The Empty Chair on Floor 8

 

Sixteen years ago, this was our place. Now, I’m here alone.

 

Today I went to the hospital for my six-month Parkinson’s checkup. As usual, I’d rather spend a week naked at the North Pole than sit in the waiting room on the 8th floor. This is where Karen and I spent our last year together.

 

Our love story didn’t start in Paris or on a beach. It began in the neurology department of our local hospital, on the eighth floor — where Karen was being treated for ALS and I was her designated driver, note taker, and hand holder.

 

That was sixteen years ago. Now I’m the patient in the same neurology department, being treated for Parkinson’s disease. The difference between then and now? Karen’s not with me.

 

When we first arrived at the ALS center, we could tell how long someone had left by the hardware they carried. A cane meant two or three years. A basic wheelchair? Maybe less. A big motorized one, controlled by a stick in the mouth — that was the last stretch.

 

We watched people move through those stages. They watched us, too. I remember one man who walked in like anyone else. Months later, we saw him with a cane. Then a wheelchair. Then the motorized chair. Karen and I didn’t need words — we just looked at each other.

 

If she squeezed my hand in the waiting room, it was Morse code for “Look up, someone we know just walked in.”

 

The first time she needed a wheelchair, I pulled into the valet area, porters helped her out of the car, and I went to park. By the time I got upstairs, she was panicking because I’d been gone too long. “Hold my hand. And no, you’re not going to the bathroom.”

 

 

Karen wasn’t a dig-ten-layers-deep kind of patient — she focused on the top-level questions. I was the detail guy. If she missed something, I caught it.

 

Once, she had an MRI but the tech said the radiologist was gone for the day. By then, I’d seen enough MRI scans of her brain to notice when something didn’t look right. I spotted something unusual, asked for a side-by-side with an older scan, and pointed to the difference. The tech agreed and said, “I’ll send this up to the doctor immediately.” When we went upstairs, I told the doctor which old scan to pull up and showed her exactly where to look.

 

Years later, when I first came in as a Parkinson’s patient, the first person I ran into was Karen’s ALS doctor. We hadn’t seen each other in six years, but she remembered me. She asked why I was there, and I told her I’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. She said, “You were here for Karen, and now you’re here for yourself.”

Then it was time to meet my neurologist. Seven of us — the doctor, med students, residents, and me — in the exam room for three hours, running through every test so the doctor could build his own baseline. I let the students practice after he was done. If you’re going to be the patient, you might as well be useful.

 

It wasn’t lost on me that among all those people there was one empty chair.

 

Now, when I’m the patient, there’s no one to hold my hand. If Karen were here, she’d be the one taking notes, asking the right questions, noticing what I missed. She’d tattle to my doctor that I work too much, and she’d tell him how I walk the dog. She’d know when my energy shifted.

 

She’d stand next to him as he evaluated my gait and say, “He’s off,” and the doc would see it too.

 

The neurology staff rarely leaves me in the lobby. I think someone remembers me from before and knows no one should have to do this twice in one lifetime. When I arrive, they rush me to an exam room — even if it means I have to wait — just to get me out of the lobby.

 

When I leave, I’m overloaded. Karen would know the fastest way out of the building to get us into the fresh air. She’d find a bench to sit, have a soda, and decompress. I know this because I used to do the same for her. We were a team.

 

What are the odds that both of us would end up in the same neurology department?

 

As I was leaving today, I extended my hand to hold hers — only she’s no longer there.