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ATOUCHOFHUMANITY
First Hand
By Charles Eaton, MDtIfHnhcthperbZatwctiiToeesihIfpptctkstb
HURRICANE JEANNE CAME THROUGH Saturdaynight, and once again my home is hot anddark. I have the family camped out in my
ffice, waiting for the electricity to be restored. Weere off the grid for 6 days last month with Hurri-
ane Francis. It looks like it will be a similar run thisime. Francis broke and felled many trees, but thisas a much stronger storm, and the ground was
oftened by a month of water saturation, so there wasfair bit of additional damage.I took pictures yesterday afternoon on the route I
ormally take to work: horizontal palm trees; defo-iated shade trees; power lines dangling in the street;ower poles fallen, broken, and dangling; trees onines; my 4 sons standing on a freshly fallen tree iny office parking lot; Jupiter hospital, boarded up.But life is more complex than hurricanes. My
weet wife, confused, pancytopenic and cartoonishlyushingoid from the decadron and chemo she’s beenetting for her recurrent brain tumor, has been recov-ring from a T12 compression fracture she sustainedn a fall a few days before we got hit by Hurricanerancis less than a month ago. This week, as Hurri-ane Jeanne grew in strength, so did my wife’s in-ermittent shortness of breath. Friday morning, plainlms confirm a very unusual pattern of bilateralulmonary infiltrates. She is admitted to the hospi-al—rapid clinical deterioration, multiple consulta-ions and tests, doesn’t look like bacterial pneumo-ia, pneumocystis, aspergillosis, atypical TB, PE,HF, blah, blah, blah. The final recommendation is
or open lung biopsy in the morning—Saturdayorning, hours before the hurricane is due to hit.one. Recovery in intensive care unit, oxygenationoor enough to expect that it will take at least a feways to wean from the vent.
From The Hand Center, Jupiter, FL.
Received for publication December 9, 2010; accepted in revised form December 11, 2010.
No benefits in any form have been received or will be received related directly or indirectly to thesubject of this article.
Corresponding author: Charles Eaton, MD, The Hand Center, 1002 S Old Dixie Hwy #105,Jupiter, FL 33458; e-mail: [email protected].
0363-5023/11/36A03-0021$36.00/0
doi:10.1016/j.jhsa.2010.12.013In the meantime, the same day as the surgery,his hurricane is coming fast, looking mean, and’m making last-minute home preparations andortifications, in my head singing that old Talkingeads song “Burning Down the House,” but withew lyrics: “Boarding up the house.” There’s auge royal palm tree in my tiny front yard thatould fall through my roof like Gallagher’s mallethrough a watermelon. It is directly in front of myome office. I put a tarp over the bookshelves torotect my extensive personal library—all the lat-st publications and many rare, out-of-print hand-elated books—all of Bunnell’s editions, old booksy Kanavel, Brown, Tubiana, Hueston, McFarlane,ancolli, Chase, and so forth. I pull the hard drivesnd put them in a safe place, etc., etc, a millionhings to remember. Done. I hunker down at homeith my children, knowing that in the intensive
are unit, my wife is safer than we are. After all,he hospital is a fortress on high ground and has annfallible backup generator. We pull mattressesnto the master bedroom and plan to sleep there.he storm is powerful by the afternoon— can’t goutside. Night comes. The hurricane comes. Asxpected, we lose electricity and cell phone in thearly evening, but fortunately the landline phonetill works (it didn’t with the last hurricane). I stayn touch with the intensive care unit, wanting toear “She’s great, tube’s out, want to talk to her?”nstead, because I’m a doc, I’m given the uncom-orting technical details of her urine output, herlatelet transfusions, her poor O2 sats, how herressure bottoms out every time she’s given seda-ion. The wind howls and whistles, the shuttersreak and groan, a tree limb bangs incessantly onhe bedroom roof like an insane golem outsidenocking on the front door with a bowling ball–ize fist. The house is hot, humid, and dark. Dis-racted by the storm, the cat poops in the crowdededroom about 3:00 AM. A first! Intolerably stinky.
Sniffing like a Neanderthal detective in the pitchblack, I search among the mattresses and the sleep-ing children using a penlight and then clean up the
mess holding the penlight in my teeth without© ASSH � Published by Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved. � 507
508 SPALTED SILVER MAPLE BOWL
waking anyone—pretty comical, actually. WhenI’m not pacing in the living room by candlelight, Ipretend to sleep, but fool no one.
As expected, the hospital lost power in the earlyevening and went on generator. What I was blissfullyunaware of was that around the time that our cat wasclawing at the bedroom carpet in a vain attempt tosweep imaginary sand over its very real poop, thehospital generator failed. For a few hours. Failed. Forhours. Failed. Flashlights in the intensive care unit.Monitors offline. My wife, the love of my life andmother of my children, is on mechanical ventilationwhen the power goes out in the middle of the night inthe middle of a hurricane! Fortunately, the vents havesolid battery backups, the intensive care unit staff were
Dean Sherwood
doi:10.1016/j.jhsa.2010.12.018
JHS �Vol A, M
maintained. The nurses, doctors, and other staff just . . .handled it. They just carried on. During that time else-where in the same hospital, a baby was delivered underflashlight illumination. When the storm cleared enoughfor me to venture out, everyone at the hospital was onthe ball, pleasant and professional, despite having amuch more stressful night than I had. I have seen a lotof life and death drama in my time, as we all have, butI am humbled by the compassion and strength of char-acter of the folks at the hospital who worked throughthis crisis. In a time when the fundamental medicalconcepts of healing, caring, and giving have beennearly obscured by economics and opportunism, thisexperience reaffirms the impractical, naive reason Ibecame a doctor: to help others, when they need help,
seasoned and unflappable, and order and life were because it is the right thing to do. I am grateful.
ATOUCHOFHUMANITY
HandMade: Spalted Silver Maple Bowl
Louis, MDThis bowl was made from a silver maple tree that washarvested from my property. The patterning known asspalting is prized by wood turners. It is caused by theinvasion of nondestructive, pigmented fungal hyphae. Thebowl measures 22 cm in diameter and 13 cm high. Isanded it to 800 grit and wiped on a polyester finish. Totaltime to completion was about 10 nonconsecutive hours.
From the Department of Orthopedic Surgery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
Received for publication December 9, 2010; accepted in revised form December 14, 2010.
No benefits in any form have been received or will be received related directly or indirectly to thesubject of this article.
Corresponding author: Dean Sherwood Louis, MD, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Univer-sity of Michigan, 1500 East Medical Center Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48109; e-mail:[email protected].
0363-5023/11/36A03-0022$36.00/0
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