NIGHT RIDE Revision Options

[Psyche]

Night Ride

The ambulance slices thin night air through inconsequential streets. I sit in the back, beside the frail man. Oddly, I get the feeling that I’m in a camper: there’s the burner, bottled water in a corner, emergency kit, seats for kids.

We pitch and bounce over cobblestones in peripheral avenues. I worry about the frail man: internal ruptures, bleeding, that sort of thing… maybe something inside him will snap. His head rolls sideways and he drops a thin leg over the edge of the stretcher. Bending forward, I lift it back, but the medic says: "It’s OK, let him be, he’s well strapped in." I glance at him doubtfully. The medic languidly places a cushion to protect his head.

Street lamps peer at me through small ambulance windows, playing with shifting shadows in the hushed interior. Now and then a lone policeman on a corner lifts an arm in respectful salute. I spot silhouettes of drunken men stumbling out of late night bars. A few valiant prostitutes cluster nearby. The ambulance’s harsh beams focus briefly on their wary, scarlet lips. I wonder about them, their lives, their kids maybe, their men, different things… A startled night bird swoops up from a pile of rubbish, carrying nameless refuse in its beak. I shudder at the coarse scene. Other worlds, no less real than my own relatively sheltered one, pass in procession before my eyes.

I’d imagined the siren would have wailed constantly, but no, we make our soundless way through night time echoes, stopping at all the streetlights. Not an urgent case, I suppose, calculating in my mind the frail man’s earlier convulsions, the galloping fever, and his heart condition.

He still has a high fever. Back home, we’d been putting loads of iced-cubed towels under his armpits and on his groin, following instructions over the phone. Now he looks at me through the eyes of a scared child. I smile at him and hold his hand. He doesn’t appear to know me, but he grasps my hand weakly, unmoving, calmer now.

One more bend in the road and we’re in the Emergency Unit. The stretcher slides out neatly. Cool morning wind doesn’t care about the frail man wrapped in a light coverlet. Medics give orders, personnel in green move fast; things are under control, it seems. He’s hurried through a door that snaps at me: Restricted Area!

I wait on a hard black plastic chair. My mind wanders. For some reason, I remember the frail man waving his hand at me in greeting, as I used to descend the stairway from night university. He was straight and strong then, handsome. His smile was contagious, bursting with energy. We’d rush off to a nearby stand-up grill to eat good Argentine steaks, washed down with glasses of Mendocino wine. Then we’d stroll out to walk around the city streets for a while, before heading home.

Now I sit on the unfriendly chair and wonder how long they’ll keep the frail man in the Unit. Nearly five hours stagger by; my head nods regularly.

The hostile door swings open. A doctor tells me that I can take him home now. “Just keep putting ice-cubed towels on him, if the fever returns”, he says authoritatively. I dare to ask what treatment they’d given him. “Oh, nothing special”, remarks the doctor, “mainly we used ice”. “Oh…” I say dimly.

The ambulance drives us home; the frail man smiles faintly, perhaps remembering his welcome, secure bed. The return trip is slow, weaving through early morning, impatient traffic. The driver uses the siren intermittently.

I’m too tired to reflect on anything now, nor even to glance out the windows.

By Psyche

Sylvia Maclagan, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2007.
All rights reserved as an unpublished work.

[Lady Poet]

Greetings Sylvia,

I was at one time a CNA and use to work for a private duty nursing agency. I had many clients with alzhiemers and dementia in all cases it was both heartbreaking and a blessing. I only saw one case where family members had disassociated themselves from a parent because they were in the last stages and it was easier on them somehow. I always called them by name and talked to them like they could understand, sometimes they would respond, mostly not. This was to me, a profoundly poignant story, and told well. It brought tears to my eyes.

Blessings, Pami

[Psyche]

Hello Pami!
Wow, you certainly get around MM a lot! I'm such a slowbie...Thank you for reading my story and commenting, I appreciate that very much. Yes, I agree that one should talk to people with dementia in a normal fashion, and give them lots of love. Love is so important in any illness, isn't it? I know one can get through to them fairly often, even if it's just by way of 'feelings'... a warm touch, a caress, a kiss, or even some yummy goodies!
Hugs & thank you, Pami,
Sylvia ***

Greetings Sylvia,

I was at one time a CNA and use to work for a private duty nursing agency. I had many clients with alzhiemers and dementia in all cases it was both heartbreaking and a blessing. I only saw one case where family members had disassociated themselves from a parent because they were in the last stages and it was easier on them somehow. I always called them by name and talked to them like they could understand, sometimes they would respond, mostly not. This was to me, a profoundly poignant story, and told well. It brought tears to my eyes.

Blessings, Pami