When The Brain Shifts Into Neutral

First published in The Camden Chronicle December 27, 1989

Why is it that when the human body is placed in a state of enforced idleness, the human brain belonging to that body insists on going into neutral also? In the eight weeks since a heart attack and a subsequent bypass operation rendered me more slothful than an inchworm crawling on a mulberry leaf, my mind seems to think it has every right to a period of recuperation, too.

I mentioned this to my sister. She says the answer is simple: when the body is idle, the brain has no reason to do anything other than idle along with the rest of the crowd. She may be right. When I was working, it seemed like every day two or three ideas would bang inside my head without any effort on my part. Not all were good ideas, certainly not all were original, but they kept bumping around against each other inside my mind, sorting themselves out, until finally, at the end of the day, they would settle down into one pretty good thought to ponder and write about.

A few days ago, after the woman I consort with made her way to work, I sat alone at the kitchen table gazing out the window watching a small flock of birds gather around the chimney stack on the roof of a neighbor's house to keep warm. They reminded me of  how the kids in my family used to flock around the wood stove in our living room on a cold morning, first warming one side, then the other. Moving in and out, occasionally squabbling about who had the better position.

At the table, on my second cup of decaf, it seemed like the perfect place and time to grope for new ideas, so I gave myself an assignment: sit at the table for 30 minutes or until an idea I'd never thought of came to mind.

"Don't read, don't ponder, don't even answer the phone if it rings. Come up with one thought that is original."

In 30 minutes I could not. Oh!! It occurred to me to research the reason Chinese people like rice and Irishmen prefer potatoes, why our fingernails grow as long as we live but our teeth do not, why God made some birds that can fly and some that cannot -- is it because He has a sense of humor after all? You might want to take this up with your doctor or your preacher or even your hair-dresser.

Maybe I'm just in a slump, but it seems to me that the body's action begets brain action. That's why I'm looking forward to the time I can do more than walk five or six blocks a day. I want to go among the people to, as the big time writers say, interact and inter-relate. My body is healing, but my mind is atrophying. I'll sure be glad when I can get them working on the same level.

In the Liberty Column of the next issue was a comment from Andrea Madden, whose husband, Walt, was Jim's cousin.

"A message to Jim Parker in Michigan. We really did enjoy your article in last week's paper, about the 'brain' going on a leave of absence during the months after surgery. Don't worry not fret, just let Norma do your 'thinking' and everything will be OK. My better half says he went through the same feelings of 'limbo' in 1984 and here it is 1990 and not much improvement, so don't worry about such minor details!!! Just knowing that friends and family are there to guide you along will help." 

Affairs of the Heart

First published in The Camden Chronicle November 15, 1989

If I have been abnormally quiet lately, it is because of affairs of the heart. No!! Not that kind of affairs of the heart. I'm still living at the same address, still consorting with the same woman.

The heart affairs I'm talking about are the kind that wake you up in the middle of the night with pains in the chest. There's a quick ride to a nearby hospital where they do an EKG, compare it with one taken last year during a regular check up and announce there have been changes in the graph. Then, on to Intensive Care for 72 hours.

After this, I'm transferred to another hospital where a four-way heart bypass operation* is performed. Oh, the wonders of modern science!

Twenty years ago, I probably could have looked forward to spending the rest of my days in dull servitude to pain and shortness of breath. Instead, my surgeon tells me that in three months or less, I can go back to work.

The surgeon is a remarkable person. He breaks open the chest in much the same way that a coal miner breaks open the earth to extract ore. The surgeon and miner know exactly what they are looking for: the miner has his eyes out for a seam of coal, the surgeon is looking for the heart valves that are plugged, the ones he must pass. When he fines them, he strips a vein from the leg or other part of the body, cuts it into short pieces and sews them into the heart to bypass the blocked section.

The patient, of course, knows nothing about what is going on inside his body during the operation, which is a good thing. This patient would have died of fright if he had been aware of what was happening during surgery.

The first 48 hours after surgery, the patient is treated in much the same way as a wood cutter treats a log. There are so many pipes, valves, and wires emanating from the body, the patient looks and feels like a cut of wood before the small limbs are trimmed off.

Vital signs and bodily functions are checked constantly. Doctors gaze and grin, proud of the work they have performed. Nurses poke, prick and pluck, taking blood, smoothing bed clothes, and speaking encouraging words to prevent the patient from lapsing into a blue funk.

Therapists come three times a day to beat the patient's back. This is to keep congestion from building up in the lungs; pneumonia is always a post surgery danger with this kind of operation.

On the third day after surgery, I'm transferred to a ward with three other patients like myself. Now the monitoring becomes much less severe. I'm permitted to walk to the bathroom. This is progress. The pipes, valves, and wires have been reduced to two lines and a tube which is built on wheels and rolls with me as I walk.

After five days in the ward, I'm sent home. I slept better, felt better and thought straighter.

My doctor says he's pleased with the progress I've made so far. But it is slow at best. Patience has never been one of my virtues. There is only one word that can be used in a family newspaper to describe this confinement. That word is ORDEAL. All other descriptive words border on profane. I'm glad it's over. I'm glad I had it done. But I sincerely hope you never have to go through it.


*Editor's note:
The terminology sounds a little archaic now, but in the 80s, when the surgery was new, this was the common term for a quadruple bypass in the area of Michigan where Jim lived.