The Revenant
After the first night in emergency, during which my neighbor and I were kept awake by the shouts of a patient who yelled insults at all the caregivers who approached her, they got me a bed in the Achard building, for the time it takes to do the preliminary examinations before my transfer to the appropriate department.
I spent 11 days in the same room as Mr. M. I immediately sensed that we would get along well. Mr. M is a well-educated, old-fashioned man, originating from the Balkans who has lived most of his life in France, in the theatrical milieu. From what I understand (but I may be wrong) he also had an episode of cancer, a very hairy one that put him on his side, literally and figuratively, since, already well affected, he fell one day, breaking a bone in his pelvis and spent some time in a coma. I don't know if it was induced or not because we kept quiet (frankly, who wants to talk about that when you're hassled all day with medical terms) and we had many more exciting interests, as we will soon see. We will also see that Mr. M's memories could be more or less reliable, all the more reason not to push them too hard.
When Marie and I arrived from the emergencies, I immediately appreciated his discretion. We were still uncertain in our perception of the situation and especially of all that it would entail in terms of organization, administrative tasks, obligations and fatigue for both of us. She had to leave relatively quickly to be sure of getting back to Étampes without any hassle, so we were in our bubble trying to sort out this or that detail, thinking about canceling this or that appointment, realigning our diaries, sorting out what needed to be brought back home, what was left, what was missing. M had slightly drawn back the curtain separating our beds, just enough to give us as much privacy as possible while remaining courteous and available if we were to question him. I had seen him doing it from the corner of my eye. He couldn't fail to hear our discussion even if we were whispering, but everything in his posture suggested the opposite. This first contact was very tactful. Once Marie had left, he didn't jump on me to tell me his story or find out about mine. We got to know each other in small steps while chatting, calmly.
The narrow path
Since his fall, he couldn't move without a walker, and the double rooms at Achard are particularly poorly made. I even suspect that they were single rooms that were converted into “doubles” by cramming in the extra furniture that this required. It's more than a suspicion, because if that was the original plan, the architect should have shot himself by now, given the result. His bed was at the back of the room, mine was right next to it with a chair between us and a curtain that could hide up to half of the other occupant's bed. To the right of my bed was the toilet/shower. The guys who had set all this up had really "outdone themselves":
— Let's think about it: two people need somewhere to put their clothes, don't they?
— OK, je mets une armoire double avec une clef de chaque côté au pied du lit du fond.
— Well, they also eat...
— Okay, so two “bed trays” (yes, that's the right term).
— What's more, they'll need to keep a whole bunch of things handy: medication, phone, candies, tissues, TV remote control, cup, books, newspapers...
— OK! So two bedside tables with drawers and storage space.
— Oh, and the beds need to be motorized so we can play “bed up, bed down, bed up, bed down, bed up...”
— OK!!!
— With a wired remote control and another one to call for help if there's a problem, make a note of that. And the two guys sometimes have intravenous drips, so they need at least one stand in there, nice and stable with long star-shaped feet, very sturdy, very safe, a “trip trap,” basically.
— Okayyyyy! You know what? I'll even throw in an extra chair, just for fun...
So there was only one path for M when he wanted to go to the bathroom or simply leave the room, and it was very narrow. In some places, it was narrower than his walker. It was therefore my mission to move things around so that the layout of the room was not too difficult for him.
Failing memory
Every morning, an intern would come and ask him the same questions to exercise his memory:
— You are? — Mr. M.
— Do you know where you are? — Cochin Hospital
— What building? — Achard
— What floor? — 6th
— What service? — Internal medicine
While I never heard him wrong on the first part, with 100% correct answers every time, after that, it systematically went downhill. “What day is it?” “Wednesday?” No... Monday? He got it wrong half the time, and when this answer was correct, it was impossible to tell if it was by chance or not. When we got to “What's the date? What month? What year?” he got the first two wrong, and the year remained 2021 forever. The intern gave him the correct answers every day, trying to associate them with the weather or past and upcoming events, but the next day, we were still in 2021 on an unlikely date. I liked how he took it, both very serious in his answers and fatalistic about the last few points. The intern highlighted the slightest progress compared to the day before, but he didn't really need encouragement. He made the effort every day, so tomorrow should be better.
Seen from my bed, it was both funny, like any repetitive comedy, and bittersweet: every day, I hoped he would give us the right dates with the proud air he sometimes wore, and every day, I could only see the extent of the damage the coma had caused to him. One afternoon, as we were chatting pleasantly, not too disturbed by the medical team, with his head at the foot of his bed so that we could see each other without having to twist our necks, I asked him if he remembered anything from that period. He replied that he did, but not clearly, and that when he woke up, he only remembered the time before the coma. His brain had therefore connected the past and the present, seemingly skipping the coma period entirely. These connections were fluctuating and flexible. Sometimes it was funny when he wasn't fooled by the faulty wiring, other times it was almost scary when the jumbled memory was so present that you had to play along so as not to upset him more than he already was.
The Chinese Master
I had some great times with M. One day, while we were talking about movies, he spent a long time talking about Jackie Chan. Surprised, I wondered if he was confusing him with another actor, but he explained that he had seen him in a movie (during Chan's US period) where he had gone to the United States to protect or avenge his daughter or a friend's daughter, I can't remember which. He couldn't stop praising the guy. Personally, I'm a huge fan of sword and kung fu movies, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, I love them. So I told him about The Chinese Master (Drunken Master), a film from Chan's Hong Kong period, which is by far his best. I described the fight with chopsticks over a meatball, learning the Tao of the Drunken Man, where you have to practice kung fu as if you were drunk while carrying a jar of rice wine that is sometimes imaginary, sometimes real.
I could see that he wasn't really getting it. The connection between the guy who comes to clean up the Los Angeles mafia and a guy who fights drunk in the Chinese countryside just wasn't there. YouTube being my friend, I showed him one clip, then another, and then, one video after another, we stayed there watching kung fu movie clips until two in the morning. From that day on, his respect for Jackie Chan's acrobatic mastery increased tenfold.
Star system
The funny thing is that as time goes by, I realize that M is known far and wide in Cochin. He has been in just about every department I will be going through, plus others, and he has been there for so long that everyone knows exactly who he is. The height of it all was when a nursing assistant brought in a meal, stopped dead in her tracks, turned pale as a ghost, and asked in a quivering voice, “Mr. M? Is that you? But... you... you're... here?” She acted as if she had seen a phantom, all under the vaguely surprised gaze of Mr. M, who didn't recognize her at all!!!
M is exotic, surprising, refreshing, easy to get along with on a daily basis. I will realize later just how much it helped me get through those 11 days of unexpected hospitalization.
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