Since I am unlikely to have too many opportunities to draw even vaguely plausible parallels between my own career and that of John Milton, I must grasp at such few as come my way. Milton pretends to have begun his inaugural masterpiece only under compulsion, which is sort of true. “Lycidas,” one of the most famous works in the canon of English poetry, is indeed a masterpiece, and we must acknowledge that it came early in his poetic career. It did indeed put him on the literary map. But Milton thought, or pretended to think, that is was too soon for him to be forced to take on his task.
It is not to soon to come up with the subject for a blog. I have to do that every week—but it is too soon for the repeat topic to which I am compelled to turn, which was my latest stay at the Penn-Princeton hospital. I was there only in February, and this time it was pretty much the same drill, congestive-pneumonia kind of thing, me gasping for air, seemingly dozens of professionals devoted to my care. The imposing new(ish) hospital is planted on a large plot of land on the east side of US 1, technically I think in Plainsboro but hardly two miles distant from our own Princeton house. On my last occasion I tried to write an essay in the spirit of the Jimmy Stewart film “Rear Window,” in which a fellow who is constrained by a cast on a broken limb has to solve--from his window in a city high-rise apartment--mysteries he comes upon in his rubber-necking. But this time my window was on the other side of the building. My view was that of a large scrub forest, not unpleasant, but with no variety of human activity. Even in the short period of time since my last visit, they have expanded the already vast parking lot and seem to be starting on high-rises.
I have frequently heard or read about “America’s aging population” as though objectively from a distance. A hospital stay reifies and objectifies this generalization. I am a drop in the gray ocean of aging Americans enjoying superb Medicare that must be bankrupting the nation. I got to the hospital before nine in the morning on Sunday. The Emergency Room was already hopping. Most if not all of the “temporary” examination rooms had already been turned into “regular” room. I was quickly triaged into the category of the rolling wounded and spent the next twelve hours on a hallway gurney. It would be an exaggeration to say that the atmosphere was that of Penn Station—more like the bus station. The work of medical professionals under these circumstances is truly awesome. After a quick examination by a super-nurse and significant blood-letting, I was temporarily rehoused in a nurses’ station. Here I was soon joined by a seriously injured elderly man with a shattered hipbone. The pain must have been terrible. Though there was an opaque plastic screen between us, he was in fact only two feet away, and I was very much in on his intake. He was born in 1927, making me his junior be a decade. He was crying out in agony as a doctor tried to examine him without torturing him, probably an impossible task. The middle-aged daughter who had brought him in, and obviously cared for him dearly, even then could not refrain from criticizing the old man for having been doing whatever transgressive thing she thought responsible for his accident. If having to go to the hospital makes me feel sorry for myself—and it does—what you see when you get there soon enough redirects your pity to more deserving objects.
The realization that trying to understand “America’s health crisis” has to begin with an honest and searching look in the mirror is a sobering one. It is not strange that having lived a long and blessed life makes one's appetite to living increase, not wane. One’s soul cries out with Faust—“O, stay the passing moment. It is so fair!” But there are social costs too.
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