The Hospital

Its hard to sift through medical information translated  by and told to you by someone who is not medically trained. Impossible really, kind of like playing the classic kids game "Telephone".  You get the overall drift, but you don't have the details and diagnostic picture of what is really going on.

Hospitals are familiar territory to me. I've worked in all kinds:  everything from a huge inner city public hospital in New York with hundreds of beds, to  a tiny rural outpost in Washington with 25. Arriving at Good Sam, I navigated the halls and construction that seems to be part of every hospital these days to find my Dad's room.  I took note of the names of the units that I passed through , not knowing where he was housed. I was relieved to find that he was on the Ortho unit and not the Psych unit.

He was doing PT when I arrived. He looked like he was doing OK but I searched his face for clues about what was going on.  The PT and the nurse told me he was doing much better today, the new medication was working. Geodon is a powerful anti psychotic that is used to help people with LBD by squelching the hallucinations.  Tick.  Another confirmation that it was going to be LBD , even though I hadn't officially heard the diagnosis yet.

When he was settled back in his room, he looked so vulnerable . I asked him if he understood what was going on with him and he said "Why don't you tell me what you know".  Deftly covering. The young shiny nurse  confirmed that the Neurologist diagnosed LBD.    He listened intently trying to make sense of it all, he asked if something he did caused this.  His looked young and sad, like a little boy.  I told him that it was simply bad luck, nothing he did caused this.  Nothing.  All the while I am hoping in my own mind that this terrible thing, my new friend Lewy,  is not genetic. That I won't one day be facing the same thing.

His wife arrives.  He is happy to see her.  She's been at the gym working out. They chit chat.  Then the "Team" comes in:   Geriatrician, Resdient and medical student.   They dance around the diagnosis but when   they finally say it- Lewy Body Disease , I can see that she doesn't believe it, doesn't want to take it in.  But his MRI is normal she says.   I can't blame her. He is only 70. He's supposed to have years left to enjoy life, to watch his kids grow into adults.   To travel, to read, to enjoy retirement.

I tell her  that  it is true.  They use the same electronic medical record program that we do, and when the nurse opened the chart, my eyes went straight to the assessment : Diffuse Lewy Body Dementia.

My Dad starts to cry, she kisses him and tells him its going to be OK.

I wish I could believe that.