Arturo had never been to a doctor. Not, since he left Italy sixty
two years ago with his parents. Now he is 72. He was doing just
fine till two months ago. That was the day when he came down with that
violent belly pain.

He was taken to the hospital via ambulance. The diagnosis was
obvious. He was having an acute abdomen. He needed surgery right
away. The intervention was done the same night. A colon cancer was 
found. One which perforated into the abdominal cavity.  A routine yearly
screening could have prevented this catastrophe (take note and tell
your dad).

Because feces spilled in his belly, he had some odious abdominal
infection. Also a bacteremia was diagnosed; a fancy way to say some
audacious microbes broke into his blood stream. He was placed on
proper antibiotics. He started improving.

Not so fast. One of the 'proper' antibiotics destroyed the tubules in
his kidneys. So, he went into kidney failure and on dialysis.

Later, he was found to have a clot in his heart. How did the clot
get there? That has remained a mystery. Nevertheless, he stood in need
of a blood thinner. The aforementioned blood thinner thinned out his
blood so much that yesterday he bled acutely. He lost one of the five
liters of blood God deposited into his vessels.


Now what?

He has a large catheter in one of his neck vein used for medication
infusion and blood drawing. This morning, at 4:00 a.m., he pulled
the catheter out. I felt a tiny bit annoyed since I was at my
twentieth straight hour on the job. I had to replace the thing. He 
refused to consent to the procedure...

When asked his reason, he claims he will no longer cooperate with
anyone till he gets his pretty blonde nurse back. Charlene, the pretty
blonde nurse in question, is not due back till Wednesday. So, I
briefly caressed the idea of playing her substitute.

Yes, I can easily pass for pretty. But, blonde? Nope.. No one would
swallow that one. I had to give up...

(OdlerRobert Jeanlouie, Monday, October 4, 1999)