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By Jim Harris

The Farmville Herald

Tis time to once again reflect on what an ace I married in the way of Caryl. 

Being the age I am (81), there are bound to be health issues. But I overcome most of these as Caryl is keenly concerned about my continuing to kick and how to continue to get out of the house for another sporting event or some such trip as a foray to the beach. 

As before, when I had been transported at mid-night to the UVA emergency room during football season by Caryl, the “faucet” stopped in the night. This time I didn’t drink two beers to break my plumbing loose, but you can believe I did everything a layman could think of to break loose.

My remedies, as Caryl snored away in her usual manner, were to drink limited water, do the “twist,” run around the downstairs, and hit myself repeatedly in the stomach. No sleep for me that night. About daylight my kidneys had filled up and felt like they were ready to burst.

At that point I decided to wake up the sleeping beauty and to mention as gently as possible that a second trip to an emergency room was needed. Caryl said in her usual going out in public way, “Wait until I take a shower.” At that point I went running into the back yard, with I believe wearing at least a pair of undershorts to share a last moment with the outdoors, to tell my backyard buildings goodbye and to ensure they were locked. One building I cherished seeing for a last time was Caryl’s Christmas building that I had built based on some timber frame ideas obtained from our son Jeb’s work in Vermont.

I hurt so bad that I thought this might be it but then I sucked up the rising pain threshold and kept saying to myself, “You had more pain than this when you separated your shoulder in a rugby game at Penn State and then rode back to Charlottesville in a Volkswagen.” The difference was then I had a six pack but at least I could take roadside breaks. 

Staying up all night didn’t really bother me as I tried to imagine I was on a late night raccoon hunt with 10 hounds and my uncle Metellus Fitzpatrick in the 1950’s in Buckingham County. He lived to be 94 with hardly any medical assistance. Maybe it was the whiskey he drank rather than a weak beer diet.

As we got in the Highlander, we debated whether I should go to Chippenham Hospital or the new Bon Secours Medical Center at Hwys 1 and 10? Caryl made it my decision and I said, “Make it Bon Secours because it’s closer.” This was as my fingers dug into the passenger seat. We didn’t know if they could handle my problem but distance overruled everything else in my mind. Caryl can’t drive very well in the dark due to poor night vision and there she was again wheeling away.

Got to Bon Secours and they said they had the equipment and staff to handle my problem as I sat and paced out front and doing various body gyrations like the crazy people in downtown Richmond and other cities. 

Taken into an emergency room and after the preliminaries (temperature, blood pressure, etc.) got ready for the inevitable catheter. This time a female nurse was to do it rather than the male nurse at UVA emergency room. 

This suited me fine until she had to try three different catheter line sizes until a smaller one went in (maybe due to scar tissue). By that time the word had gotten around the place (of course due to minimum patients at that time of the day) and before I knew it five female staff participated in my ordeal. 

Caryl tried not to make faces as females kept coming in…it was mentioned that some were trainees. Dr. Birmingham had nicknamed me “Big Bone” when he replaced my right knee with the largest one he had in his titanium knee bag but of course at my age that didn’t usually apply to anything else, so I guess the nurses went away disappointed. 

Afterwards, we went to IHOP for breakfast with the Chester Constitutional Party and got on the road to Daytona. During one pit stop, I got out of the Highlander and realized I had “slightly” leaked on my shoes…just a little factor of closing the valve at the last stop had been neglected.

In Daytona, Caryl said let’s go to a fish restaurant just down the street. “Just down the street” amounted to a quarter of a mile and I shuffled behind Caryl as the catheter connected to the leg bag pulled on my spigot. The nurse said there was enough play in it when she attached it but this hardly proved to be the case.

While walking to the restaurant asked Caryl why we hadn’t rented a convertible to ride to the restaurant and around Daytona? Thought since vehicles were permitted on the beach and now that I was completely uninhibited by hospital experiences that we could ride down the beach naked at least for one trip (for enjoying maximum exposure to Vitamin D) but Caryl would have nothing to do with such a great idea (even while wearing a bikini.) 

Later saw some show offs on the beach with their g strings from our hotel balcony room and wondered how they maintained proper hygiene with such casual attire. Luckily, I had brought along our binoculars to keep an eye on the tide and maybe to shout at and warn them if the tide caught up to where they were laying. 

Replaced the catheter bag and put a new “pasty” on my leg, giving the catheter much more leeway when we arrived in Charlottesville two weeks later from Daytona for baseball games. I had bad back from sleeping only on my back, since I was never able to sleep on my side but the good news: I walked straighter from sleeping so much on my back (at least this is what I believed). 

Whoever said you can’t live your life over? Of course I had diapers at any early age and now they almost seem to be a way of life. Found that diapers have more uses than you think.

When I was doing my walking/exercises around the house there came some gentle tapping and occasional ringing of the doorbell like a friendly neighbor would do. Looked through the peephole and saw the usual salesman and opened the door with nothing on except my diaper. The response came, “I’m out of here” so chalk one up for the lean look.