The White Mitts

He was lying in bed, just about to be discharged, and he was telling me what he remembered of his seven week hospital stay. "Rob, one of the very first things I remember, aside from those white mittens floating in and out of my vision, is your face."

I could understand how he would remember the big white mitts. As he came out of the coma he was disoriented and combative, and we had to put the mittens on his hands so he wouldn’t hurt himself or the nurses who cared for him. As he was deliriously waving his hands around he must have seen the overstuffed pure-white mitts, like a new born infant would notice his hands for the first time. I had ordered  the mittens removed the previous week.

"My face? Come on Tim, with all the pretty nurses around here, why would my face be the one you remember?"

"Well I think it’s because you looked deeper than most, it’s like you came in to my mind and got me out of wherever it is I was."

I had examined him nearly every day when he was in the coma, peering deeply into his eyes, checking reflexes and also I must admit, to see if ‘anybody was home.’  I always spoke to him when I checked him over. I have learned that even when patients cannot respond physically, they can often still hear you, and perhaps even understand. I still remember the day I was examining him and he actually focused on me – just for a few seconds – but it was a definite turning point in his recovery.

I had imagined his mind as a swimmer trapped under murky water, slowly surfacing, struggling toward the light on the surface. His thought processes would gradually clear as the toxins were removed, the swimmer making his way to the light. It had taken weeks.

He had brought it on himself you see. He went on a three month drinking binge when his wife left him, and damaged his liver so badly it failed. As the poisons built up in his blood, they gradually shut down all the higher functions in his brain. It’s called Hepatic (liver) Encephalopathy (disease of the brain), and Tim had been in a coma for weeks.

Tim was still a little jaundiced, or yellow looking, and even the whites of his eyes had that yellowish tinge; but mentally he was totally recovered. He was able to walk short distances with assistance and could now feed himself. He was going to be discharged to a nursing home for several weeks for physical therapy, then hopefully, home.

"Well Tim, I’m glad you’re back with us. It was a close thing there for a week or two."

"I’m going to AA, I don’t think I could go through this again."

"You know, I have always found it helpful to have something symbolic to remember important things in life. Sometimes you may want to keep certain symbols, but other times you may want to burn them if they are a part of our lives we want to forget. It can be like a cleansing Tim"

"What could be a symbol of this terrible time?"

I held out the big white mittens. His eyes opened wide and he slowly reached out for them and gently took them from my hand.

"I’m gonna burn these bastards when I’m done with AA."