Off to a meeting in Washington, I slipped and fell in a D.C. hotel over a month ago, breaking my left femur. The ambulance took me to the hospital where President Reagan was treated after being shot by a would-be assassin. The surgeon explained it wasn’t a minor accident, and it would take quite a while, time and pain to put me back together. Suddenly I was a prisoner in my own body. Lying on my back, I could barely hold, let alone use, my cellphone or anything else. The hospital said “sign here” as if I had a choice.Thanks to the federal judges who thought signing blank documents is OK, clicking on blank pages, so-called “click-wrap,” its cousin “shrink-wrap,” and a variety of other legal abominations designed to undo the fairness of contracts, they now had complete control of my body. I had landed in a responsible institution but I still didn’t like being told that they could act over and despite my objections because I had signed something. I was in a hospital among people dedicated to bring me back to independence. But I was completely dependent on others and it did not feel good.
They gave me Oxycontin for the pain. I envy those whose minds and bodies could handle it. But I had hallucinations and tried to climb out of bed – a big no-no in a hospital which was committed to preventing me from having another fall. Despite many signs to “Call; don’t fall,” it could take hospital personnel over an hour to reach me – they had plenty of other sick patients and rounds to do. So I used my arms to pull on a bar that made them think I was trying to crawl out of bed so they’d get to me. My family got them to take Oxycontin off my list of medicines, but the pain still varied from awful to excruciating. Screaming in pain or screaming your’re hurting me were no-nos.
The staff, doctors, nurses, aides and others came from all over the world and I enjoyed talking with them about their experience in their original countries and reasons for coming here. The doctor in charge of my progress was Dr. Mandalaywalla which made me think of the old Bob Hope movies about the Road to Mandalay. But like people all over, some were wonderful, compassionate and sensitive; others were rough and peremptory but I owe my life to them and their dedication to fixing me up.
The eight hour trip home wasn’t much better. Without physical or occupational therapy over that long day – I returned to Albany feeling like a basket case, stiff and in tears over the impact on my family.
Still, I’m one of the lucky ones – my wife of nearly six decades stayed by my side, and our two children, with their own well-established careers, rushed to my side from distant cities. And we have enough cash and insurance to deal with most problems.
But on the radio I kept hearing about the struggle over cutting health care and food stamps. I’ll survive and get back to some semblance of myself but feel for the many who won’t.
Steve Gottlieb’s latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics. He is the Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School, served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, on the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran. He enjoys the help of his editor, Jeanette Gottlieb
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