On Thursday afternoon, I was in the kitchen making a sandwich, when my flatmate Robert emerged from his room to go to the bathroom. He walked very, very slowly, and gripped the stovetop, then the back of a chair, then the tabletop for support. He was breathing heavy, sweating like a cold soda on a hot day, and I said, “Jesus,” as he walked past.
“Prayer might help,” he wheezed between pantings, and then he went into the john and closed the door.
Well, something needs to help. For the past few weeks, Robert has mostly been in his room, and when he comes out he walks weakly, and coughs a lot.
He has health coverage, but it’s the Veterans Administration, and he’d told me hesitates to make an appointment because why bother? It’d be months before they’d see him, by which time he’ll either be better or dead.
Robert is the only flatmate I kinda like, so just this once I didn’t go into my room and eat alone. Instead I ate at the kitchen table, and waited to talk to Robert when he came out of the john. I wanted to gently nag him to see a doctor, and offer to run to the store for him if he needed groceries or anything. He has nobody, except a sister who lives in Eastern Washington.
When he came out of the bathroom, he sat in the other chair at the table, without my asking him to. He needed the rest.
“Man, I worry about you,” I said.
“So do I.”
Still breathing heavy, he told me about his symptoms, which were the same as the last time we’d talked a week ago, only everything had gotten worse. After a few minutes in the chair, when his breathing had returned to near-normal, he asked me to call an ambulance.
I called 9-1-1, and asked Robert whether he wanted me to ride with him to the hospital. He said yup. In about five minutes the paramedics were there, and despite his VA coverage, he asked them to take him to Saint Anne’s. It’s the closest hospital.
So I spent the afternoon with Robert at Saint Anne’s, as they asked the ordinary medical questions and ran the usual battery of tests. Despite living in the same house for three years, our doors only thirty footsteps apart, the longest conversation we’d had before Thursday was perhaps ten minutes. Between blood draws, we talked for about four hours about whatever came up, and the conversation wasn’t difficult.
Hospitals can be extra terrifying when you’re alone, so I was glad to be there with him. Once, a nurse asked what our relationship was, and Robert said, “We’re friends,” which felt true for the first time.
Finally, a doctor came in, and in a crazy coincidence the diagnosis was blood clots — the same trouble I’d had just a few weeks ago. Blood clots are not contagious, but they’re common among old farts in their 60s and 70s, like me and Robert.
When the doc said they were keeping him overnight, I said a hasty goodbye, because it was 7:20 and the only bus from the hospital, the #631, stops running at 7:45. Robert asked me to bring him his cell phone and tablet, and gave me the key to his room at the house. I said I’d do it, and returned the next morning. Also brought the chargers for each device. Without any muttering under my breath. I was honestly, as the
cliché goes, happy to help.
For my pulmonary embolism, they’d rushed me into surgery. Robert’s blood clots, though, are in a trickier location, not easily accessible by knife or laser, so there’s no quick cure for him. They kept him at the hospital Thursday and Friday nights, and released him on Saturday afternoon, but he’s still not healthy.
He was breathing heavy again when he came home, after climbing the five steps into our house. He’s weak on his feet, and exhausted after walking from his bedroom to the john. He’s in exactly the same condition as when we called 9-1-1, only now he has a diagnosis.
American health care is American, so Saint Anne’s Hospital gave Robert two prescriptions, but only on paper. They didn’t give him the drugs. Why not? Because he’s a VA patient, so his outpatient prescriptions have to be filled at the VA.
If that’s not stupid enough, the VA pharmacy closes at 4:30 on Saturday afternoonss, and Robert got home at about 4:15 — an impossible errand, especially on the bus, and neither Robert nor I have a car. The VA is closed on Sundays, so it’ll be Monday before he can get and start taking his meds.
He was so breathless just from climbing our stairs, I offered to run to the VA for him on Monday, to pick up his prescriptions. The #50 bus goes right there. But Robert doesn’t think the VA would give his meds to anyone but him. He’s also not certain the VA will pay for his stay at Saint Anne’s.
“Prayer might help,” he’d wisecracked to me a few days ago. Of course, prayer doesn’t help. Health care helps, but not until Monday.
10/26/2025
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