It was my first night in the hospital nearly two weeks ago.
I had collapsed, fallen, and suffered a brain injury that left me unconscious and threatened my life. I was confused, weak, and in great pain in my back. A rescue squad came and peeled me off the floor and into an ambulance. Maria thought I was dead.
I spent the first night in the emergency room, then a regular hospital room. It was late at night, and the lights in my hospital room had been turned off; my roommate was a sick, loud, and unhinged man.
It was in the Albany Medical Center, a famous trauma and specialty teaching hospital known for its excellent medicine and chaotic inner-city hospital environment. Like most others, the hospital was almost desperately short-staffed of nurses since the pandemic.
That night, the waiting list for the emergency room was said to be 24 hours. I was there by ambulance, and brain injuries got people to the top of the list. The hospital was overwhelming.
I didn’t need brain surgery. They found me a bed after six or seven hours; it was on the third floor.
My roommate was a retired doctor suffering from a urinary infection, which often causes sufferers to be hostile and even violent. He said his son, his father, was believed to be experiencing the onset of dementia.
He was angry and threatening; he refused to stay in bed and insulted and shouted at the nurses to get him out of bed and out of the hospital.
I was in too much pain to move myself, and the nurses said there was no chance of finding another bed in the hospital that night. I didn’t want a new room. I just wanted to stay put.
It was clear that I would not sleep that night, and my roommate was getting almost violent. The hospital was required to guard him all night to keep him from harming himself or other patients.
The ward couldn’t afford to sign a nurse to that job all night; runners and young people were helping them out and doing the hard physical work of hospital care.
The person chosen to sit with my roommate was a robust and tall man who sat just a few feet from me and ensured that the poor man beside me didn’t fall out of bed or run away. I saw several young people, mostly black or Latino kids from Albany, working to support the overwhelmed and understaffed hospital wards.
They formed a kind of community; they touched base with each other and talked to and supported one another.
I had fallen on my back and head and could barely move without excruciating pain. The nurses were excellent, but there were too few of them, and it took an hour or more before they could respond to a patient call unless it was a dire emergency.
I was a “hot mess,” alone in my bed and helpless; I couldn’t stand up or move up and down, and the blankets on me had fallen. Every cough or sneeze was unbearable, as was a deep breath.
The lights had been turned off in my room after a while; it was dark, and the nursing staff was running back and forth, trying to help people in a hospital crammed to the limits with patients, many seriously injured or deathly ill.
The shouts and insults of my roommate were constant; I heard little else, and I doubted they would ever stop that night.
I’ll call the young man in the room Kareem; he had introduced himself to me, pulled the curtain, sat down to guard my angry roommate, and tried to comfort and keep him in bed. It was clear that this wasn’t a job the understaffed nurses could do all night.
The man was cruel and insulting, daring everyone to challenge him.
I was touched and impressed by Kareem’s patience and soothing words to my roommate, even as he was insulted and accused of incompetence, bullying, and abuse. The poor man was out of his mind and began cursing and speaking inappropriately, demanding that Kareem call his wife at home and get him out of the hospital.
He was there to keep the man under control and big enough to keep him in his place, but his manner was gentle and empathetic, even under extreme provocation.
Kareem explained at least 100 times to my roommate that he wasn’t going home that night, as he demanded, and that his wife would show up the following day. He told him he needed to rest and sleep that night while he could. “You’re not getting out of this bad,” he said, and the man protested and fumed but obeyed.
Kareem kept him in bed without touching him or getting close.
Having worked with dementia patients, I thought I might help, and I pulled the curtain and told my roommate that Kareem was there to help him and that his family – his son had just left – would return in the morning down for a while.
“These people just want to help you,” I said, “and your family loves them. You don’t want to embarrass them, I’m sure.”He was startled and quieted. But it was quiet in the room.
My visiting him helped, at least for a while. My roommate was an older man with kind eyes, and I saw how much his son loved him. I sensed there was a good person under all the shouting and cruel insults. He couldn’t help himself. He was sick.
That’s when I first got a look at Kareem (not his real name), who was tall and muscled and athletic-looking, more like a quarterback than a nurse.
Earlier, the man’s anguished son had come to talk to me as he left. He thanked me for being patient and apologized for his father’s irrational behavior. “You probably won’t sleep tonight,” he said with sadness and some embarrassment.
This is why I am fascinated when I am in hospitals. Real life is behind every door.
The son said my roommate was a good man; he was just sick. “He isn’t like this,” he said, “he was a wonderful father,” I told him not to worry about me; I would be fine, and I understood. I shuddered; it would be a long, challenging, sleepless night.
I had my troubles.
I was in the worst pain I had ever felt; on top of the back injuries, there was my bleeding brain, which made me too dizzy to stand up by myself that night. Doctor after doctor told me I needed to rest quietly; that seemed almost like a joke to me that night.
I talked to my roommate through the curtain. I assured him that his son, who loved him very much, would be back. My roommate calmed down briefly, then started shouting and hurling insults and demands again.
Across the hallway, I heard a piercing cry of “John, John, John” from a dying woman calling out for her husband, who I was told was dead. It was an eerie and haunting moment; she cried that name all night, pleading for her deceased partner to come. Someone told me she was dying also. I felt trapped in a Poe story. All I needed was a Raven to show up.
Maria had left earlier to go home and take care of the farm and our animals. She was the hospital’s light and salvation for me; she was cheerful, helpful, warm, and comforting. I was glad she was gone that night; the shouting would have upset her.
I knew there was no chance of sleeping that night, and there was also little chance of my being able to move, get to the bathroom, or pull blankets over me to be warm.
It was a challenging night; I was helpless and in the worst pain of my life. The nurses were overwhelmed. Kareem’s kind and soothing voice touched me. I was so impressed by this young man’s poise, compassion, and discipline.
By two or three a.m. I lay in the darkened room, listening to my roommate’s ugly threats and relentless complaints, missing Maria, wondering how I would get through the night.
I was afraid of having an accident in the bed, in such pain that I couldn’t move, and I was so cold I was shivering. The room was dark, and my roommate had fallen silent. The anguish cries of “John, John…” seemed to haunt the floor. I’m not superstitious, but it felt like a message to me.
I wondered if he had gone to sleep. I hurt so much that I felt like crying.
I wasn’t going to call for help when I saw how harried the nurses were, running back and forth all night. I doubted that anyone could come in time to help me.
Kareem’s voice was gentle but firm. When necessary, he forcefully told my roommate to stay in bed. His difficult patient seemed to listen to him and stopped trying to climb out of bed.
It occurred to me that I rarely see images of young black men on the news unless police are shooting at them or they are getting arrested. The young black men in the ward cared for people with empathy and gentle authority. They knew what they were doing. They ought to be seen on the outside.
Suddenly, the curtain slid open a few feet, and I saw a vast shadow moving towards me. I had tried to stand up but couldn’t, and one foot was hanging off the bed. I knew I couldn’t get to the bathroom alone and never felt more isolated or helpless.
I saw it was Kareem, who said nothing but came over to the bedside.
“I’m going to help you,” he said in the softest and most comforting voice. That was all he said. Somehow, he sensed that I was in trouble.
He said nothing else, but to my surprise, he leaned forward. I knew he was tall and strong but was astonished when he picked me up as if I were a child, gently and carefully carried me to the bathroom, opened the door, and held me upright while urinating into the toilet bowl.
Then he carried me back to my bed. I saw that my roommate was finally asleep. It was clear that Kareem would be sitting with him all night. He lowered me carefully into bed as if I were a teddy bear – I weighed 250 pounds.
It was an extraordinary moment to be picked up delicately and carried to my bed by another man, no less man. The rescue squad did the same thing when they picked me off the kitchen floor.
This was even more intimate.
The pain excruciated, but Kareem seemed to know that and moved me slowly and sensitively.
Then, relieved in many ways, I found myself lying in bed with my head on the pillow and both feet in bed. For the first time all night, I was comfortable and felt safe.
Kareem picked up my blankets scattered on the floor, went to a closet, got three fresh ones, and carefully spread them over my body. I was warm and comfortable. The new blankets came warm. He ran a warm cloth over my sweating forehead.
My pain started to stabilize; it wasn’t gone but softer.
“You’re an angel,” I said to Kareem, “I can’t thank you enough,” I asked him where he came from, and he told me he was a street kid from Albany and was working in the hospital temporarily because there was such a severe shortage of nurses.
I thought this is what angels do; they come when you need them and then vanish.
He said he didn’t plan to be a nurse; he wanted to travel around the country. Nursing school was expensive, he said, and his family didn’t have the money. What a shame, I said, you would make a great nurse. He smiled.
He couldn’t stay long with me; he needed to be at my roommate’s bedside all night and observe.
He remained in the room all night. I was able to fall asleep. When I woke up and stirred, Kareem appeared again and helped me get to the bathroom again.
“Thank you,” I said again. I wanted to know more about him. But I never got to ask him anything else. When the sun came out and the morning shift of nurses arrived, he was gone, and another young man was guarding the roommate. He was also an African-American.
A day nurse came in to introduce herself, and Maria followed. I was okay, in good care. I waved goodbye to my roommate, who seemed much calmer. “Thank you,” he said, waving back.
When she arrived, I told Maria that Kareem’s coming to pick me up was one of the most beautiful moments of my life, and I would never forget it.
I still feel that way two weeks later, and I know it’s true.
Godspeed, Kareem, you have a big heart and the know-how to be a human being.
I hope you get to nursing school.
You are already a great nurse.
