As has happened from time to time my whole life, my blood and heart condition flared up in late 1996. It was a particularly hard episode, perhaps a commentary on becoming yet another decade older. While studying at the ambulance building while taking a shift, I had a peculiar feeling in my chest. I did a quick pulse check and realized my heart had dove into an irregular rhythm. But this time it was a temperamental and uncomfortable one. As my doctor later said, "Your condition has progressed to a phase where you can no longer tolerate it. Some people live their whole lives with odd heart beats, non the inconvenienced. Try to find a good heart beat in a nursing home and you will slink away defeated. But my condition is tangled with a blood clotting disorder and it is never routine when it all comes home for a visit.
I made it through my ambulance shift but later became fatigued trying to breath and move. So, I drove myself up to the emergency room in Madison for help (which by the way they yelled at me for doing by myself). I remember walking in and some of the people knew me from ER training and my ambulance work.
"You don't look too out of sorts," said the triage nurse. But heart problems are in the chest, not usually on the face. She took me back to a cubicle and started to hook me up to the monitors. The docs out at the common area could see what the room monitors were saying. I was just laying back on the cot and easing my anxiety and one doc hustled in and said, "These readings ain't good. Who the hell is in here anyway?"
After what seemed like only a couple seconds he started rattling off orders to the nurses about what medications to pump into me. Long story short, within a few minutes I found myself up in Intensive Care. Things seemed to get blurry for a while. When I came back into focus a bit later, Heide was in the room.
Because of her job, Heide always got toys before I did. She had a computer long before I did; as well, she had a cell phone before I did. She was on her cell phone trying to get ahold of my lifeguard bosses. As the story unfolded I could make out about most of what was transpiring. The YMCA boss was right on que to be empathetic and knew from the get-go this was going to take a couple weeks to sort out if it sorted out at all.
But in perfect university elitist-esque fashion, the Sports Medicine crowd was a horse of a different color. I could tell what most of the conversation was like, Heide filled in the rest to me later, and any left out color I pieced in myself. It went something like this:
"Oh thanks for calling Mrs. Keith. Tell Bob to try and make it back as soon as possible, we are always short of help. And just a reminder, we would prefer employees call in themselves instead of their spouses, parents, girlfriends, and boyfriends et cetera. Oh, by the way, can you have Bob call some of the other guards to see if they can fill in for him?
There was a pause. Heide is usually annoyingly quiet and reserved. But, after a couple seconds, the words poured out of my wife's mouth like Tourette's Syndrome.
"Are you a crazy person? Bob is dying. The least of his worries is your pool. And one more thing, you fool, even if he could, he won't be calling anyone; there aren't any phones in Intensive Care. No one needs phones up here for where their next stop will be."
Then she hung up. There are small, few, and far between gems in modern marriage. But I savor them when they pass my way. It was priceless.
I made it of course, a cat with a dozen sets of nine lives; "The Y" did not bat an eye when I came back three weeks later. And as for my wife's new nemeses, I smiled to myself when I got back to University Sports Medicine and walked past all the Soviet-esque art on the way to the locker room.
Note: This blog "Jobs of Bob" Category does not list the jobs chronologically - I write about the experiences as they pop up in my memory and I often revisit an older job. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Jobs of Bob Page for an ordered chronology.
Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
(each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan)
Marine Lance Corporal Harry Hoyt Timberman, 20, Minong, Wisconsin, was killed during combat operations in Alluja, Anbar province, Iraq on Saturday, March 17, 2007. He was a rifleman assigned to Company G, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, out of Twentynine Palms, California. Minong is a tiny community of about 900 people in the northwest region of Wisconsin about 50 miles south of Duluth/Superior. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Timberman graduated from Washburn County Alternative High School in Shell Lake in June 2004. He joined the Marine Corps in August of 2005. His unit was deployed to Iraq in January of 2007. Timberman had moved to Minong from Colorado in 2001. He was on the school's wrestling team and volunteered with "Students Offering Support," a group that organized events and engaged younger students in activities. As a peer helper he worked to bring younger kids into school activities, and organized school events with them. Minnesota Public Radio said Timberman attended the Northwood School for a couple of years. The Northwood School has about 400 students spanning pre-kindergarten through the 12th grade. The high school uses the moniker "Evergreens," a signature image of the north woods area of Wisconsin. At the time of his death, Harry Timberman was survived by his father, also named Harry Timberman, and his mom, Cynthia Coshow; two brothers and a sister who live in Colorado; and fiancee Garla Gustafson. Lance Corporal Harry Timberman was the 71st Wisconsin military service person to be killed in Iraq since the spring of 2003.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
98,585 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9,771 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,432 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1363 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
318 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
827 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
31,981 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9,134 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
102 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
24 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
144 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
21 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf; and, icasualties.org.
