Curtain Call

In 1979 Hopkins covered many city blocks, at least twenty, if memory serves me right, with tall buildings, and some units underground. When we walked there from the Sheraton, we entered by the main door of the original building. The first thing we saw every day was a larger-than-life carving (marble, I think) of Christ. It was an inspiration to many, including me. From that point we walked much farther to get to the oncology building. We arrived there the first of November, but I recall a delightful display of many colors of coleus growing along the walks, an almost unbelievable sight of beauty. Remembering that scene brought to mind that Phil, Mike, and I had made a brief trip there in late summer, for Phil to be checked and pre-registered for the transplant, and Mike’s marrow to be tested by their own labs. During that short stay, we saw another pro baseball game, when we rooted for the Chicago White Sox.

Phil had one night with us at The Sheraton before he checked into the hospital. If you are picturing a tall, grand hotel, you are wrong. This one had only two or three stories, not located in the best section of Baltimore. But thanks to the program of Ronald McDonald House, we had rates we could afford for an extended period of time. Families of patients were instructed to call for a security car for transport to and from between the hours of 5:00 p. m., and 7:00 a. m. If desired, also at other times. This vehicle took us right to the front door of the oncology building.

Around midnight one time, when I was headed back to the hotel, a security car arrived and the driver stepped out of the car and called what I thought was “Rinard.” Three other ladies that I had been talking with and I all moved forward to get into the car. Then we stopped and looked at each other. Turned out, their name was “Rinehart,” a mother and two married daughters. Their patient was the woman’s husband and the younger women’s father, not in oncology, but cardiology. It was they who had called for this car and I waited for the next one. I might add, these ladies were such that one would not mind being related to them.

The days became routine with tests and more tests. My journal filled with numbers: Phil’s temperature, heart rate, white count, etc., some of these recorded every hour. I did not sit beside his bed all the time, and needed to find other things to do. When he had the chance to sleep, I saw a bit more of the historic hospital. In the gift shop, I bought a coffee mug for Phil, his request, though he didn’t drink coffee, and I purchased a book on the hospital’s history. I visited the medical library where several doctors and doctors-in-training studied in extreme silencevoluntary, it seemedwith a huge painting of famous former doctors who’d taught there, looking down on them. What an ambiance that big room had! It was as though all the medical knowledge in the world was in that room and momentarily, I wanted to be a doctor. I discovered an additional place to eat, besides the cafeteria. And since I was missing my regular eye check-up back home, I decided to have it done right there at Hopkins’s famous eye clinic. I did not have to wait for a later date, as I usually did in Boise, but had the check-up right then, when I first asked. The doctor wanted to know why I was at Hopkins when I lived in Idaho. I told him about Phil. At the end of the examination, the doctor said there was no charge. What a place! In a waiting room I met a lady who lived in Baltimore, and whose brother-in-law was a patient at Hopkins. We talked together every day and at Christmas time, she volunteered to purchase for us a hot-air corn popper for Phil. Some of the evenings I told Phil what I had learned about the hospital that day. When it seemed the thing to do, I sat by his bed and read to him, usually from the Bible.

One night when only Gooch was the other family there, he made contact with a man met through his job and the three of us had dinner at a large, busy, unique restaurant. It must have been famous and perhaps is there still. Every inch of the high walls that could take a painting held a painting, dozens and dozens of them. The waitresses were older ladies, I mean in their 60s perhaps, really dressed up and made up like society mavens and seemingly unaware of their own charm. Service was simple. We could choose our protein from a long list and two vegetables from a much longer list. Just about anything you could think of was on these lists. Of course, I enjoyed the evening, but every once in a while I had a catch in my throat, thinking of Phil, and what we were in Baltimore for. I could hardly wait to get back to him. That was the only time I ate “out” while in Baltimore. Meals were other times at the hospital, and once at the hotel, but that was no good and we never returned to it. As Phil could eat about anything he wanted, twice I ate with him in his room. But I tried not to smother him with my presence.

We were counting down the days till time for the transplant itself. Mike returned and went through actual surgery in giving his bone marrow. He needed a day of recuperation in hospital too. John returned, bringing Mike’s wife and three-months-old Mikey with him. The baby could not be in the oncology unit itself, but we visited him in a waiting room, that at that time of day was also a sunroom.

The transplant took place and new testings began. At times we were encouraged. Things looked good. Once Phil walked around the middle section where all the offices and labs were located, as I rolled along the IV pole. We passed an open doorway and saw his current doctor, who looked up from her work. She came to the door and said, “My, I didn’t know you were so tall.” He was six feet, two inches.

Phil was never able to make that walk again or perhaps he opted not to, for it was too tiring. Things gradually took a turn for the worse and both brothers returned to Baltimore to give platelets. A picture exists of these two big guys, side by side on separate beds, with tubes attached during the process.

Of the three brothers, Phil was the quietest, the most reserved, the one with the deepest voice, a bass voice. When he gave up the idea of being an athlete himself, he considered being a sportscaster. During his senior year of school, in the “Program for Accelerated Learners,” a local television sportscaster gave him an assignment to watch, without sound, a game on television and record his calls. His score was “extraordinarily good.” Eventually he had to give up that dream and settle for his second choice of field, architecture, which ran in the family’s veins. He pre-registered at Boise State, but before his freshman year started there, we were planning the trip to Baltimore.

With all these set-backs, Phil never complained. Not once. He was a thinker more than a talker, except, of course, if the subject was baseball. We never really knew what was going on in his mind; however, we communicated. Sometimes, as I sat beside his bed, his hand rested on my arm. Nothing needed to be said. Sometimes, and more often than the reverse, my hand rested on his. One had to be careful in touching him, for he hurt. One can assume he thought of the first doctor who told him dying from leukemia was painless. He found it not so. But perhaps the doctor did not have in mind a bone marrow transplant, surely not if the patient was to die within two months, as he had predicted.

One of the hardest sights to endure was seeing Phil on a respirator with his blue eyes opened unusually wide, seeming to ask for answers. It must have been a thousand times harder for him to endure this than for me to watch it. That possibly could have been the first assurance to Phil that he would die. But that lasted only for twenty-four hours and they took it away. Some sort of test perhaps. So our hopes were up a bit more then but were not to last.

The transplant began to show it had not worked. Perhaps the staff knew this earlier on, but they did not inform us. Their gentle care continued as usual but their summons increased. On his last Sundaystop reading here if you don’t want to hear something really bad and sadI watched as Phil vomited up the transplant or the platelets, or both, in a solid red strip about six inches wide, which the nurse cut with scissors to stop it. I knew then further medical aid was non-existent. Although the decision was difficult to make, I prayed that God would take him soon. I had no doubt as to where his sweet soul would go, for Phil was a Christian. I called John to come, and Mike and Susan were still there. I read again to him the twenty-third psalm and Phil died around twenty-four hours later with all of us there, except Gooch who could not get away to make the trip.

Now go back to my blog for June 28 to get the rest of this story. What a different mood I was in then, while now I sit here crying. I had no idea of writing this series on that date, but am glad I did, for so many of you have responded in various ways. Just writing it caused me to recall episodes I hadn’t thought about for some time. After all, Phil died thirty years ago. If he had survived, he would be almost 49 now. But I shall always see him as age 19.

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