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Patricia Burden

Spring 2009

Medical Narratives

Pop Pop vs. Vernon Woods

The American Heart Association speculated that one American life is taken every

two minutes by Sudden Cardiac Arrest, SCA. At least 53,693 people have died so far this

year from (SCA) and 300.000 die in the United States on average every year. Every time

I hear this on the radio by the American Heart Association, I roll my eyes because it’s not

something I can relate to. I didn’t know those people so it didn’t matter to me. The closest

person I even knew to have so much as high cholesterol was my grandmother and she

was in great health. Little did I know I would be paying more attention to those

commercials than I thought.

Vernon Woods, my grandfather, stood at 5’8 was a light skinned black, Irish,

white mixed man who ruled with an iron hand, yet he was always lenient on the children.

He became so popular with all the kids he took care of his nick name on the block was

uncle babe. His devotion to his wife is so unmatched they have been married for 54 years

argued everyday and said I love you every night. Granted it wasn’t as picture perfect but

it was real. His everyday chosen uniform was a crisp white cotton button up shirt freshly

ironed by my grandmother (Sally Wood) every morning. It smelled lightly of starch a hint

of tobacco and a lot of love. The only way you could distinguish between his event and

regular day clothes was if he had on a tie or not. He was also very particular he wore

sunglasses no matter the occasion and kept his toupee sharp. I’ve never seen him without
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his hair and he made sure it stayed that way if he could help it. I am his favorite and he is

my pop pop.1

I gave him the name Pop Pop; when I was younger I spent the most time with my

grandparents because my mom had to work and my dad wasn’t around so much. I loved

the time I spent with them because my grandparents spoiled me so much. Once a week

my grandfather took me and my grandmother to a restaurant of my choosing. One day

during the summer we pulled up to the driveway of a local restaurant of grandma’s

choosing for once. My grandfather and Grandmother got into one of their infamous

arguments where Pop Pop closes his arguments with “my mother said; “if you want it

done right you will do it yourself’”. After being fed up with the argument I blurted out

“okay mister Pop Pop we’ll do it your way.” He laughed and that broke the entire

argument and from that day it stuck. Apparently that’s not the only thing that got stuck

with him.

It just started out as a blood clot in his leg, a minor blood clot that caused him to

pass out. A minor pass out that landed him in the hospital for weeks. I didn’t understand

when I was told that. How on earth could my Pop Pop be in the hospital he doesn’t even

get sick? If he can survive caner he can survive anything. He’s almost as impermeable as

those Chuck Norris jokes. All I could imagine was tubes coming out from every available

part of skin and a pale limp figure like that cancer patient from Terms of Endearment.

(Yes I watch lifetime all day long) A week after I had heard I went to go see him. It was

rather funny because he was more worried about my coming from New York to

Philadelphia over him than I was about seeing him in a hospital.

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Grammatically if he is deceased then I would use past tense but I still love the man who is still my
grandfather.
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Much to my relief it wasn’t as bad as I imagined. However I was not expecting

the huge black scar from where they split his legs. They had to split it in both sides to

release the pressure in his leg and to remove the clot. He still had on his toupee and was

as grumpy as before. But something about him still made me worry. In the room grandma

grandmother went out the room to speak with a nurse and Dennis went to get something

to drink.I turned to the bed and smiled at him genuinely as he looked up at me. In a

monotone voice he told me he’s been through some bad things in life but for once he was

in bad shape. I couldn’t believe this man was saying this to me. I don’t believe the man

hat jumped off aunt Lily’s end porch, fell, got back up, and smiled at the age of 80 be

saying this. He can’t ADMIT HE IS SICK!!! That would mean that he was sick and

furthermore mean he was human.

He was soon released and had to do lots of physical therapy to get the strength

back in both his legs; this made me happy and further solidified the fact in my mind my

Pop was indestructible. Little did I know I would soon be eating my words.

It was around Christmas when he finally came back home. I really wanted to see

him but I work in a movie theater and unless you wanted to lose our job calling out was

not an option. Our last conversation was he asking me if I could come and see him for

Christmas, and I said no. he told me he would be looking for me anyway. Two days later

he went back in for pneumonia. When I received that news I was in shock and very angry.

“How do you get pneumonia from a blood clot? Aren’t hospitals supposed to make you

feel better?” Just when I thought it couldn’t get and worse he went into sudden cardiac

arrest. That was one of the few times I saw my mother cry.
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Major Risk Factors that causes SCA is coronary artery disease or CAD which much

of the staff could have overlooked. Most people don’t know they have CAD until

SCA occurs which means while he was in the hospital for pneumonia they were only

treating his pneumonia until SCA occurred and CAD soon followed. The scary thing

about SCA is the stealth of this disease to be so silent it slips past doctors.

The doctors are not sure to look for it because its usually found in people without

a prior known heart issue. Quite frankly when your 64 years of age in a hospital their

main concern is your breathing. Many people who have SCA also have a silent, or

undiagnosed, heart attack before SCA happens. These people have no obvious signs

of heart attack, and they don't even realize that they've had one. The chances for

having SCA are higher during the first 6 months after a heart attack.2

I decided to go visit him and brought my boyfriend Dennis with me incase I

needed support. I’m so glad I did on that Tuesday afternoon. We arrive at Einstein

hospital and I check in with the secretary whose knows his room number by heart by the

heavy visitation volume. I went to the fourth floor of the ICU as before expecting him to

be as he was before, just sleeping. Room 4130 just a few rooms away from room 4140 I

cant wait to see Pop Pop I thought to myself I was briefed only of the fact he hasn’t

woken up yet. I looked in every room and saw the patients hooked up and in the dark I

feel sorry for him but not as sorry as the man who caught my eye. Like a premature baby

fighting for its life. Bald and hooked up to so many machines tape and tubes everywhere,

damn I thought to myself, I’m glad that’s not my grandfather.

Now off to room 4140, I slow and realize that man that caught my eye was in

room 4140. They must have moved my grandfather I m thinking. My aunt happens to call
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All bullet points are from http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/scda/scda_whoisatrisk.html
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me when I ask her again which room Pop Pop was in. “4-1-4-0” she says and I think

WHAT LOTTERY IN HELL DID I JUST WIN? I collapse into my boyfriend’s arms

sobbing as i'm realizing that’s him, that man that’s never took a sick day in his life is now

hanging on for his life. At the moment I was inconsolable, the nurse asked me if I needed

to be admitted because I was showing signs of a panic attack.As I stayed in the hospital

with my grandfather I felt some sort of disconnect with him. How is the man known as

uncle babe on the block for taking care of every kid in sight now needing such intensive

care? He laid there drifting in and out of consciousness; I watched his mind float like a

hollow log bobbing up and down as thought it drowns every other second with the rising

tides.

Every time he surfaces back and opens his eyes I grasp for his prolonged

consciousness, I only for it to be snatched away by an extended blink. “He’s brain dead”

they tell me “he’s not dead” I tell them. Nurses stream in and out of the room checking

his pulse reapplying band-aids spreading that fake smile as part of the generic bedside

manner they learned. So transparent, you can’t hear their sub conscious saying; “ok EKG

reading, check, and smile to patient’s guest, continue with the lubrication of trachea area,

take 30 minute lunch, ask patient if he is ok, and smile back at guest, exit, and pass

progress notes to next nurse.”One nurse stops to brush his teeth in the middle of the day I

watch her as she roughly turns his head to face hers, creasing the smooth perspiring skin

on his forehead. “Take it easy” I whimper out to her, she barely hears me and continues to

scrub and rinse his mouth. She says “all clean now Mr. Wood:” she says as if he isn’t

incoherent. Who is this Mr. Wood person I think to myself, that’s Pop Pop that’s the man

who fought in Korea the grandfather that helped nurse me back to health when I had
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pneumonia. Don’t they know who they are touching? This man never hated a soul and

they can’t give him the decency of proper care giving. It is statistically proven a patient
3
will respond more positively if taken care of with actual CARE.

Among the key findings in the Caring Today survey:

‘Sixty percent of the caregivers called the experience "very or extremely rewarding," a 50% jump over the
number of caregivers who thought in advance they would find the experience "very or extremely rewarding." Nearly
80% (78.8%) percent of the caregivers found the experience to be at least "rewarding," an increase of more than one-
third from initial expectation. A majority of the caregivers-nearly 54%-formed a stronger bond with the patient during
the time they were together.– (National Survey of Caregivers | Caring Today." Caring Today | Practical advice for the
family caregiver | Caring Today. 18 Mar. 2009 <http://www.caringtoday.com/press-releases/national-survey-of-
caregivers>. )
One of my older cousins, the preacher, of whom I haven’t seen in a long time

showed up as I was still holding on to him. When he looked at me I could see the sadness

and sincerity in his eyes which is unusual for him because I always thought him to be of a

stoic nature. He has always been very quite yet belts it out on his Sunday sermons; I

believe he just bottles his energy to let it explode and manifests it self in jesus, or

something holy to that affect. He struggled a prayer out to my grandfather that if he could

hear, he’d hear every other word due to my sobbing loudly. He gave me a warm hug, in

the embrace I remember silently wanting him to call God up on a personal favor for me,

he let go and then said good by to my boyfriend and Pop Pop. Later my aunt came in to

check on PopPop trying to wake him up. She is also a nurse but all that protocol that was

taught went straight out the window when she greets Dennis and tends to her father. I

watch her watch her hands and head over to hi asking him how he’s doing. It’s the tinge

of vulnerability in her voice that sounded so familiar it made every action towards him

more satisfying than the nurses’ because you can feel her connection in massaging his

hands and arms.

3
Berkel, La Verne A. "Care/Care giving." Key Words in Multicultural Intervention.
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Not because it’s necessary for her to do that in order to manually help stimulate

the circulation process from the medial cubital to the radial and ulnar veins; but she was

massaging the arms and hands so they won’t get sore when playing Transformers with

D.J. (His grandson) hopefully those hands will not be sore when digging into her

specialty peach cobbler that he shouldn’t be eating in the first place. The massage was in

how maybe he can feel her, feel us, and know we haven’t gone anywhere.

When I came home my mother and I were comparing notes about our trips to see

Pop pop. On both sides we tried our hardest to filter out all the gloom and doom in our

stories; because the truth is he hasn’t been progressing since our visits. She was telling

me about a song grandma sung to Pop Pop and how she forgot the words and passed off

some butchered melody of “Stand by Me” as his favorite song when we all know it is

“What a Friend”. The visibly confused look on my face made my mother laugh while I

reached for the phone to set grandma straight. Somehow this ended up being a 30minutes

singing battle between me and grandma with my mom on the floor laughing so hard tears

are literally streaming from her eyes. You should already know I won the battle. That was

the first time in a long time we got around to laugh like that. It felt good to have the one

memory we can all agree on is he loved his songs. We can also agree he loved us and had

his own special moments with us even though I was the favorite and he let everyone else

think they were some type of favorite. Even DJ was a close second but I knew him way

longer thus ruling me the favorite.

I start thinking about DJ a lot and I realize I was honored enough to have my

grandfather all the times I needed him throughout my entire childhood and growing up

which I often times took for granted. I never met my grandmother because she died
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before I was born but I was left with a grand trinity. (Pop Pop Wood, Grandma Wood, and

Grandpa Burden) the only permanent memories are probably going to be with him in a

wheelchair if any. Then I thought it’s my duty as well as the rest of my family to remind

him always of his grandfather and how much love he had for him. I feel truly blessed to

be able to understand how much he loved me. That never stopped him from giving me

spankings but I still felt the love. Every time he saw me he would still swat my hand

playfully and say he owed me some more for when I was little; apparently I am still

entitled to those. Every time I could get a chance to speak to my grandmother I would ask

how Pop Pop was doing. The answer would always be, “the same” , and it was the SAME

dreaded answer and I wanted to hear “he’s progressing.”

It’s truly a bargaining process when it comes to the people you love you tend to

bargain. When his legs were split I wish it would not have had both sides split. When he

was in the wheel chair I wished it was only those two splits. When he was back in the

hospital I rather he had stayed in the wheel chair. When he went into the coma I rather he

just is in the hospital. And when the trachea needed to be inserted the coma with regular

breathing is just fine. But once he died I rather it be me.

I couldn’t wait for Febuary 18th to come around because it was my boyfriend’s

birthday and I am really big on birthdays. I kept counting down on my Myspace account,

cell phone, I pod , and personal email. I must admit I was a little selfish because he

ruined my birthday last year so he promised this year we will redo mine. In the morning I

remember listening to the Steve Harvey Morning Show, there was a commercial on about

Home Depot giving out a vacation to father of the year. I thought I should nominate my

grandfather because if he got better he would need a vacation.

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I couldn’t even pay attention in class I was counting down till I could see him

again. This was such a great day and it was so good to be true. Everything went as

planned for the first birthday we shared. We saw Coraline in 3-D and took pictures with

our 3-D glasses just laughing and not a single argument between us. I was so excited to

finally have a peaceful moment. We took the bus home cracking jokes and remembering

how this time last year my mom would have kept me home I couldn’t be any more

grateful. Actually I was kinda surprised my mom hasn’t attempted to call me but I didn’t

want to call her and ruin the good time I was having. My stop finally arrives on the bus

and we both get off. Being the gentlemen he was he walked me to my door, gave me a

kiss and continued his way back home. The great ending to the great day.

I turn my key and open the door to see some of the lights on but I don’t hear the

television which usually announces my mother’s presence. i put down my coat and call

out to her, in a few seconds she pokes her head out. I ask how her day was and she

responds “not really well”; I asked her if she was sick because her face looked swollen,

and she responds, “my dad died today.”

The way she said it the words didn’t even make sense at first. I was piecing

together, if her dad died then that means…my …Pop Pop… wait, my Pop Pop is dead!!

And how could she say it to me so casually? He wasn’t a distant relative or a friend of a

friend. How could she just throw all that on me at once? I was angry and sad so I burst

out of the house and ran down twelve flights of stairs. I needed air so bad, it felt like the

world was crashing down. I made it half way up the block to luckily see Dennis about to

catch the bus. I yelled for him but I noticed he had his music on. I proceeded to call him

on his phone and by chance he happened to look in my direction.

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We kind of ran to each other and he held me as I cried into his arms. At first I was

starting to think it was some sick joke that everyone was playing on me. But calling my

grandmother defiantly confirmed it.

While talking with her I realized she had it all together. She told me that all along

she knew he wasn’t going to make it. She said a prayer and asked God for strength to

continue and she did. She was used to spending nights without him because she eased

into it while he was in the hospital. She was used to having to pay the bills and not iron

an extra shirt in the morning and place out breakfast. I wasn’t used to calling grandma

without a chance Pop Pop may pick up. They had a bond that quite few people

understood so when she told me that I believed her. She was really calm when explaining

to me what happened. And she was nice enough to calm me down though it was her time

of need.

Through my grandfather I met Pop Pop and through him I saw Vernon woods and

now they are all gone. Honestly I chose to keep Pop Pop in my heart and said goodbye to

the restl

. After being in denial I have finally come to terms with the loss of my

grandfather. DJ did not attend the funeral because my aunt thought it would be too

traumatic, I wish they gave me that choice. I decided to be brave and face this funeral and

just cry when I needed to. When they put him in the ground I said to myself god couldn’t

possibly need him more than me. A little after the funeral and repast was over I went back

to my grandmother’s house and layed down in the back room for a second. It was Pop

Pop’s favorite room in the summertime, because the breeze blew just right to get a good

night’s sleep. When I woke up I had to pack and prepare for school for the next day as I
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was packing I noticed his cologne on the dresser drawer. I picked it up and smelled it, it

took me back to those Thursdays I spent with him going to prayer band in the car

watching him put his cologne on then putting some on me. It was so I could smell as

good as him he’d joke. I couldn’t resist but to put it in my bag and keep it as a little

momento. When I reached home I cleared a space on the bookshelf where I put a current

picture, his funeral pamphlet and his Pinurd cologne. The world will remember him as

Deacon Vernon Wood, his kids in the block will remember him as Uncle babe. But I will

always know and love him as Pop Pop.

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BIBLIOGRPHY

Berkel, La Verne A. "Care/Care giving." Key Words in Multicultural Interventions: A

Dictionary. Ed. Jeffery Scott Mio, Joseph E. Trimble, Patricia Arredondo, Harold E.

Cheatham, and David Sue. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. 38-39. Gale Virtual

Reference Library. Gale. CITY UNIV OF NEW YORK LIBRARIES. 17 Mar. 2009

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=GVRL&u=cuny_main

"Cardiac arrest risks, heart attack, coronary artery disease." National Heart, Lung and

Blood Institute. 13 Mar. 2009

<http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/scda/scda_whoisatrisk.html>.

• "Heart test can detect risk of sudden cardiac death." The Allen American 18 Mar.

2009. 18 Mar. 2009

<http://www.allenamerican.com/articles/2009/03/18/allen_american/news/27.txt>.

• Whitten, Pamela, Buis, and Lorraine. "Use of telemedicine for haemodialysis:

perceptions of patients and health-care providers, and clinical effects." Journal of

Telemedicine and Telecare 14.2 (2008): 75-78.

• Wood, Sally Bet. Personal INTERVIEW. 17 April 2009