Christmas Character

A memorable person that I met and cared while working at Frick Hospital in Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania, was a wizened older gentleman who had been a mule skinner in the United States Army during the Great War. He took care of the mules that were used to drag the cannons and caissons in World War I. It wasn’t called World War I until the second was fought. He told us that he had been very young when he signed on and when the war was over, he went back to school and had become a doctor. He talked about the animals he had charge over and about the several that he owned, rather than war stories. The time he spent with those animals he was caring for seemed to be what he chose to remember about the war.

His terminal cancer had sent him to us. He became weak and could no longer take care of himself or control the growing pain in his cancer withered body. He came to Frick Hospital because he needed our help.

It seemed that Belladonna and opium suppositories with an occasional injection of morphine gave him the most pain relief. I tried to make time to stay with him until he was able to obtain some pain relief. He would talk to me as he waited for the pain relieving effects of the medications to take hold of his frail body. After that, he settled down to sleep until the pain woke him again.

He told us that he was a surgeon. This fellow warrior in the health field came to us just before the Christmas holidays. Some of his friends brought the gift of a small artificial Christmas tree that was covered in tiny lights and delicate ornaments. The little tree was beautiful and filled his room with soft light. This was a time when hospitals still allowed electric lights to be used.

Sometimes when we would make rounds he would be awake quietly staring at the tree. The tiny lights glowed in his eyes. He was discharged to a long term care facility shortly after Christmas and I never heard from him again. Stories of his life glowed in my life like the Christmas lights from that small tree glistened in his eyes, even if it was only for a little bit.