Now, if I were interviewing a student, that kid would be at the top of my list; smart, honest, a real go-getter. Fortunately, that is not part of my job description, so I get to leave that to someone else, someone wiser and a heck of lot better judge of character than me.
I am convinced that medical schools don’t really care about our true motives as pre-medical students. They just act like they do. They ask all the right questions and set us up to hear exactly what they want to hear.
“So, Mr. Profeta…who is your hero?”
“Well, sir, that would be my father…blah, blah, blah…worked eighty hours a week pushing a broom…blah, blah, blah…first to graduate…blah, blah, blah.” But they know all of our answers are well-rehearsed bull (except that my dad really is my hero, he just doesn’t know what a broom is). What they want is to see if we’re prepared with our bull; have we anticipated their questions, what quality of verbal vomit can we regurgitate at a moment’s notice? Are we quick on our feet, can we handle the pressure, are we driven to succeed, are we a reasonably honest person, is there a home detention bracelet strapped to the ankle, can we speak English? You see, they know something that we as young pre-med students don’t know: that saving a life changes you forever.
They know that once a patient holds you in their confidence, thanks you, and relies upon you, they leave a mark. They chip away at your ego, they whittle away at your greed, and they chop down your self-centeredness, leaving you a physician. Medical school is the equivalent of army boot camp; it can take the most dysfunctional high IQ prick and turn them into a person of character. I know, because I was one of them.
If there is one thing that I have learned about doctors it is that we for the most part are honorable people, out trying to do our part to make the world a little better. In most instances we deserve the respect we are given. We truly care for our patients, cry when we make mistakes, and thank God when we and our patients triumph. We spend hours away from our families, answer phones in the middle of the night, and stay late. We miss ball games, Girl Scout meetings, and school plays. We apologize constantly to our family and friends for being absent from weddings, bar-mitzvahs, and milestones in our children’s lives, often for people whom we do not even know.
So, we may not all start with the best of motives or the purest of intentions. But, over the course of our careers and our lives we are touched so often by the souls of our patients and by the hands of God that we become what we never expected to be…servants of the almighty and the guardians of compassion and human dignity.
Chapter Seventeen
Uncle Al
The prisoner section of Wishard Hospital is a small window into a world few of us get to see outside of TV crime dramas. It is a medical theater of loud drunken obscenities, desperate addicts, and beat-up street fighters. It is the temporary refuge of sick prisoners and those acting sick to get a respite from prison. It is handcuffs and leather restraints, big security guards, and black polished firearms that match finely shined boots. The clanging of chains grating across bedrails creates a strange wind-chime symphony to accompany the electric tones, door alarms, and pagers. I always thought the medical students in their sharp white coats and innocent faces stood out in stark contrast in this ward, something like a daisy on the battlefield of Gettysburg.
“Profeta,” he said abruptly, staring at my name tag. “You related to Al Profeta?” His voice was tense, stern, and accusatory. The other medical students, attending physicians, and residents stood aside, awaiting my response. The man in the four-way leather restraint was strapped to the bed, a lion waiting to get a once-over by the vet.
“Yeah, I am . . . he’s my uncle,” I said slowly, deliberately, showing not an ounce of fear. Anger welled up inside of me at the thought that this might be one of the sons-a-bitches that shot my Uncle Al. That’s when a huge grin broke out over his face, revealing a smile that was missing several front teeth.
“I’m Maurice!” he said jubilantly, with a really big emphasis on the ‘Mo’. “I used to be his bag boy; you tell him Maurice said hi . . . you tell him, you hear? I love yoh uncle; he’s a good man . . . now don’t you forget . . . that’s Maurice,” again he emphasized the ‘Mo’. I patted him on his strapped-down arm and laughed.
“No problem, Mo. I’ll tell him.” I walked away smiling.
“A friend of the family?” asked my attending physician. All the other residents and students laughed as we walked down the hall to finish our rounds.
Uncle Al, my dad’s older brother by fifteen years, is a proud member of Tom Brokaw’s ‘Greatest Generation’. A few years back, in the corner booth of a Bob Evans, I talked with Uncle Al about his war years, something he had never really done before. He seemed ready and perhaps relieved. Like other young men of the 1940s, he entered the army to save the world from Fascism. Assigned to the 97th Division, he was shipped overseas to serve as a replacement for infantry in the 5307. In time he found himself in Camp Rangar in northern India, and he was later sent to fight the Japanese along the Burma Road as part of the fabled Merrill’s Marauders . This simple man from Indianapolis was soon thrust in the middle of some of the most intense fighting of the South Pacific, assigned to operate a .30 caliber machine gun against heavy Japanese resistance. The Japanese would usually attack at night and my uncle would unload his weapon into a sea of tracer fire, unsure of whom he was actually shooting at. In the morning he would awaken to a field of dead Japanese soldiers.
Over a plate of eggs and buttered toast, he recalled how when night fell, so much changed for the soldiers of the Burma conflict—a kind of comfort to chaos. The sounds of Japanese military vehicles clanging on the cobblestone Burma Road would cause a call to man the .64 caliber mortars. Al and his platoon would rain down a barrage of exploding ordinances toward the sound of the convoys, leaving burned-out Japanese vehicles and the accompanied dead to line the road. Many nights he spent hunkered down in foxholes only to awaken and find that incoming artillery had missed his hole by only a few feet, sparing him from certain death.
“Uncle Al, were you scared? Did you think about dying?” I inquired, looking into his face for a sign of fear or regret that I never saw.
“Noooooo,” he laughed. “I never even thought about getting killed myself. It just didn’t cross my mind.”
“What about the Japanese prisoners, how were they treated?”
“There were no prisoners . . . we killed them all,” he replied matter-of-factly. “We killed them all.”
In some ways he seemed to have a sense of nonchalance about death, when it came to the survivors. They were just hell-bent on doing their job: showing up, saving the world, and getting the hell back home. Uncle Al, like many of the old-time vets, just walked through life with an attitude of ‘If it’s my time, it’s my time’. They were there to do their duty, to fight for a greater good, and their lives were expendable to achieve it. And if they survived, it was all the better.
After the war, Uncle Al found himself back in Indianapolis. He did not capitalize on the GI Bill and enroll in college, something I think he regrets. Instead, he settled down. In 1950 he married Becky, the girl he met at a bar-mitzvah in Cincinnati. They raised two children: a daughter, Sandy; and a son, Larry. With the help of his father, he opened a small grocery store on the near west side of Indianapolis (near 30th and Rader). It was a predominantly white, middle-class neighborhood. But in time that would change, and he would become the only white grocer in the middle of a working-class, predominantly African-American neighborhood. A Pepsi Cola sign with its dark letters, “Profeta’s Market”, stood out on the white cinder block and black tarpaper-roofed store. As the years passed, Al and his wife Becky along with their children became valuable members of the community. He kept his prices fair and low, often providing credit to the neighborhood poor. He lived a simple life and enjoyed simple pleasures. Having survived the war, I think he felt, as did most vets, that the rest of his life was like a free dessert. I’m sure he also felt that
he had dodged all the bullets and bombs he would see this lifetime. On Halloween night, in October of 1963, he found out he was horribly mistaken.
The Holiday on Ice show was in town and Uncle Al, Becky, and their two children had tickets. It was at the Coliseum, still a fixture of the Indiana State Fairgrounds. The show was enjoyable but Larry, then twelve years old, was upset that they were seated so high up. Larry noticed that there were empty seats down lower and implored his parents to move down. I think Al thought it was like cheating and wouldn’t let him. Besides, he had paid for these seats. They stayed put and stayed alive.
For the 4,000 or so spectators, it was a graceful exhibition of the art of figure skating: smooth, seamless, and free flowing. Toward the end of the show, two explosions—caused by a leaking propane tank in a concession stand that blew up—sent bodies and severed limbs flying though the air. This turned the white ice into a frozen lake of charred human remains, concrete, and blood. Until the smoke cleared, Al and Larry thought it was all part of the show, some odd pyrotechnics. In all 74 people died and 400 were injured. The vast majority of the dead and injured came from the section where Larry had wanted to sit and had begged his father to move to earlier, the rows which now lay strewn with the mangled and the dead.
As they exited the Coliseum, they passed a man lying near the exit whose legs had been blown off. And for a moment, I can imagine Uncle Al felt he was back in Burma dodging bullets and ducking for cover. They found a young boy crying hysterically at the entrance. They took the child’s hand and walked all around the Coliseum trying to find his parents. In time, they were found living and healthy. The reunion was emotional as expected. Al reflected very little on his near miss with death: He went on with his life. Grateful to be alive, he returned to the responsibilities at hand: raising his children, being a good husband and a good Jew, and running an honest business.
I loved it when Dad would take me to his store. I was amazed at how he seemed to know everyone’s name that came into his small grocery. He would always be engaged in sarcastic banter with his customers. It was so clear to me, even then as a child of nine or ten, that everyone liked . . . no, loved this man. He had this old potbelly stove at the entrance. The wooden floors smelled like cold meat fat, and there was one of those pop machines as you entered that had a tall line of glass bottles. You put your coins in and pulled at the rough bottle top with a great deal of force to remove the sodas from the rollers. If successful, you were rewarded by an ice-cold grape or orange Nehi; it was frigid, frosty, and very satisfying, much like my Uncle Al.
For years, Uncle Al ran this small dilapidated store, scraping out a living that he supplemented by running numbers and buying and reselling lottery tickets from Illinois; something that, in all honesty, served as a form of entertainment for the community. Even though the neighborhood experienced the ravages of urban decay, drugs, and crime, he chose to stay and fight the good battle. The honest, hard-working people in the area depended on him for their groceries and the simple home supplies and hygiene items of everyday living. The big grocery chains weren’t climbing over each other to build in the area, and most of the people relied on public transportation to get them to and from work, and to their doctors and banks. Having to take the bus for a simple carton of milk would have been both expensive and inconvenient. But they could walk to his store, interact with their neighbors and feel part of a community, of something greater than themselves. It was not just Profeta’s Market; it was Everyone’s Market. But in 1981, all of that changed when three men from Chicago shot Uncle Al, beat up his son, and robbed the store and the neighborhood of two of their most prized assets: my uncle and their market.
“This is a hold-up . . . open the safe,” they shouted, pointing guns at my uncle and cousin who were the only ones in the store at the time. Uncle Al actually laughed. “What safe? We hardly have any cash, even by the end of the day.” He smiled defiantly. A friend had heard the commotion over an open phone line and notified the police. They were there in minutes, surrounded the store, and called the robbers out. Unfortunately the robbers panicked; one of them pushed my uncle to the door as a human shield, telling the police to get back. Then, for no reason at all, in clear view of his own son, he shot Uncle Al in the side with a .357 magnum revolver. The bullet passed clear through him, knocking him to the ground. This good man who survived WWII, an explosion at the Coliseum, was now dying on the floor of his own store in the middle of America’s heartland thousands of miles from the Burma Road.
The police lobbed teargas into the small store, and the robbers eventually fled the building. They were arrested. Al was evacuated by medics to one of the regional trauma centers; he told the paramedic that he didn’t think he was going to make it. I suspect the medic probably thought the same thing.
I was in high school when this occurred. I was called out of my classroom and told to go home right away. On my way I flipped on the radio, WIBC to be exact, just in time to hear, “Profeta shot.” I hit the gas and flew home. To my relief, both of my parents and sisters were in the driveway. A few hours later, we knew that all would survive; it was a tremendous relief.
I am convinced that this man is unbreakable. Not only did he survive, but the .357 caliber slug missed all his vital organs as it passed clean through him. However, it did leave him with nerve damage, some chronic pain, and was enough of a disability that he could not carry on as the neighborhood grocer. Larry tried to maintain the store, but the work and frustrations of a small grocery were just not worth the effort. Thus, these three outsiders, who knew nothing of this man and his community, ended up stealing from everyone who lived there. Two years later, with a mixture of sadness and relief, Al closed the shop, gave all the food away to his former customers, and walked away with his memories and his life.
Al is an amazing man. I am not sure there is anyone who appreciates being alive as much as he does. His face is almost frozen in a permanent smile. I tried to mimic it once, and it hurt my face. My facial muscles have just not been cut and chiseled with the same degree of life optimism as his, though I am still trying to exercise those muscles on occasion.
Uncle Al is still living and kicking at age 82. He told me his goal is to be the oldest living WWII vet. He recently drove his car underneath a semi-trailer, shearing off the roof; but, of course, he walked away without a scratch. He works a few shifts in the old neighborhood at one of the area liquor stores and sees some of his former customers. Once a week he has lunch with the detective that pulled him from the store. He works out a few times a week at one of the local health clubs, and every Sunday you can find him and his friends, of which there are many, bantering about at Bob Evans Restaurant over breakfast.
A few years ago, Al buried his wife. When he talks about her, he still cries. I ask him if he has any regrets in his life and he says, “Just one: that my wife is not alive.” Her passing, his wartime experience in Burma, almost dying on the floor of his market, and the Coliseum tragedy, all seem seemed to have led to one of his more intriguing activities. Al has taken on the sacred role of cleansing the bodies at the local Jewish funeral home, one of the greatest mitzvahs (good deeds) in Judaism. Why is it such a good deed, you may ask: because the dead cannot thank you. It is a wonderfully gentle and fulfilling deed. I have done it myself. You bathe and clean the body, scraping and removing all the dirt; you chant the customary prayers that have been recited for thousands of years, gently wrapping the hands, the feet, and the body in soft white cotton cloth. It is a very pure, gentle, and fulfilling offering. I think it’s his way of thanking God for life, giving back to a God that has given him so much and has spared his own life so many times.
One of my favorite recurring questions asked in the ER is: “Profeta . . . are you related to Al Profeta?” It is typically an older African-American patient or their family.
“I am,” I reply. “Did you use to live near 30th and Rader?”
They always smile and say, “Sure did, used to go to his store.” Thi
s was followed by, “Good man,” or “How’s his wife?” and “What’s his son up to?” Or perhaps, “I remember when he was shot . . . what a shame.” Then, of course, it’s always followed by “Ask him if he remembers . . .” or, “Tell him I said hello.”
I always look at them and give them an exaggerated, squinty-eyed smile and ask, “Don’t I look like him?”
They always laugh and say, “Yeah, you do . . . you sure do.” That’s one of my favorite complements, one of the things I am most proud of in my life . . . being Al Profeta’s nephew.
Chapter Eighteen
It Doesn’t Take a Brain Surgeon to Raise a Child
I hate soccer. Mind you, I appreciate the athleticism, the strategy, and the endurance required to play the game, but I still hate watching it. I think what turns me off to the sport is the animated, rolling around in sham-agony that accompanies the attempts to draw a yellow card or red card or credit card, whatever they give out. Can you imagine what the sports writers in this country would say if our professional football players writhed around on the turf like that every time they were tackled? The fans would crucify them. Imagine how Yankee fans would act if after getting hit on the arm by a pitch, Johnny Damon fell to the ground, grabbed his hair, curled up in a fetal position, only to have two guys with a vintage World War II stretcher haul him off to the dugout. He’d have the crud beat out of him the first time he set foot in a Bronx bar.
Having an ER doctor for a parent must be tough on my kids. I don’t get too alarmed, and after a busy day of listening to other people’s complaints, the last thing I want is to hear the same noise at home. But alas, that’s part of being a parent….right? I know that sounds kind of harsh and maybe a bit uncaring, but I am sure I am not alone. I’m certain many people with stressful jobs—the police officer, the school teacher, the guy that polishes the nuclear warheads—have a hard time putting it away and changing hats. I’m one of those. But my field of medicine offers a unique insight into the mind of an injured child.
The Patient in Room Nine Says He's God Page 10