11- New beginnings… chapter eleven
Walter awoke with an IV in his arm and the irritating hums and beeps of monitoring equipment, so back in a hospital again he thought. This is getting tiresome, and I am loaded up with drugs and can't think straight and this sucks. Thanks Sylvester, I really needed this….. and drifted back to sleep.
A couple hours later Walter awoke a little clearer headed but still irritated by the incessant humming and beeping of the monitoring machinery. These machines should have a mute button he thought and drifted back to sleep.
Once again Walter awoke as the nurse entered to check on him.
"Mr. O'Brien, you are awake at last," she said brightly. "Are you aware of where you are and why you are here?"
"You are the medical practitioner, you tell me."
"Ah, Mr. O'Brien," Nurse Rachael said with a smile. "I see you are one of the pleasant patients, just lovely.
"I apologize, not feeling very well as you can imagine."
"I do not have to imagine, I can see by your chart. You should take your doctor's advice- when told to 'take it easy', the doctor means it. You could have bled to death if you were not brought in as you were by Ms. Morris. Three hour surgery to make repairs the rib caused, everything back together, and you stabilized."
"Who brought me in? I do not remember- last I remember was getting home and laying on the sofa."
"A Lynn Morris found you, called an ambulance and followed you in. So, you were out walking or driving? Even with the wrap around the ribs you must take it easy- that means staying somewhat inactive. Did you feel anything like a stabbing or throbbing in your lower back area?"
"Just sore, achy and very tired- why I stretched out on the sofa- first relatively soft thing to lay on coming in the door."
"Well, now that you are awake and relatively rationally thinking, WILL you fully realize how close you came to shortening your time on this earth? I, like you, Mr. O'Brien, will be blunt- you do NOT take it easy, you do NOT follow your doctor's directions it WILL take even longer for you to get back to a relatively healthy condition. DO you understand? I looked over your x-rays and see the past injuries you have sustained. You are," she glanced at his chart, "thirty-four years old, the rate you are going you will be lucky to make it to forty. I sincerely hope you take my, as well as your doctor's directions to heart."
Walter looked at her, "blunt, indeed. I apologized, so take it easy on me….. I don't feel good."
The nurse laughed, "you do understand Dr. Wilson and I are only concerned for your better health and welfare. Some patients need to be threatened with a big stick to get their attention- don't be one of them as your head injuries are already extensive. By the way, Dr. Peters will be in to check over and possibly remove the scalp stitches shortly. I will be back with your medications when Dr. Peters sees you."
"What medications….. if I may ask."
"Back on antibiotics- surgery, remember. And pain medication."
"I prefer to not be on narcotics….. I would be less prone to doing too much if I feel the effects of doing too much." Walter said. "Makes sense, right, so you won't have to yell at me in future."
The nurse chuckled, "Discuss it with Dr. Wilson when he makes his rounds, he should be here soon. You can be convincing when pleasant, Mr. O'Brien. You should try it more often."
Walter chuckled as well, "I will keep that in mind in future," he said as the nurse put his chart in the rack by the door on her way out.
As the nurse left, Lynn peeked into the room. "You up for a visit?"
"You can visit anytime. I am sick and beat up and the nurse just yelled at me so a pleasant visit would be nice." Walter smiled and waved her into the room. "I owe you a thank you, and when I am back to decent shape a nice dinner….. I appreciate what you did…. the more so after my, as my mother would say, less than gracious behavior."
Lynn sat in a chair by the bed and handed him a card, "Well, a card was once again passed around at work. That first one, like I said was pretty generic as you were unknown. After that conference, you may find comments more geared toward appreciation of you. You know, some of the people at that conference do know and understand the science you were talking about… people were surprised the egghead got so personal so fast. Most of the eggheads are not very well liked- their attitude when working with the engineers is arrogant. No one likes to be treated like they are stupid when they really aren't."
Walter found the button to raise the top of the bed to get into a more sitting position. He looked at her a moment. "I am guilty of that behavior with you, and I sincerely apologize."
Lynn looked at him questioningly, "I do not recall that."
"Coming out from the data facility. You hit me with a statement that struck me deeply, and I did not handle it well, and I am sorry."
"You lost me. I say a lot of things- you know I babble- even talk to myself."
"You said, quote, "look at the difference between us and tell me, is one better than the other," unquote. You may not realize it, but you rocked my world with that statement."
"You still lost me, why was that so earth shattering?
"Since meeting you, numerous times I questioned your thought processes- that you have a fantasy world, something wrong with you, because you constantly lost me, caused MY thought processes to seize up due to your 180* turn of the conversation." Walter said. "Then you asked me 'IS one better than the other.' NOT which IS better than the other."
"OK, I take it you thought about that for some time, and what was the result?"
"NO, neither is BETTER than the other, a logical tautology: a difference that makes no difference is no difference. But there is a difference."
Lynn sat back with a frown, "They got you on some good drugs? I did not study logic, now I know that was a wise decision."
Walter laughed putting his hand on his side with the broken ribs. "Ooo, that does not feel good. No, the point is, you think DIFFERENT than I, yet neither thought process is BETTER, get it?"
"Isn't that an exceedingly fine line to tread?" Lynn asked.
"It is an exceedingly thin line between success and failure especially at the most critical times." Walter said seriously. "A difference that makes no difference- earth shattering." Walter relaxed while looking at her. "Get THAT reference?"
Lynn looked at him, 'No, you lost me, but I will take your word for it- you obviously understand yourself." She said laughing, "Gods, and you called ME strange."
Walter's smile widened into an ear to ear grin. "Yes, you have opened my eyes and deserve more than a dinner. You engineered an epiphany I should have had many years ago."
"Well, glad to have helped…. I guess." Lynn said getting up to leave. "I will let everyone at the lab know you are doing well, time I headed in to work. Give me a ring when you are up for company."
Before she got to the door Walter said, "I will surely be giving you a ring in future. Thanks again." Walter relaxed while continuing to think of the conversation, then dozed off even with the humming and beeping of the monitoring equipment.
Dr. Wilson entered, grabbed the chart from the rack and walked to the bed scanning the information. "Had a close one, there Walter. How you feeling now? Your tank topped off with good blood, heavy antibiotics, some very excellent internal stitching if I must say so myself." He put the chart on the table next to the bed and sat in the chair Lynn recently vacated. "I sent you home with instructions you didn't follow so here you are again. This is unacceptable- we take our reputation of being the finest private clinic in SoCal seriously so having a patient we send home only to return harms that reputation, much less make us question ourselves. Not a good outcome and solely due to your behavior. You have any idea how close you came to possibly checking out- permanently?"
"Dr. Wilson, your sergeant-major camouflaged as a nurse already read me the riot act and dressed me down with threats on the side. I will follow your directions to the letter- your nurse is frightening."
"Rachael will be glad to hear it. Now, Rachael said you do not want pain medication. That is your decision as you are fully able to make the decisions necessary to keep from harming yourself- so we can leave the narcotics. The antibiotics WILL be taken as prescribed and the full prescription- without fail. You WILL keep the ribs wrapped- tight but not uncomfortably so. You WILL take it easy. That means no getting in and out of cars, long walks, carnival rides, preferably no running up and down stairs, sky diving. You get the idea?"
"I get it… how about getting in and out of a convertible when the top is down? Easy in; easy out without twisting. Short walks OK?"
"That sounds OK. The main idea is to take it easy. You have to give those ribs a chance to knit. Takes longer for broken bones to heal than for the skin to scab over and heal. Dr. Peters will be here shortly to check over your skull. He also will tell you to take it easy and follow directions as he knows I will make it necessary for him to put more stitches in you skull when I am done with you if I have to go in and do more surgery on you. Got it?"
"You are as bad as your sergeant-major nurse with the threats. What happened to the 'do no harm'?" Walter joked. "Yes, I will take it easy, I will not even do any jobs for….. how long am I out of commission?"
"Two weeks."
"Ok, I will not do any jobs for two weeks… can I work on customizing a computer? Sit and enter data and the like…. can even do that laying on the sofa. That OK?"
"Deal." Dr. Wilson said. "I want to see you back here for check-up if anything hurts worse than you are experiencing now- no narcotics should make you very aware of increasing or lessening of discomfort. Increase means get in here immediately. Lessening means check-up in two weeks. Fully understand?" He asked rising from the chair as Dr. Peters and the nurse entered.
Dr. Wilson turned, "Your turn, Ben. You did good work on him Rachael, I think you finally got through to him, but you can pile on, too, Ben."
"Good afternoon, Mr. O'Brien, how you feeling?" Dr. Peters said. "Going to check the fine, fine needle work I did on you. Believe it or not, my fine work probably won't even scar so too bad it will be covered when your hair grows out completely." He put disposable gloves on, "Put your head forward please and let's see how things look." Parting the new hair growth along the stitching. "Healing excellently." He turned to the nurse holding the tray with scissors, and bowl he began to snip and remove the stitches of the scalp wounds.
"Can you lean forward slightly so I can see your shoulders…. you did not realize you broke some stitches on this shoulder? Hmmm, I do beautiful work and you bugger it up and end up with a nasty scar, ugh. Why would you do that? No appreciation for fine needlework…." Dr. Peters mumbled as he removed stitches and examined Walter's shoulders and back. "OK, all done, you can relax. The one slash on your left shoulder will scar, but everything else will be barely noticeable, and of course the scalp sites will be unseen unless you decide to shave your head. While the stitches have been removed does not mean you can go crazy- no weight lifting as the skin, while closed can be torn until fully healed. And when you wash your hair- rub gently- no using a wire brush or long talons." Dr. Peters removed his gloves and put them in the bowl with the removed stitches.
"Unless you have someone do a slice and dice on you again, I will enter my report that you are doing well and off my chart as a patient." Dr. Peters said. "People ask who sewed you up so beautifully, give them my name- and explain the scar is your fault. Take it easy and follow Dr. Wilson's directions." Dr. Peters and the nurse then left.
"Hey, O'Brien, how you doing?" Joe Berns and Ben Knupp walked in. "Just got off work and thought we would pop in to see how you're doing. Lynn said you were pretty buggered up because you didn't listen to the doctor's orders. That is a big mistake. My wife was told to not run up and down steps after having the baby and of course she ran up and down the stairs- she paid for it…. as you are."
"Yeah," Ben added. "Doctors get paid the big bucks for knowing what advice to give and why. You got the picture, now?"
"Good grief. The nurse threatened me, both doctors threatened me, and now you two come in here and stress how stupid I am to not listen to the doctors. Is anyone coming to wish me well and make me feel better?"
"Probably not, Walter." Richard said entering the room. "Hi guys, you explaining to this genius how stupid he is? There are better ways to meet nurses if you are looking for dates, you know. Rachael is kinda' cute…. for her age. Think she only has maybe fifteen years on you, Walter."
"Gods, I am in hospital, some sympathy, please."
"Boy are you talking to the wrong crowd here," Lynn said laughing as she came through the door with Sue and Tim. "This crowd has absolutely NO concept of sympathy, empathy. They are engineers, you'll get no sympathy from them for deliberately grinding gears and abusing the machine."
"Holy cow, ganging up on me." Walter said looking at Richard. "And you want me to go to work for you? Your recruiting methods makes me wonder how you got such a good crew in your test labs. Dragged them in kicking and screaming?"
"Oh yeah, you can see the sweat on their brows, callouses on their hands…. not to mention those empty bank accounts, right?" Richard smirked. "In all seriousness, Walt, how you feeling? Dr. Wilson said you will be here a few days, Rachael said she is getting a big stick to make you toe the line."
"In all seriousness, a lot better than when I was hauled in- honestly I don't remember anything beyond my going in the garage being tired and achy and laying on the sofa in the garage… then I woke up here."
"You know the door was unlocked and security off when I went in," Lynn said. "After getting assaulted like you were, leaving the garage wide open like that, you must have been more out of it than you realized. Yes, I went back and closed the place up and set the security so your place isn't cleaned out when you return."
Richard got up, "I have things to do- in case you all are not aware, I work more than eight hours a day- see the sweat on my brow and the callouses on my hands…. have a good night, Walter, guys."
"Yeah, I gotta' get home to the wife and kids or I will be in here with you, Walter. Wife has a mean swing with that rolling pin." Joe said.
"I'll walk to the lot with you Joe. Walter take it easy, listen to the doctor." Ben said leaving with Joe.
Lynn also rose to leave when Walter asked her to wait a minute. "Do you have a husband, boyfriend, kids, grandmother or other person awaiting you getting home?"
Lynn looked at him, "No, just two Corvairs in dire need of a wash and wax….. why?"
"Remember I ordered that laptop? It should be express delivered in the next day or two- I can't get on line here to know when. I am stuck here for the next day or two, so If you would like to spend a few nights in a lovely, exclusive LA garage, you know the security code, the bed in the loft is nice, there is a good pizza delivery place close and money in the tea canister in the downstairs kitchen, easy to pull the car into the back bay to wax to your hearts content." Walter said. "If you would be willing?"
"OK, have no place else to be." Lynn said. "A change of place is good and sitting at your desk is like sitting in Captain Kirk's command chair. Anything else?"
"As a matter of fact, in the loft on the left hand side bookshelf, second shelf, third from the end is a book on metallurgy I have not gotten to as yet. I am going to have time on my hands while stuck here. I will owe you a few good dinners when I get out of here."
"No problem, not doing anything anyway, dinners not necessary, people do favors for each other without obligation. A change of scene will be fun, like camping out. I will get some clothes and head over this evening."
"Lynn," Walter said as she reached the door. She turned to him, "Thank you and make sure the security is set."
"No problem, I'll drop the book off in the morning before work. Good night," she said as she left.
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