Bob



Yes! It's really him!

Okay, Bob didn't really give me mouth to mouth. But he did just about anything else he possibly could to keep me reasonably comfortable and sane. Bob was a male nurse, although I think the gender distinction has been dropped nowadays. He was a Hispanic guy (or maybe Asian, I was never sure). I have a feeling Bob was not his real name. Of all the nurses I've had taking care of me over the last six months or so, he was the most competent and the most compassionate. That's a pretty great combination, don't you think? There were things he did for me that he wasn't supposed to, things that could have gotten him into trouble. He recognized that a human being who has been reduced to a helpless shell of his former self has special needs just to keep some semblance of dignity. For example: that fateful first day that I was in Columbia Presbyterian, I needed to go to the bathroom. I had never used a bedpan before. I also still didn't realize how sick I was and what was coming up. When I called Bob over and told him I had to go, he brought me a bedpan. I wasn't my usual obnoxious self with Bob, but I informed him that I'd really prefer to do to it the old fashioned way. He tried to talk me out of it, but finally realized that it wasn't about going to the bathroom. It was about a 59 year old man desperately clinging to the last vestiges of his humanity before he evolved into something else: a patient. There was a really cute toilet my ICU room that folded out from under the sink and then folded back neatly and out of sight. With the doctors outside the room waiting to come in and put me on the ventilator, Bob pulled the curtains, helped me up and out of bed, left me alone so I could have some privacy and came back and helped me back into bed. When the doctors came in, the head guy (whose name escapes me) was none too happy with Bob. He thought it was wholly inappropriate for me to be using a toilet rather than a bedpan in my condition. Personally I think he was just pissed that he had to stand outside the room for an extra minute or two. There were other things over the next few weeks, some of them embarrassing, that Bob handled for me with grace and aplomb. There were enemas to perform and feeding tubes to replace and my world famous temper to, um, to temper. Bob was always there for me, being so nice I couldn't be upset with him just because he was doing something I didn't like or telling me something I didn't want to hear. He was exceptionally accessible and forthcoming with my kids and my siblings and they all loved him. I've met dozens and dozens health care professionals over the past few months. No one even came close: Bob was my rock.