The Easy Keeper

  In the fringe subculture of dog mushing there is a term we often use to refer to this or that dog as an "easy keeper".  An easy keeper is a dog that inhales his food, maintains a good weight, rarely gets sick, is a hard worker, is happy all the time and gets along with the rest of the team.  

   One of my objectives while staying at this hospital is to be an easy keeper for the staff that cares for me every day.  I have been here for 27 days now. It would be easy to become a professional patient, barking orders from my bed and complaining about every little thing.  In the back of my mind though I know that I am building a relationship with the staff here and when I am too sick to move I will need them more than ever to care for me. 

    One of the first days I was here, my regular doctor said I really didn't have to thank them so much for every little thing they do for me.  I replied that I couldn't help it and she should blame my mother.  

    I see the results of my careful cultivation of relationships.  I have become the easy keeper in the oncology wing.  Instead of getting  a continuous rotation of nurses that I was getting earlier I have just a few nurses that probably request me for their shifts.  They can trust me to do whatever I can on my own without calling them on the intercom for every trivial thing.  I know the routine by now.  Like my dogs that lift their leg to help me to put on their harnesses I lift my arm for the blood pressure cuff,  offer my finger for the oxygen reader and lean over  to breath deep at the right time so they can hear my lungs with the stethoscope.  Every morning at 0400 AM I present my arm that has the PIC line for the daily blood draw.  

  I can be a pain if I have to.  Today I had the substitute doctor come in for a visit.  The day before I refused to shake his hand when he presented it because I had no idea where his hand had been before he entered my room.  He had not sanitized his hands like everyone else did after entering my room.  He said, "I will have to examine you anyway" and I gave in and let him handle me.  I even presented my hand and he shook it.  

  When he appeared today he did the same thing.  He walked right up and was about to touch me but I stopped him.  I asked him to sanitize his hands please.  He replied, "I did wash them earlier".  I had no idea what "earlier" meant and how many patients he had handled before me.  Billie was sitting there and she said he put his hand on the door handle and then the door before he walked up to me.  He then said that that sanitizing foam was too greasy and he didn't like it.  I replied, "Hey, it's my life not yours".  He relented and went over to the foam dispenser and did what I requested. 

   I have to say that it was Deni,  my friendly nurse in Anchorage married to my brother Kit that warned me,  "You have to watch the doctors.  They are the worst".   I was forewarned to scrutinize and Deni was right.  The doctors are the top of the pecking order in a hospital and if you want to keep your job, you let them do what they want.   Being a patient, I was not in danger of losing my job.   I had the license to open my mouth and let him have it.  He was a little shocked I could tell.  I was not going to be some complacent gomer and let him get away with the disrespecting this patient.