My wife, Donna, had taken our son, Jack, to a surgical center to have a minor procedure done and she had run into a problem, a nurse who was not willing to bend the rules.
Jack had to be put to sleep but before he was rolled into the operating room, the nurse-in-charge said, he had to put on a hospital gown, the drafty kind, open all the way down the back. Putting something like that on Jack was a lot easier said than done.
Jack is mentally handicapped and autistic. He doesn’t do all that well with change. When he gets used to something one way, he wants it to stay that way. He insists. He looked scrawny in those days, but the fact was he could lift a baby elephant off his feet.
Donna knew there was no way Jack was going to put on that gown. The helper from the group home where he lived knew it too.
“He ain’t gonna wear that thing,” he said.
Donna suggested putting the gown on after Jack went to sleep but the nurse-in-charge said rules are rules.
So Donna said, sweetly, “Why don’t you put it on him.”
The nurse-in-charge said she would do just that and she took Jack to another room. A few minutes later she returned with Jack. He was not wearing the gown.
The nurse-in-charge said she had changed her mind. She said they could put it on later, after Jack went to sleep.
Coming Monday: What’s In A Name?