The Patient in Room Nine Says He's God Read online

  I had been looking for a reason to come up against this kid ever since I first laid eyes on him. I was, in essence, a tough guy with a conscience. Everything had to be a battle. Every event in my life was a conflict between right and wrong, good and evil, and I was going to be the one to fix it. Carl was that ‘back alley sort, the switchblader’ we ‘good kids’ were supposed to avoid. And hell, from social injustice to cause after cause, I jumped the way some people choose shoes. I would try on a battle and if it didn’t fit, I would toss it aside and pick another one. The problem was, I left a lot of discarded shoes and damaged soles in my wake.

  I used to tell my parents that I never started a fight, when in actuality I started them all; I just didn’t throw the first punch. While I was not a big, tough kid, I was the seventh grade equivalent of Tanner from the Bad News Bears , a runt who had a perpetual chip on the shoulder. I was always on the defensive, the silent assassin angry at the whole world, the one who never backed down from anyone but ran for cover when a pretty girl walked up. This, along with my big mouth, got me beat up frequently. But I was the type of kid who would rather have my ass kicked than walk away. In some ways, I am still like this as an adult, though I pick my battles carefully, understanding the ramifications of fighting winless battles.

  So Carl turned his attention toward me, called me a few juvenile names, made fun of my clothes, and looked to make sure the class was laughing with him. Then he put his hand on my shoulder, forcing me to sit down (as I knew he would). He started it . . . he touched me first, I would later tell myself and others. BLAM! I proceeded to break Carl’s nose in front of the whole class. He fell on his rear and cried. The teacher escorted him out of the room and me to the principal’s office. Scotty thought that was the coolest thing he had ever seen. A few weeks later, Carl beat the daylights out of me on the softball field. Oh well, live and learn.

  I used to love hanging out with Scotty. He had the newest toys, the most modern model rockets, and he was always in possession of the neatest novelty items. But what made him truly unique was the optimism in which he approached life. He seemed to enjoy every moment of life. He was connected, he knew everything that was going on with everyone in the school, and if he didn’t, he would make up the best stories.

  “Hey, Lou, see that kid Jeff over there? He beat up a cop on the bus, no kidding . . .” In actuality, Jeff threw an egg at a car while on the school bus; the car belonged to a security guard, who boarded the bus and made Jeff clean it up. I liked Scotty’s version better.

  I used to spend the night at Scotty’s, where we would spend hours calling girls and playing street hockey until late into the night. After his folks fell asleep, we would occasionally climb out the window and run around the neighborhood, getting into all sorts of trouble. It was nothing serious, just good old-fashioned adolescent mischief, the kind my kids will never be able to get away with under my helm. We were suburban commandos on late-night raids, princes of our domains, sidewalk soldiers. We had no cares and no boundaries: The world was ours. We were eternal kids. And when the time came for me to remove Scotty from life support, I remembered the child whom I called my friend, and I cried for my loss . . . of all those memories, of innocence never to be recaptured.

  Scotty was in seventh or eighth grade when he was diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes. He struggled with it his entire life. The sad part was that it kept him from pursuing his dream to become a pilot. He married a wonderful girl and had three beautiful children, who became his life, his reason for living. I didn’t have much contact with Scotty after he moved in the ninth grade and attended another high school. I got involved in sports, and then went on to college and medical school, though I kept up with him through his parents and mutual friends. I knew that his life had been difficult. He was hard to employ because he was chronically ill and missed long periods of work. But Scotty never complained. He kept plugging along, working when he could, playing his hand of cards as they came. He spent much of his later adult life in and out of the hospital. His heart and intestines were ravaged by his illness, and in time his body buckled under the force of his diabetic cancer.

  My wife and I visited Scotty and his family at his apartment in Plainfield, Indiana. It was small, a few bedrooms, and very crowded for a family of five. I felt sad and uncomfortable. By this time I had become a successful, well-to-do physician and it was obvious that he was struggling. What was remarkable about Scotty, though, is that he was happy for my success but was also happy for himself. He was content with his own life and felt he was blessed, even though his health and finances were poor. It didn’t matter because he had his wife and his kids, and he was rich beyond Midas.

  I was so comforted that Scotty of now was no different from the child of old, when we were kids. We laughed, joked around, and reflected on our early years. We told stories until late into the evening. He was still far more alive and optimistic about the future than I was. Furthermore, he was proud of me. I could tell that he bragged to all of his other friends and family about Louis Profeta, the doctor, the guy in the paper, the writer, the overachiever, and the dude that busted Carl in the chops in science class. I was, in all senses of the word, his undeserving hero; and he was, in all manners of speaking, mine. He still is. He told me that his brother Clark had not fared well in life. He had become an alcoholic and a drug and cocaine addict. It had become so bad that Scotty would no longer allow him in his home or around his children. Not having Clark around, or being able to help him, made Scotty profoundly sad. Scotty knew, as I did, that Clark had crossed the threshold of saving.

  During the next few years, Scotty was in and out of the hospital. He had no insurance, but I was able to get him hooked up with a local physician friend. Scotty loved the attention lavished on him in the hospital. The residents took what he perceived as extra good care of him when he was admitted. They made sure to drop my name, informing him that they would face my wrath if he were in pain, or just simply uncomfortable. This, of course, was all a ruse; I’ve never yelled at a resident physician in my entire life. They knew Scotty was my friend and did me the favor of making him feel all the more important. Scotty was a king and the hospital became a palace. He loved it when I would come to his room and he could call me by my first name in front of the other nurses and physicians. I loved it too.

  A few weeks after his last admission for diabetes, Scotty’s heart stopped for a prolonged period of time. He was brain dead. His wife asked if I would take him off life support. Better it is a friend than a stranger, she told me. So, with his wife, his kids, and his other brothers and sisters by his side, I deflated the breathing tube, removed Scotty from the ventilator, and sat while his heart slowed and he gently passed away. Later, I spoke at his funeral, relating my memories of Scotty. His brother Clark somehow made it. He was a shell of the person I once knew. I tried not to get too involved with him, preferring to remember another person in another time. Scotty’s wife sat with me and told me Scott had a premonition of his death a few weeks earlier. His demeanor had changed and he cried a lot. He had decided on the spur of the moment to pick the family up and go to Disney World. She said that they had the time of their life. It was, and will always be, the most special memory of their life together.

  That day, I came home from the funeral and told my wife to get packed, that we were flying to Orlando the next day. I found a cheap airfare, a room at the Wilderness Lodge, loaded up my two young sons, and flew to Florida. The amazing thing was that we did not wait in line on a single ride. The weather was perfect, and though the park was quite crowded, it seemed that every time we approached a ride, be it the Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain, or those damn spinning teacups, the crowd seemed to evaporate. I knew it had to be Scotty looking out for us. It got to the point where we would walk up to an attraction, thank Scotty, and walk right inside. I have not returned to Disney World since then. There is no way any vacation there could be any better.

  Some years later I went to visit Scotty’s gra
ve. My sons went with me. We sat on the grass in front of his stone, and I told them stories of my youth. The next day we went to King’s Island, an amusement park near Cincinnati. It was the middle of summer and was quite crowded. Once again, we did not wait in line at any of the major attractions, something I always loathed about those parks. We had an absolute blast. We rented a cabana at the water park, where we were just sitting back, relaxing, when I heard a voice.

  “Louis . . . Louis Profeta?” And there they were . . . Scotty’s mom, dad, and their newly adopted children. They had rented a cabana that happened to be right next to ours. Then I knew. It all made sense . . . Scotty, his parents, the grave, and the amusement park: It was only natural that he was here, too. The day before I had visited him, that day he was visiting me. I had not seen or spoken to his family in nearly five years, and here they were. Once again, the stars had aligned and God gave us a chance to hang out one more time. We caught up on our lives, and his parents met my children. We laughed and reflected on Scotty. I told his new sisters all about the brother they never knew. Later on, we went on more rides and more attractions without waiting in line; my kids would jokingly thank Scotty prior to getting on each ride. I too would smile, look up at the heavens, and thank him and God for a good day.

  Chapter Three

  An Olympic Legacy

  Can an autograph reclaim a life? Can a simple smile, a handshake, or a hug change our destiny or alter the course of a child’s existence? Can a kind gesture give one more sunset to the living or comfort the dying? Think not? Then let me tell you a story!

  In 1981, I was a seventeen-year-old gymnast for a local high school men’s team. How much potential did I have? Who knows? I certainly did not lack in dedication, work ethic, or love for gymnastics. I could reasonably envision myself competing at the collegiate level and perhaps beyond. I had been following the national and international gymnastics’ scene with undaunted fervor. I taped every segment the national media aired. The walls of my bedroom were plastered with cutouts of the national men and women’s teams. I had a video library of all the greats and studied their routines in detail. I followed the careers of Bart Conner, Kurt Thomas, Mark Casso, Jim Hartung, Scott Johnson, Mitch Gaylord, Peter Vidmar, Tim Daggett, and Phil Cahoy with the same degree of enthusiasm that many of my friends followed baseball. To this day I can recall many of their routines, each twist and each turn. There was, however, one gymnast with whom I was especially captivated: Ron Galimore.

  Anyone who knows the sport will tell you that in 1980, Galimore was perhaps the finest vaulter and floor performer in the world. Ron was one of the first to do a full-twisting layout Tsukahara vault in competition. According to 1996 Olympic coach Peter Kormann, no one has yet to do it as well. The height and power that he would obtain off the horse were phenomenal. It was a classic study in the conversion of momentum. There were times that the vault would literally disappear from the TV screen. His power, grace, and air time were unmatched.

  But there was also a mystique about Galimore. His father was a famous running back for the Chicago Bears, whose time was cut short by his death in an auto accident. Ron was only six years old at the time. Ron told me that, while he can remember the frigid temperatures of the games, his own image of his father’s gridiron play is more a product of other people’s memories than of his own. To this day, fans still remind him about his father’s greatness. Football, however, took a backseat to another sport. Ron became enamored with gymnastics, and in time accomplished what no other African-American had achieved in the sport. He became a member of the 1980 Olympic gymnastics team, one of the finest American men’s teams ever assembled.

  There was little doubt in my mind that Ron would take gold on the vault and perhaps a medal on the floor exercise. But then the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan: Politics and sports came to a screaming collision in 1980 as President Carter announced a U.S. boycott of the Summer Games. In the blink of an eye, a door closed, a dream faded, and the world changed for him.

  About a year and a half later, the professional gymnastics tour was scheduled to come to Indianapolis. During an evening practice, I bravely asked Kelly, an attractive young lady who competed in the same gym, to be my date for the event. She said yes, and my confidence soared. I was one of the best male high school gymnasts in Indiana. I was hitting on all my routines, I had tickets to see my heroes perform in person, and my future was right on track. One hour later, I was fighting for my life from a fall on the trampoline. In the blink of an eye, a door closed, a dream faded, and the world changed for me.

  When you are young, nothing bad ever happens for the best. It’s just bad. I remember lying paralyzed from the neck down, blood filling my mouth, and breathing being harder than from any gymnastics’ move I had ever attempted. I knew in an instant my life would never be the same. I caught Kelly’s eye as I was transferred into the ambulance: a look of concern melting into a mask of despair. Soon I was strapped to a bed as metal spikes were drilled into my head. I could hear the bones cracking in my skull as weighted traction was applied to stabilize the shattered bones of my spine. I was never as distraught as I was then. I was never so lost. The only constant in my life, outside of my parents, was gone forever.

  Gymnastics was my identity; it was who I was at the time. As the pain of the injury dragged on unabated, I began to reflect more and more on my predicament. Fortunately I soon regained the use of my extremities as the swelling in my spinal cord decreased. However, days of traction became weeks. I came to the stark realization that I was nothing more than a ‘C-’ student with no real skills outside of gymnastics. Depression blinded me to a possible alterative path to the future. But on the evening of the professional tour, I had a revelation and that night my life started to change, a change that sent me off on another journey of self-discovery and fulfillment.

  A teammate of mine, Brian Stith, went to the professional gymnastics’ tour that I had hoped to attend with Kelly. Somehow he made his way to the floor and told Galimore of my predicament. He related to Galimore that I was perhaps his biggest fan and that a phone call from him might do me some real good. Galimore phoned me at the hospital! Neither Ron nor I can recall much of the discussion, but tears filled my eyes and a tremendous sense of self-worth took hold. I asked him to get a ‘10’ on the vault that night and he did. His words of encouragement were priceless, but more than what he said, it was the simple fact that a stranger who, as a lost seventeen year old, I held in such high esteem would extend a helping hand to someone he had never met. For the first time in weeks, I was smiling for real, not just pretend smiles for my parents. A door opened, a kind gesture turned the knob, and in the blink of an eye, a dream was born. This former ‘C-’ high school student was going to become a doctor and reach out to others, as Ron had reached out to me.

  At the beginning I found college impossible. I had to learn how to be a student. I really had little in the way of academic skills, other than just being smart. I had no test-taking skills, had never taken notes in my life, and I really had no idea how to study. I cruised by in high school, an afterthought in the back of the class. I didn’t care about grades, studying, or the SATS. I did just enough to graduate and to get into college.

  To this day, I consider the lack of effort I put forth in high school as my biggest mistake. It has, however, made for good comedy, especially early in my career. I returned to Indianapolis and cared for old high school friends, who would look up at me from their hospital beds and exclaim, “You’re a doctor? I thought you were like . . . learning disabled or something!”

  “Scary . . . isn’t it?” I’d always return. Just once I wanted to turn to a nurse and ask, “We better recheck his vitals again, starting with his blood pressure,” but I couldn’t.

  I finished my first semester of college with a respectable ‘B’ average. For medical school, however, that was a recipe for disaster. In addition, I had to go back and take preparatory classes in English and math. I soon found myself routing my e
nergies from gymnastics into education. The library became my second home, and in four years I knew every good nook and cranny on campus where one could study in peace. In time, one ‘A’ became straight ‘A’s’. In 1986, I was accepted to Indiana University School of Medicine. I was later granted admission to the University of Pittsburgh program in Emergency Medicine, one of the most competitive programs in the world. Along the way I managed to pick up more scholarships, plaques, awards, and appointments than I could have ever imagined. I have since had more wonderful experiences as a doctor, and as it usually happens, success can often blind you from whence you came.

  In 1997, a child was brought to the emergency department, a very special child. In the blink of an eye, another door was on the verge of closing, another dream was about to fade. And if I had stumbled with my routine, a small life would have been lost forever. The ER was absolute pandemonium that evening and I was exhausted. We had admitted car accident victims, drunks, assaults, heart attacks: It was nonstop, controlled chaos. A young couple brought in an eleven-month-old child. They were concerned that he was looking weak and fatigued and was perhaps breathing a little fast. It was 9:00 P.M. During the preceding week, they had been to their family physician three times, went to another local immediate care center once, and had spoken numerous times by phone with other healthcare providers. The consensus of all involved was that the child had an ear infection that would need to run its course.

  That evening in the ER the parents seemed more concerned about being reassured that nothing else was wrong. They spent a lot of energy apologizing for taking up my time and for being “alarmists”. I almost fell into the trap of parental-induced complacency. The child was resting quietly in the dad’s arms. For the most part, I could not find much wrong. The child looked fatigued and perhaps a bit dehydrated, but otherwise healthy. I paced the hall for a time trying to figure out what was bothering me about the child. Then it hit me: He wasn’t crying, he wasn’t smiling, he wasn’t acting like a normal sick child, or for that matter, a normal well infant. Fifteen minutes later, I discovered this child was dying of diabetes. His blood sugar was off the charts and his blood was horribly acidic. To this day this is the youngest diabetic I have ever heard of, and at that time he was the youngest patient at Riley Children’s Hospital to be put on an insulin pump.