Another smoker story for the thread. - Holly
"Shu-Wing Schultz": Shu-Wing was a chain-smoker and one of our frequent flyers. As his name might suggest, his ethnicity defied identification. He had been diagnosed with malignant emphysema. He was only 52 years old. During my last three years in the ER, at least every two weeks he would come in via paramedic ambulance, in pulmonary arrest, this meaning he couldn't breathe at all.
We would give him breathing treatments and bring him back to life, whereupon he would bolt from his gurney and head for my office and help himself to one or two of my cigarettes. The swinging doors were still swinging and you could still smell the stuff we had given him! He was that quick! He would have had his own cigarettes with him, except they were in his shirt pocket at home, and bringing his shirt to the hospital was, understandably, of low priority to the paramedics. Just before I moved to Northern California, I told him to start pinning his cigarettes to his MedAlert bracelet, because I wouldn't be around much longer. Was that friendly advice, or what?
I kept in touch with some of my co-workers after I left, and it seemed as though every time I would talk with one of them their first words would be, "You know, Shu-Wing finally died." This went on for at least two years. Do you think they were trying to tell me something?
For all I know the paramedics could still be hauling him in to the ER every couple of weeks. I just hope he took my advice, 'cause there ain't no smokers there to give him cigarettes. That I do know. |
