Old Friends Rally to a Grateful Patient

The sun dawned pink and lavender over the San Gabriel Mountains. The light rolled across Pasadena and up the colonnaded entrance of the Huntington Memorial Hospital and into Room 4119.

It is a wide-windowed room in the Transitional Care Unit, which is new in this 600-bed hospital. The TCU is for people who are on the mend and soon to be going home and don’t need the exacting care of the acute-care part of the hospital.

It’s called a “sniff” for skilled nursing facility. It is newly opened and fully staffed and I was the only patient. That’s because it was just officially licensed this month.

My dandy friend Ann Kaiser, associate administrator at Huntington, is delighted to have Mary Beal as the new director of the TCU. She ran the same kind of unit at another hospital for three years. Transitional care is a wonderful idea because it gives people who are a little unsteady a few more days to get it all together.

I watched the fresh new day through the window of Room 4119 clad in my new blue velvet robe with the lace collar and my Intermedics Natural Knee.

That is an intricate artificial knee that was given to me by my friend Dr. Richard Diehl. Dick charges into every day with skill and relish even when his patient is a little Irish lady with breakaway knees instead of a large player on the USC football team for whom he is team doctor.

He assured me that I will be swooping around the dance floor and playing par golf in four or five weeks. I never could play par golf before, so of course I am pleased at his prediction.

I spent the first 10 days after the surgery in dear Station 35, the fief of Joanne Morelli, head nurse and sparkling friend. Joanne has put me back together several times before this and I am eternally grateful to her and her staff of intrepid nurses, all of whom have become good friends.

I will not tell you that any surgery is a walk in the country, but I will tell you that if you are in Joanne’s care, it’s as good as it’s going to get.

There is nothing quite like a surgery to make you appreciate your friends. You need blood donors and asking for blood is not like asking for a facial tissue.

I am hoping that the blood they gave me will give me a scrap of the skills and wisdoms that my friends have. It’s a classy group of donors. First, there is my own surgeon Dr. Diehl, then my through-flood-and-simoom friend, lawyer Clifford Anderson; psychologist Paul Laemmle; my newsman friend Jess Marlow; my top-flight La Quinta neighbor, dentist Jim Sunderman, and Priscilla Gamb, the head of the volunteer office of the Huntington Memorial Hospital.

And there were the owner-trainer-slaves of two of the dogs in the hospital’s Pet Assistance Therapy program, Helen Kridel who owns lovely russet Cinnamon and Tracy Fairhurst who belongs to that shameless charmer, Baby.

While I have been lollygagging around in the hospital getting my knee replacement, Peaches has been visiting Madeline and Clifford Anderson in Monarch Bay. Not only did Cliff give me blood and take care of Peaches, but they are going to take me home to their house for a week until I can skip confidently across the patio. I only hope they think I am as well-mannered as they say Peaches has been.

Elvira Wilkinson, nifty friend, hit upon the perfect gifts for hospital occupants. She brought me fresh fruit in pretty baskets to give me the taste of spring--grapes, plums, apricots, bananas and apples.

Then she brought me an avocado, salad dressing and bay shrimp with dark rye bread. She also brought me a mammoth, luxurious bottle of body lotion, which is great because your skin turns to paper toweling when you’re in the hospital.

Doris Syme, who held the administrative reins for Huntington’s new building, brought me books and cologne. Those are inspired gifts for the person in the hospital and feeling scared, alone and bored.

Phyllis Marlow, shining chum, brought me a hamburger from Lucky Boy and Mary Ann Thomas, a member of the state board of Guide Dogs for the Blind, brought me a winner from In-N-Out Burger.

Marty Erck delivered spareribs and corn bread highlighted by French fried onions and coleslaw.

Kay Murphy washed my nighties and shuttled clean ones back and forth. And Elvira brought me her typewriter so I could write.

I feel like a Tennessee Williams character. But I have always depended upon the kindness of friends.

I am lucky and warmly blessed by these men and women. I can’t decide whether my new blood has given me the talents of an orthopedic surgeon, a dentist, a dog trainer or an anchorman.