The Bedside Manner
IT was one of those gray days — gray outside the sanitarium and gray inside. In addition to tuberculosis, I had pleurisy, and my skin looked like a blend of Paris green and putty. Charcoal-like smudges were under my eyes. And then I had a visitor.
After a first unguarded gasp of astonishment, she smiled from her face out, and said cheerily, ‘Oh, how well you look!’
Each breath I took was a scythe-sweep of pain. ‘Thank you,’ I answered brightly. ‘I feel well enough.’
Of course I did not want her to say, ‘You look like a can of worms, my dear,’ nor did I want to tell her that I felt as desolate and cheerless as a northeast room on a winter afternoon. But somewhere between what we did say and what we did not say there must lie a working sick-room formula.
I like to have callers. I appreciate it when they find time to come off their beaten, busy way to pause with me. It is a real effort for many, because they feel constrained. They are afraid to talk about their activities, or to act too radiantly healthy, for fear that the contrast will make me unhappy. Some, too, are deathly afraid of tuberculosis; these make a sacrifice to come. That I am not now a menace makes no difference. The fear is there.
This constraint is unnecessary. Long ago I came to an understanding with myself about my restricted universe. This has become my normal life, and I have filled it with interests. I am as busy in my way as many of my visitors are in theirs. If they could quite believe that, they could be natural with me.
Most of my visitors must, I know, take a deep breath outside my door, and plunge as if into cold water. They are animated in a breathless way. They tell me how well I look, or how much better I look than they expected. They tell me that probably I shall be cured in a month or two. They say that they envy me my comfortable bed and sunny room. They playfully remark that they do not believe I am ill at all — just lazy.
Of course I do not always look well. I know when I do not. Also, I am aware that I shall be cured, if a pneumococcus can be kept from getting me, not in two months, but in twelve. Nor can any of them mislead me into believing that they would like to be confined to bed for months and months. While they are telling me all these things I want to cry out, ‘Oh, please don’t feel so uncomfortable! Don’t make me strain every nerve to maintain this artificial gladness. Relax that comedy mask. Treat me as you used to treat me.’
Those who are afraid plunge straight from the door to the corner farthest from the bed. Every minute they spend with me is agony for them. Even though I know that people do well to be afraid of tuberculosis, I am hurt a little to have them afraid of me. I want to say, ‘Please don’t be afraid. But if you can’t help it, don’t go through with this. Write me a note instead.’
There is one visitor I never have, but I hear the other patients talk about her. This visitor starts by weeping over the supine figure on the bed. After the patient has been quieted with codeine, the consoling friend sits quietly by, holding a clammy hand and telling about Uncle Harry’s first wife who died of tuberculosis. ‘She looked something like you, and I remember that she broke down just about like this. She dragged along, though; it took her about two years to die.’
Once, to be sure, a lugubrious head appeared at my door. It belonged to a great, bloodhound-looking man. He said, ’Pardon me; I always come into this sad room when I am near here. My daughter died right in this bed just a year ago. Let me leave these lilies in memory of her.’
Lilies have a funereal association for me, and, besides, they give me hay fever. But they stayed on my bureau until they fell apart — in memory of the girl who died in my bed.
They come to see us, the too-cheerful, the frightened, and the morbid. There is an ideal visitor, too, of course. I have in mind several sprightly ones of my own who have been faithful these many months. They do not come unless they are in holiday mood. They have a talent for getting involved in minor catastrophes, and the gift of laughing at themselves. They see nothing abnormal in my existence, so we are very comfortable and quietly gay. They laugh at my jokes, and there is really nothing like a little well-placed appreciation to cheer one. They have the bedside manner.
Sometimes in my fancy I see the little rod-like tubercle bacilli playing on my electric light cord, sliding up and down; they chin themselves on the edge of my bed light. Quite often they peer over my shoulder. The one that frisks on top of my locker is grinning down at me now. He knows that no one wall pay any attention to what I think about the bedside manner.
RUTH REED