marko
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2011
- Messages
- 8,483
The following is a 100% true story. I wish it wasn’t. It has nothing to do with FIRE and is a bit long but some may find it an interesting tale. It's about Karma or "what goes around comes around", or maybe just parallel stories. ..or something like that. Chilling nonetheless.
I’ve often mentioned my grandfather in this forum; he was quite a character; one of the last Victorians. Thanks to the efforts of his father and his own grandfather, he was born FI, which afforded him time and access. In his early life he was quite the bon-vivant with many interesting and influential friends but in his old age became a cranky old man and needlessly miserly to the point of obsession with a dash of cruelty thrown in. He lived his entire life on Boston’s North Shore and died quite wealthy for which this heir thanks him.
He once had lunch with Henry Ford, met Ponzi and had been at Boston’s Coconut Grove nightclub the night of the tragic fire. He was well connected enough that mom and her brother never went for a driving test, or even applied for one; he just came home one day and handed them their licenses, and during the WWII rationing, strangers actually came to his house because he had so much extra meat, butter etc, he was giving it away.
He had a thousand fascinating experiences. Here's two of them:
Part I: 1942-ish
He was out bar hopping one night with a well known surgeon friend. At one stop, a man approached and in broken English explained that his father/brother/friend was very ill and could the doctor come and see him. Drunk as skunks, the two of them went to the man’s house and the surgeon determined that the man needed surgery.
After acquiring the needed supplies, the surgeon introduced my grandfather as “Dr [name], my anesthesiologist” and told gramps ‘just do what I tell you’ (with ether?).
They laid this guy out on his kitchen table, opened him up, took out his appendix/gallbladder/whatever, sewed him up and, each grabbing an arm and a leg, hauled him into a nearby bedroom and…back to the bar. That was it. It was surely a different time.
I asked him once what happened to the guy. “Oh, I know he lived….he came back to the surgeon a few weeks later and thanked him! I really didn't think he'd make it. I really didn't! Haw, haw, haw”.
Part II: 1989-ish
As he entered his late 80’s the old man’s health began to fail and he ended up bouncing back and forth to the hospital over a series of age related issues.
On one particular time in the late 1980’s, he was in the hospital for one thing or another-- around a quarter to two in the morning, my phone rang. It was my mother. She had just received a call from a doctor asking her to come to the hospital right away.
I picked her up and our first reaction was that gramps was quickly fading and it was time for him to be ‘surrounded by family’ as they say.
We were in for a surprise.
When the doctor called my mother, he told her that he’d meet her at a specific door in the back of the hospital; not the usual entry door. Odd, but at that hour we weren’t really thinking too clearly. We parked where we were told and the doctor himself was waiting at the door. Again, a bit odd, but….
He led us into a lounge type room that had a few couches and some comfortable chairs. Today, it might be called a ‘family comfort room’.
Here’s where things got very weird in hindsight but at the time, well, we just didn’t know what we were doing.
All the lights in this lounge were off except for a table lamp next to a couch. Sitting on the couch were two other doctors who were joined by the one who greeted us. At the time, the fact that they were fully dressed in business suits (including one with a bow tie) didn’t seem strange but now, thirty years later you had to wonder what these three were doing at 2 in the morning all dressed up. They looked like they were ready to go out to dinner.
They introduced themselves. Not local doctors; we’d never heard their names before. Older guys.
They started to explain that while gramps was there for some other ailment, they also discovered that he had a cancerous kidney and that it would be best to remove it.
Right now. Tonight. All mom had to do was ‘sign this release we have right here’.
I protested asking if this was a good idea to do this on such a very sick and very old man. He’s already on death's door. What's the point? They countered that he might not survive the surgery but if he didn’t have the surgery it would be a shame to send him home with a bad kidney and only have to remove it later.
I then asked why this needed to be done tonight at 2AM. Their answer was that the operating rooms were not busy at this hour and they had the time and it was just a good time to do it.
Mom was from the generation that "Doctors always knew best and who are we to argue?"
And so it went.
Much to the surprise of many, ourselves included, the old man pulled through, went home and lived another several years before finally passing. He now sported a mean scar where the kidney was removed.
But now, 35 years on I’m wondering: what was this all about? We never received any information on results of the kidney, never saw these doctors again, never heard anything about it; never got a bill; no follow up at all of any kind.
My guess is this: These guys somehow came across a very old man who was on the brink of death….and someone out there needed a kidney.
Karma?
I’ve often mentioned my grandfather in this forum; he was quite a character; one of the last Victorians. Thanks to the efforts of his father and his own grandfather, he was born FI, which afforded him time and access. In his early life he was quite the bon-vivant with many interesting and influential friends but in his old age became a cranky old man and needlessly miserly to the point of obsession with a dash of cruelty thrown in. He lived his entire life on Boston’s North Shore and died quite wealthy for which this heir thanks him.
He once had lunch with Henry Ford, met Ponzi and had been at Boston’s Coconut Grove nightclub the night of the tragic fire. He was well connected enough that mom and her brother never went for a driving test, or even applied for one; he just came home one day and handed them their licenses, and during the WWII rationing, strangers actually came to his house because he had so much extra meat, butter etc, he was giving it away.
He had a thousand fascinating experiences. Here's two of them:
Part I: 1942-ish
He was out bar hopping one night with a well known surgeon friend. At one stop, a man approached and in broken English explained that his father/brother/friend was very ill and could the doctor come and see him. Drunk as skunks, the two of them went to the man’s house and the surgeon determined that the man needed surgery.
After acquiring the needed supplies, the surgeon introduced my grandfather as “Dr [name], my anesthesiologist” and told gramps ‘just do what I tell you’ (with ether?).
They laid this guy out on his kitchen table, opened him up, took out his appendix/gallbladder/whatever, sewed him up and, each grabbing an arm and a leg, hauled him into a nearby bedroom and…back to the bar. That was it. It was surely a different time.
I asked him once what happened to the guy. “Oh, I know he lived….he came back to the surgeon a few weeks later and thanked him! I really didn't think he'd make it. I really didn't! Haw, haw, haw”.
Part II: 1989-ish
As he entered his late 80’s the old man’s health began to fail and he ended up bouncing back and forth to the hospital over a series of age related issues.
On one particular time in the late 1980’s, he was in the hospital for one thing or another-- around a quarter to two in the morning, my phone rang. It was my mother. She had just received a call from a doctor asking her to come to the hospital right away.
I picked her up and our first reaction was that gramps was quickly fading and it was time for him to be ‘surrounded by family’ as they say.
We were in for a surprise.
When the doctor called my mother, he told her that he’d meet her at a specific door in the back of the hospital; not the usual entry door. Odd, but at that hour we weren’t really thinking too clearly. We parked where we were told and the doctor himself was waiting at the door. Again, a bit odd, but….
He led us into a lounge type room that had a few couches and some comfortable chairs. Today, it might be called a ‘family comfort room’.
Here’s where things got very weird in hindsight but at the time, well, we just didn’t know what we were doing.
All the lights in this lounge were off except for a table lamp next to a couch. Sitting on the couch were two other doctors who were joined by the one who greeted us. At the time, the fact that they were fully dressed in business suits (including one with a bow tie) didn’t seem strange but now, thirty years later you had to wonder what these three were doing at 2 in the morning all dressed up. They looked like they were ready to go out to dinner.
They introduced themselves. Not local doctors; we’d never heard their names before. Older guys.
They started to explain that while gramps was there for some other ailment, they also discovered that he had a cancerous kidney and that it would be best to remove it.
Right now. Tonight. All mom had to do was ‘sign this release we have right here’.
I protested asking if this was a good idea to do this on such a very sick and very old man. He’s already on death's door. What's the point? They countered that he might not survive the surgery but if he didn’t have the surgery it would be a shame to send him home with a bad kidney and only have to remove it later.
I then asked why this needed to be done tonight at 2AM. Their answer was that the operating rooms were not busy at this hour and they had the time and it was just a good time to do it.
Mom was from the generation that "Doctors always knew best and who are we to argue?"
And so it went.
Much to the surprise of many, ourselves included, the old man pulled through, went home and lived another several years before finally passing. He now sported a mean scar where the kidney was removed.
But now, 35 years on I’m wondering: what was this all about? We never received any information on results of the kidney, never saw these doctors again, never heard anything about it; never got a bill; no follow up at all of any kind.
My guess is this: These guys somehow came across a very old man who was on the brink of death….and someone out there needed a kidney.
Karma?
Last edited:
He must have been a tough old guy!
