Thanks for the Memories

Since I always thought that it seemed to describe pretty accurately my forty year career as a family physician, I was surprised to learn that the phrase 'from the cradle to the grave' was coined by the essayist Sir Richard Steele in The Tatler in 1709. For me Family Medicine encompassed everything from delivering babies, to serving as the game physician at the Friday night football game, to rendering care for nursing home residents. And some of my fondest memories involve what I would classify as unexpected encounters with several of those seasoned patients. On one occasion when I arrived at the nursing center to make monthly rounds, there in the lobby sat wizened Mr. M in his wheelchair. When I walked over and asked how he was doing, with all the gusto he could muster he shouted, 'FISH!!!' loud enough to wake the dead! This has now become a rallying cry for our family members when we find ourselves in seemingly hopeless predicaments. By the way, Mr. M was also the resident who was somehow able to surreptitiously manipulate his wheelchair into the stairwell and catapult down the stairs to the first floor miraculously unscathed. He more than likely yelled 'FISH' then as well! On rounds at another time after knocking politely on the door, I entered Mrs. P's room. She, along with several other family members, was a long-time patient whose nursing home admission had been hastened by the progression of Alzheimer's dementia, and the realization by her single caregiver daughter who worked that her mother was no longer safe in that setting. As I approached her bed, I asked, 'Mrs. P., do you know who I am?' She looked up at me with those big eyes and declared, 'A white man!' And with my inherent paleness, she was right on. In retrospect I should have introduced myself rather than engaging in a guessing game. It was always my suspicion that another resident, Mrs. R, had simply willed herself to become a bedridden nursing home resident. She was a widow who had lived alone (I was a veteran of many house calls) and who became blind from dense cataracts for which she refused to have surgery. As I stood at her bedside she commanded, 'Dr. Hartness, sing In the Garden.' It was certainly a first for me (even as a seasoned choir member), but I began, 'I come to the garden alone…' and the next thing I knew her roommate whom nurses swore had not uttered a word in more than a year began singing with me. Well, I ended the first verse and wondered what do I do now. So… not to be deterred, I started in on the second verse at which time Mrs. R. yelled out, 'Hell, that's enough!' I'm almost certain the Devil made her do it. Forty years of memories…