A Routine Surgery Becomes Something Far Worse

I had no idea a heart attack could be so devastating.

I went into Huntington Memorial Hospital one morning in April for what I supposed would be routine surgery (prostate, if you must know), and I have no recollection of what happened in the next few days.

When I regained my senses, I was a basket case. I had entered the hospital in fairly good shape for an old man. I could walk straight; even dance, when pressed. I had a spring in my step. I was reasonably sane.

All that was gone when I regained my self-awareness in the intensive-care unit. My legs were rubber. My sense of balance was awry. Unfortunately, my ability to speak was unimpaired.

The next few days are blank. I am dependent on reports from my relatives and other eyewitnesses for clues to my behavior in that unfortunate period.

For a time, in ICU everyone had expected me to die. In fact, I heard later, The Times was preparing my obituary. Preparedness is everything.

My wife had summoned our sons to the hospital, and they were there when things seemed the darkest. My wife had been on her feet 24 hours when they sent her home to get some rest. She took a shower and lay down. In a few minutes, she jumped out of bed, angry. She had decided to go back to the hospital and tell me not to die. When she arrived at the hospital, I had taken a turn for the better. She is convinced that her will had something to do with it.

Some time in the next few days (I have no memory of it whatsoever) I evidently delivered myself of a stunning diatribe against the hospital, loudly citing all its offenses against me as a free individual.

I protested that I was being held a prisoner, against my will. Indeed, my arms were restrained because I had been pulling out IVs and other apparatus attached to my body. I am terrified of any restraint.

I alleged that the hospital’s staff should be arrested and put in prison. I said they were all felons. Unfortunately, one of my auditors was Allen Mathies, president of Huntington Hospital. Mathies is a friend of mine and a very amiable man, but his ears must have been stung by my unsolicited oration.

As I say, I do not remember a word of it. As far as I know, it never happened. However, numerous eyewitnesses testify to my prolonged protest.

I’m sure Mathies knows, being a medical man, that I was stark raving paranoid. I cannot remember a more clear-cut case of hospital dementia.

In my unrestrained assault, of course, I ignored or was unaware of the fact that the hospital was merely doing those things that its best minds considered necessary to save my life.

The greatest indignity of all, I think, must have been when they stuck a pipe down my nasal passage into my lungs. Fortunately, I wasn’t aware of it or have no memory of it. Thank God.

Among my listeners were my wife and two sons, Curt and Doug. Evidently they were more embarrassed than moved by my indictment. I asked each of them in turn to drive me home. They declined. I told my older son, Curt, that he was to call the police and have the hospital staff put in jail for false imprisonment and torture. I instructed him to hire a lawyer. He said he couldn’t do that. I threatened to dismiss him as my executor and to disinherit him; he was unmoved.

In desperation I turned to my daughter-in-law Jacqueline, asking her to drive me out of this dungeon of iniquity and home. She said she could not do it. It was the end.

My younger son offered a word of consolation. “Well,” he said, “at least you still have your vocabulary.” I guess I was lucky to have escaped with that.

A day or two later, he decided to put me to the test. “Do you know your car license number?” he asked. I happened to know it because it is so unusual. It is YHEE OR, which is Hebrew for “Let there be light.” I had wanted FIAT LUX, which is Latin for “Let there be light,” but it was taken. It was Rabbi Alfred Wolf, my spiritual adviser, who suggested the Hebrew, direct from Genesis.

“What kind of car do you have?” Doug asked. I couldn’t remember.

Allen Mathies never appeared in my ward again during my monthlong stay in his hospital. But I did receive a single pink rose in a slender vase. I hoped it was a symbol of forgiveness.

As soon as I was considered out of grave danger, I was transferred to a progressive-care unit. All the doctors and nurses in ICU must have been greatly relieved.