Any Oasis Will Do

Setting: A memorial service, held on Sorber Mountain, Noxen, Pennsylvania. It is a brilliant October day. About 100 people are gathered under a huge white tent stretched above the top of a long, grass-covered hill. The view extends across the distant mountains for miles, and overhead a large hawk flies in great, lazy circles. The deceased man's daughter is speaking to his family, friends, and business associates.

Dad was fortunate to enjoy 78 years of relatively good health. In his last few years he found this mountain retreat to be a tougher climb than when he was younger, and reluctantly he began to leave the hunting to the younger guys. There was a comfortable fireplace inside the cabin, the Penn State game on an autumn Saturday, and a well-equipped kitchen where he could create the high-sodium, cholesterol-loaded, who-cares-how-many-calories recipes that pleased him so much to prepare. After Mom died, he sometimes spoke of moving up here completely. Sitting on the deck with a whiskey and water, looking down on the meadow to watch the deer feed in the evening, or gazing across the miles of brilliant, picture-postcard land, where the mountains meet the open sky … he once said this is the place where he felt close to God. He didn't get up here more than a few times over the last spring and summer, since his bouts with congestive heart failure became more frequent and he had a change of address to Wilkes-Barre General Hospital.

At the hospital, he also found God in the water fountain located so very conveniently opposite his room. Told by his doctors to limit fluids, and with no water pitcher allowed at the bedside, all he thought about, of course, was water; how to get some or how to dupe some innocent visitor to get it for him. He remembered passing the fountain as he was being admitted. Up and about the next day, he found the oasis to be pretty accessible. After all, the doctors wanted him to walk as much as he could tolerate: He would walk to the fountain and back, as much as he could tolerate. The trick was not to be caught by the nursing staff. A couple of days later, despite the fluid restriction and the powerful diuretics, Mr. Oliver was still tipping the hospital scale every morning. How could this be? On the midnight shift the nurses' aide caught him tanking up at the artesian well just outside his room.

“Well,” Dad grumbled, “if they don't want me to drink any water, why did they put me in a room right next to a fountain?”

Now that the staff was on to Mr. Oliver, he had to find more cunning ways to quench his thirst. The next day, after his roommate was discharged and a perfectly good water pitcher was left behind, Dad simply switched the pitcher to his own bedside table before the cleaning personnel had an opportunity to prepare for the next patient. Now all he needed was someone to fill it. Later that morning, who should appear for a visit but his niece, Nancy, and within a few minutes, wouldn't you know, she asked if she could do anything for her Uncle Jim. “Yes,” dear Uncle Jim replied with a grin, reaching behind a cabinet door to retrieve an empty water pitcher. “You could fill this for me, with ice and lots of water.” Nancy innocently followed his directions and went to the ice machine, located just opposite the nurses' station. After the second trip she began to question silently why a patient with such obvious swelling in his feet should be allowed to drink so much water. When Uncle Jim sent her to the well a third time, she filled it, pausing at the desk on the way back to question a nurse. The water pitcher was promptly confiscated, and Nancy realized she had been hoodwinked.

Dad tried the same trick successfully on other visitors, including his nextdoor neighbor from home, a Sister of Mercy. During Sister Lucille's visit, Jim casually extracted an empty pitcher from deep beneath a pile of towels in his bedside cabinet.

“Do me a favor, will you, Sister—?”

The fountain was so convenient; filling the pitcher took the good Sister only a few seconds, and he insisted she needn't interrupt any of the staff for ice. It was no trouble at all, and Jim certainly was parched—Sister Lucille could tell by the way he drained the pitcher in a few short gulps. Funny, how he carefully dried the empty pitcher and put it back under the towels. A few moments later, a nurse came in, handing him some pills and a tiny container of water. “Here you go, Mr. Oliver. Make this water last, because you know you are only allowed one cup per shift.” Sheepishly, Dad looked over at Sister Lucille, meeting her horrified and guilt-stricken eyes. He didn't mean to send her off to confession on his account; he was just thirsty.

There is a story that Dad repeated to each of his adult children many times over during his last few years. It had to do with a final wish that his Grandfather Hufford had expressed to him many years before, within a couple hours of the old fellow's death. He was in the hospital, breathing his last, and the young man he had raised from infancy, Jim, was sitting by his side. Jim noticed a tear slide over his grandfather's cheek.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“They won't let me have a chew of tobacco.”

Jim went to ask a nurse if this was so.

“Tobacco is bad for his health!”

“My grandfather is dying, Ma'am. … Do you really think a plug of chew will kill him at this point?”

Dad recalled the nurse giving him a look as if he had made an improper advance and told him under no circumstances could his grandfather have tobacco; it was against hospital rules. I think it was at that moment that young Jim developed his lifelong hatred of hospitals. He turned away from the discordant nightingale and left the building. Around the corner was a shop where they sold all sorts of necessities, and he found some chewing tobacco. Back to the hospital and to his grandfather's room he marched, where he tenderly placed a plug of tobacco inside the grateful old man's cheek. About an hour later, Grandpa Hufford's clock stopped. Dad always said he didn't know if the smile on his grandfather's face was a result of a preview to heaven or his satisfaction with the Penn Tobacco.

Dad intended that story to make an impression on each of us for when his own clock was winding down; he might ask for something important and hoped his children would do as well by him as he had his grandfather. Every time I heard that story I would speculate which of us would be called upon for what, and would we be worthy to the task. How could any of us have guessed that during the final weeks of his life Dad's last wish would be for Dairy Queen's giant chocolate milkshakes, which he craved, and which were forbidden? An entire day's worth of fluid in one shake, drunk down in a few delicious swallows. Except, he requested two at a time and had absolutely no patience to suffer fitful protests about the dialysis and fluid restrictions from whichever one of us was foolish enough to argue at his stubbornly dictated demand. So, to Dairy Queen the appointed flunky would go, stone-faced, an active participant in this suicidal bent to satisfy a never-ending thirst.

We were each tested, many times over, these last months. Speaking for myself, I drove our father to Dairy Queen whenever he wanted, and always directly from his dialysis treatments, because this noble, dying man had more power over me than I had over myself. I'm a professional nurse, but I quit arguing with him about his health; I asked him if he wanted vanilla or chocolate. Long ago he had taught his children that actions have consequences; I figured I'd just have to square myself somehow with a greater Higher Power and at a later date. We knew how Dad had honored our great-grandfather. Hadn't he told us we'd be asked, eventually? I can say that not one of his children let him down all this long summer. And I feel certain he's bragging about each of us to Grandpa Hufford today.

• Copyright ©2004 by the American College of Physicians