Taking Water to the Thirsty

Uncle Harry – On a House Call

It was July. It was hot and I was on a road I had never traveled before because I was the new doctor in the local medical group. I had been called to a home off the Red Valley Road to see an elderly gentleman who had “trouble with his leg” and couldn’t come to the office.

Armed with a large house call bag, clean and unscarred, I set out. I turned toward Thompson Products water tower and carefully searched for Rehoboth Methodist Church. There were no road signs and the folk giving the directions knew few landmarks. I felt like the unsighted must feel using Braille with a few dots missing. Finding the church, I went straight and followed the narrow, tortuous, roller coaster ride for the next several miles. Along the road were scattered houses and a couple sizeable dairy farms.

I was in search of Uncle Harry and had been furnished no house number or exact road. So, I knocked on doors until I found someone who recognized the name. He directed me to a dirt road, which was to take me to where Uncle Harry was living. The single lane followed a tree line along a hayfield for several hundred yards where I found a ramshackle cabin that appeared to be held together with cardboard and tarpaper. In the front yard were a couple of old vehicles, one of which was propped up on cinder blocks, the other marginally roadworthy, with much of its body lost to rust. Two men were sitting in the shade on metal chairs talking and smoking.

I stopped, got out, opened the back door of my car and pulled out my telltale house call bag for identification. The men stayed in their chairs and nodded; one called out a name, which lured a woman, perhaps in her thirties, and a dog with German Shepherd genes, from behind the house. Thankfully, he seemed disinterested in a fresh doctor.

I confirmed I was the doctor and they confirmed that Uncle Harry lived here and was in the backroom. At six foot three, I ducked my head and bent my knees a bit to get through the front door. I entered a narrow hallway; the room to the left appeared to be the kitchen. I followed the lady to the backroom, marveling at the black wallpaper on the ceiling. Then I realized the “paper” was moving. Flies covered the newspaper-reinforced ceiling.

Feeling smothered by germs and filth, I slipped through the narrow door of the back room where I found Uncle Harry propped on a low-slung cot. A sweet, sickening aroma seemed stalled in the air, as there was no ventilation. My sensibilities were stretched to the limits of tolerance. There I was, a young doctor with limited experience in making house calls, fresh out of the clean, crisp world of the U.S. Navy, feeling as though I was now deep in the heart of squalor of an African village.

Trying to be positive, I introduced myself and made attempts at humor, which fell flat. So, I gathered fragmented information regarding Uncle Harry’s condition and social situation. Uncle Harry slowly offered pieces of history in a low husky voice, his throat clogged with thick mucous, and the lady filled in some gaps. It was clear she was a very reluctant caregiver and was shifting his burden to me. Large holes in the medical history existed.

As it turned out, Uncle Harry was an elderly man with no interested relatives. He had lived alone in the neighborhood for several years working on nearby farms doing odd jobs until his leg prevented his ability to work. His sister’s middle daughter and boyfriend had recently started “dropping by” to “take care of him.” They decided Uncle Harry needed a doctor and I wanted a mask or space suit and fly spray and help.

In the dimly lit room, I lifted the bandage of paper towels from his right lower leg, causing flies to swarm up from the site. Most of the shin area was red and raw with a black, necrotic margin. Maggots were slowly wiggling and crawling on much of the wound and they were doing a fine job of cleaning out the dead tissue. (The use of maggots to clean a wound is a trick well known to surgeons, but in controlled circumstances.)

I did not ponder long; Uncle Harry showed evidence of dehydration and malnutrition, and he was in a tenuous state of health with the probability of other out-of-control disease processes. Unskilled, distant family was unable to provide helpful care and his “living quarters” were unbelievable.

I put on gloves, bandaged the wound as best I could, and drove to a nearby house to call for an ambulance to take this sick, neglected, and lonely old man to the hospital.

He lived. After weeks in the hospital, with improved nutrition, corrected metabolic status and a below-the-knee amputation, he was discharged to the home of a willing caregiver some distance away. There were no nursing homes in the area and would not be for several years.

I had seen sick elderly people before, from thin to cachectic, unkempt to filthy, but had never seen where they came from. After this visit, I wanted to bathe repeatedly or pour rubbing alcohol over my clothes. I also recall wondering how many more were out there living in such hovels, mirroring situations like I had encountered that day. My initiation into loneliness and neglect had started.

This story is one which graphically shows how a person can move from physical suffering and foul existence, through state-of-the-art medical care, into the home of caring arms and, hopefully, a peaceful soul. This man is an exemplar of patterns of life followed by so many folk as they are found alone, treated medically and then placed in a bed in a long-term care facility waiting for someone to bring “water” to their “thirsty” soul. Please help us carry this “water” to the “thirsty.” They are waiting.