Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics

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Three years ago, I drank myself into a 10 day coma. I had been struggling with depression, homelessness and pointlessness for several years. I woke up in a hospital room.

The staff were really very good. I must have seemed like such a hopeless case, but even though I was pretty out of it and occasionally lapsed into hallucinations, they were supportive.

For about three weeks, I think, people would periodically come to my room and just nod and watch me for a bit. I was on a watch. I had thought of suicide and had gone so far as to purchase the items I would need, but did not go through with it. Maybe my plans were too elaborate for a drunk to pull off. I only found out who these observers were afterwards when I ordered my medical records; at the time, when I asked, there was an evasion.

I also wondered aloud when the doctors visited on their rounds about seeing a psychiatrist, but as I remember, was discouraged from doing so. I wondered, because I was a professional (or at least had been), if it was easier to try to deal with me as a diabetic alcoholic, rather than as someone who could descend into a very deep isolating depression. But, nurses and doctors were evasive, and I thought it best not to rock the boat. I had no idea what I would do next, or what would happen to me. I was taking it “one day at a time,” in many ways.

When I gradually began to “return to normal,” I found that I could not walk or even stand. Everything was gone below the waist. This was pretty depressing. The diagnosis was, ‘it might get better, it might get worse, it might stay the same.”

I had nothing to lose, and apparently nowhere to go (before, I had periods where I lived in cars, or in the woods or stayed with people—now, I had to figure out how to do this as a paraplegic?) I did begin working with a physical therapist. He was tough, which was a help, physically and emotionally, to have someone to push back with and be able to be honest with. I swore a lot. It was one of those therapeutic relationships where anger and hatred, directed at another rather than oneself, came into play. Other therapists, as I got better, tried to move me on from a walker to a cane, but he shouted from across the room, “No cane for that guy.” Good thing.

After this, I went to a rehab facility. I never did find out if it was only for the physical rehab, or a further drying out process or both. No one answered my questions. I felt pretty powerless and figured no matter what it was, I should just stay put since I had a place to stay, and the physical rehab was working. But I did learn I couldn’t leave. This was a new experience; I actually, physically, could not leave (of course, I tried). I did work very hard and could finally manage, with more PT, to walk and stand.

I asked to see a psychiatrist and this time, one came. It was a good session; she prescribed Prozac. I had seen professionals before and the consensus was that of course I was depressed, life, career and family were hard, and I did not need anything.

My benefits ran out, and my PT had moved along well enough that I could leave. My “final exam” was making a grilled cheese sandwich in the kitchen with two people supervising me. Afterward, I was walked back to my room. The PT worker suggested we walk down a hallway first. At the end of the hallway was a floor to ceiling window. We stopped, the young woman turned to me, beaming, and said, “Well, Walter, you’re now ready to return to the community.” I looked out on a bleak, grey, dirty-snow, cold, 3-degree twilight evening. I didn’t see a lot of “community” out there, but at least I could pretty...