antarctica is not the balmiest place, everything must be brought in; food, medicine, equipment etc. Brutal weather conditions can keep researchers trapped at the stations for weeks, even months and cabin fever can produce strange mental symptoms.

Alcoholism and drug use is not unusual as a means of combatting boredom but it’s not the sort of thing you want to see on a bright shiny space colony. If you have a medical issue, you are really in a pickle. A few years back the news reported the frightening ordeal of a doctor stationed in Antarctica who discovered she had breast cancer and had to self-treat her condition before it became possible to airlift her out. Space enthusiasts might make the case that the Martian colony will be well supplied with all the necessaries of life. But how long will that take? Will such a colony ever really be self-sufficient? What happens if there’s a war back on Earth and the supply lines get cut off?

I am all in favor of space exploration while it’s still feasible to do so. But we need to be realistic. We’re not gods and must perpetually struggle with the physical restraints that the universe imposes on us. Robot proxies in the forms of Pioneer, Voyager, Cassini and others have given us marvelous pictures of what lies out there and will continue to do so without putting human life and sanity at risk. Mars may be a fascinating place to visit but nobody really wants to live there. As the character Dorothy Gale said at the ending of the Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like home!”

Holidays

With the first day of spring looming I always think with amusement about the big holiday. No, not Christmas or Thanksgiving. I mean Groundhog’s Day. It’s more than a little mystifying as to why so much fuss is made about whether or not the woodchuck (…sorry, groundhog…) see his shadow or not. If you count off the number of weeks between February 2nd and the first day of spring , it’s always six weeks. So it doesn’t really matter if he’s got a shadow. The concept of Groundhog day originally came over with German immigrants. I don’t think it was even that big a deal to them but the whole thing got a shot in the arm when the movie starring Bill Murray premiered back in 1993. For whatever reason, holiday starved Americans latched onto the date and now we see men in dated costumes hauling out a bemused woodchuck to the flash of cameras and cheering onlookers.

There are plenty of other holidays both major and minor before the onset of spring. Valentine’s Day is always a big one with the heart themed candy landing on store shelves almost as soon as the Christmas sweets have been cleared away. It’s a safe bet the original Valentine, an ancient Christian saint would be aghast at the commercial hedonism associated with the holiday at one time dedicated to him. Nowadays its Christian origins have been forgotten. Instead we see shelves of greeting cards expressing romantic sentiments as well as boxes of chocolates and assorted gewgaws which get shuffled to the markdown table once February 14th has flown by.

Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday is another holiday celebrated with great abandon the day before Ash Wednesday which oddly enough this year fell on the same day as Valentines. Sometimes called Shrove Tuesday, it’s the last day before Lent and is a time of feasting and carnival (depending of the customs of the country celebrating) before beginning the solemn time of fasting and penance that characterizes Lent. If you watch the shenanigans in New Orleans you will witness wild floats, even wilder costumes and in some areas the ‘custom’ of tossing beaded necklaces to ‘ladies’ in the crowd who have bared certain portions of their anatomy. You’d never know there was a religious background to any of these festivities.

Then of course there is Saint Patrick’s Day. Officially a Christian feast day, it’s as much a celebration of Irish identity as it is the accomplishments of the saint it is named for. Thanks to the diaspora from Ireland back during the Great Famine it nearly became a national holiday with parades, sporting shamrocks and an emphasis on the color green that even involved pouring a vegetable based dye into the Chicago river to turn it the appropriate color for Saint Paddy’s Day. As with all other occasions that have fallen into the hands of the merchants a deluge of t-shirts, trinkets, etc has followed, none of which really has anything to do with the original holiday.

So why holidays? And more to the point how do we get away from the crass commercialism that seems to afflict both major and minor ones? It helps to recall why holidays existed in the first place. The word ‘holiday’ originates from any early English word meaning ‘holy day’. As implied it was a day set aside when no work was done and religious events (Christmas or Easter) were observed. Many religions besides Christianity have holidays. They all served the purpose of promoting social cohesion and allowing a break in the routine of daily life.

Now the meaning of holiday has become conflated with the idea of vacation. Vacation is something that arose with the Industrial Revolution when people began working at jobs that took them away from home and family. Prior to that, it was largely the wealthy that could go on trips or have leisure time. Work not only cut into family life but social life as well. Holidays were a means to counteract this, allowing the maintenance of these important human ties.

The commercialism surrounding the holidays can be easily counteracted by ignoring it. Save yourself some money and get back to the basics of why holidays are really important. It’s been pointed out that the traditions which go with the various holidays reinforce the values we deem important, provide role models for the young and help ground us. Traditions can be good medicine to counteract the chaos we see in the world around us. So decorate the tree for Christmas, shoot off fireworks on the Fourth of July or quietly visit a cemetery on Memorial Day while remembering why these various holidays exist.

Northern Pass: Vox Populi

Many in Northern New Hampshire breathed a great sigh of relief when state regulators rejected the Northern Pass plan last Thursday. On the opposite side of the aisle wails arose from advocates. Eversource expressed its ‘shock and outrage’ over the sinking of their project. Apparently these people didn’t pay the slightest attention to the concerns of locals over the scope of the project and its likely negative long term impacts on New Hampshire. Their chilly indifference to the complaints they heard suggests they regarded the lot of us up here as backward Luddites trying to stand in the way of progress. They ignored repeated requests to completely bury the lines which would have eliminated a good deal of the resistance to Northern Pass.

Eversource will no doubt appeal the decision but for now at least the project is stymied. It remains to be seen if they will learn from their diplomatic errors and try working with locals instead of looking down their noses at them. Probably not. Corporations have never been known for their humanitarian behavior and we can probably expect more of the same from them except for a little more added sugar coating.

The real underlying problem with Northern Pass (and other projects like it), at least as I see it, is the fact these are projects based on the assumption (often unthinking) that petroleum is plentiful and cheap and will always be so. They tout themselves as a ‘clean’ alternative to oil but pull aside the curtain and you will find the same old, same old. Few people really bother to do this and so don’t realize large scale electrical generation in and of itself is simply unsustainable.

To maintain these huge facilities, you need mass quantities of electronics for balancing current load, you need raw materials for the towers, underground cables, wiring, transformers etc, all of which require their own energy inputs to even be mined and shaped into the required parts. Cheap petroleum up until recently made all of this relatively easy. But now things have changed and not for the better.

Much has been made of Peak Oil but less of something that has been called ‘Peak Everything.’ What this refers to is the unpleasant reality that for many decades, we and other industrialized nations have been engaged in a drunken orgy of mining resources as though there were no tomorrow. Instead of carefully and frugally making use of the finite materials Mother Earth doles out to us, we have squandered our mineral heritage. Now slowly but surely the bills are coming due. An audit of what mineral resources the US has and doesn’t have makes for sober reflection.

The idea behind talking about all this is not to make you despondent for the future but to realize that there is a future, just not necessarily the one we dreamed of and got presented to us in glowing images from Star Trek, 2001 Space Odyssey or even the Jetsons. Instead the future coming at us is much smaller, of necessity resource poor and slower paced. But it is livable. To make it livable we need to face reality, lay aside fantasies of endless cornucopias of high-tech goodies, and brodingnagian projects promising energy too cheap to measure. Let’s start building more practical communities that can withstand economic shocks and supply those who come after us with a life they can maintain for themselves and even take pride in.

How will we do it? Well, there’s this little thing called experimentation. Maybe it’s high time we got started. To start with there are:

Food Coops.

Community gardening.

Tool Libraries.

It’s surprising what possibilities there are. Yes, downsizing can be painful at times, but it has to be done. Let’s see what solutions we can come up with.

Winter Cold

Well it’s definitely been a traditional New England Winter with heavy snow and frigid temperatures. After several snow falls over a several week period of 8 inches of snow per storm an arctic blast came in immediately after Christmas plunging night temperatures down to 20 plus degrees below zero Fahrenheit followed by day temperatures making it up to a sullen 10 or so below zero with a brief spike up to zero.

It’s been a while since we have experienced such brutal temperatures here in Northern New England. Twenty below zero cold snaps were a frequent occurrence when I was a kid, usually about two or three times during the course of the winter, particularly in January and February. It was one of those things you just had to put up with. There’s the old joke about the Vermont farmer who lived right at the state border with New Hampshire. When told that surveyors had found his house was actually located on the New Hampshire side of the border, he exclaimed with relief:
“Thank God for that! I don’t think I could have survived another damned Vermont winter.”

The relentless rise of global temperatures has caused a moderation over the past twenty plus years here that makes the twenty below temperatures seem freakish now. It’s not unusual to hear the phrase “record lows” being tossed about over temperatures that once would have evoked an annoyed shrug. Now of course the newest name for what we always called a nor’easter is a bomb cyclone. Apparently nor’easter is too old fashioned now. Bomb cyclone better fits the histrionic climate reports breathlessly read to us by overwrought weathermen & women. But it’s really just the same old storm system, just glitzed up for a new audience.

But after years of living through the weather here in New Hampshire, the changes are unmistakable. Weather on the average is warmer than it has ever been. Storms either come rampaging one after the other or take a leave of absence for weeks at a time. Temperatures gyrate wildly from one extreme to the other. Today the temperature high was 39 above zero (Fahrenheit), compared with single digit below day time temperatures from just over a week ago. These wild oscillations indicate a system that has become destabilized and is trying to find a new equilibrium. Since we are still injecting quantities of carbon dioxide and methane (octane fuel for weather systems) into the atmosphere, there’s no way to know what the new normal will eventually become. There’s always the possibility this is the new normal. We will all have to make the adjustment somehow.

Still, if the surveyors come and tell me that due to an error in measurement, I am actually living in Vermont, I will sigh with relief because it means that I won’t have to go through another one of those damned New Hampshire winters.