Progressive Ponderings: Peering out from under the cover of the bedpan

by Joe Mayer
December 11, 2011

Joe Mayer is a retired high school teacher and coach living in Rochester, Minnesota. In 2004, he was the initial Democratic candidate for Congress in Minnesota's 1st District, now represented by Tim Walz — like Joe, a former high school teacher. Because of health reasons, Joe had to drop out of the race, and was replaced by another candidate.

I was born a white male Christian (Catholic) in the wealthiest country in the world. Little did I realize that my maleness, whiteness, Christianity and U.S. citizenship were privileged positions. My macho do-it-yourself middle-class status in the U.S. also afforded me an economic position above 99% of my fellow world citizens.

On May 12 of this year my body, by means of a stroke, informed me that I had a lot more to learn about life and about how those other 99% of humanity live. Those who the world habitually considers of lesser import were now necessary for my every daily need — to move, to eat, to bring and remove a urinal or bedpan, to bathe, to dress, to read, to write, and sometimes to communicate in any fashion.

All of a sudden the lower, serving classes became the most necessary and important. My personal attributes, for which I had once taken credit, meant nothing. The world looks different when imprisoned in a body that no longer recognizes commands nor impulses sent from the brain.

I was fortunate. My stroke occurred at home in the locale of my teaching colleagues and students and the Mayo Clinic. My wife Elaine and two other women were with me when the stroke occurred. We all recognized what happened as soon as I couldn’t move my left leg. An emergency vehicle transported me to St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, within twenty minutes. This probably saved my life.

Two days after the stroke came my 76th birthday, and by then all eight of our children were home to visit, along with many of our grandchildren. In the early therapy sessions, the younger ones enjoyed beating Grandpa (in a wheelchair) playing volleyball with a balloon. Having led an active community life, I had a wealth of visitors while some of my hospital roommates had scarcely any. Family and friends divert one’s attention, help pass the time, and are pleasant reminders of better times.

Stroke recovery is both slow and a roller coaster ride. A resident of the hospital for approximately one month, my days consisted of physical therapy, occupational therapy (relearning dressing, bathing, and independent living functions), and speech therapy — better called communications therapy since the stroke barely affected my speech, but I could no longer read or write adequately.

Left-neglect, not recognizing things on my left side, was a result of my stroke. I failed to see food on the left side of the tray. Every day we were given a menu of the next day’s offerings. Elaine would read them to me and then circle my choices. One day she handed it to me and said, “You can do this yourself.” What an awakening! The first item I circled was “spaghetti,” except that my circle didn’t include the first two letters on the left, the “sp” of the word. This is when I recognized my need for communications therapy. It was also about this time that I first started writing my last “pondering,” now finished six months later.

Also my speech therapist asked me — a former teacher and coach — why I “wasn’t interested in physical therapy.” I was surprised! But this seemed to be the consensus of the therapists because I didn’t look at them while they spoke. I would have come to the same conclusion if my students and athletes had treated me the same way. Unaware of my behavior, I concentrated on eye contact, and my relationship with the physical therapists changed immediately.

Elaine and I are in sync with our spiritual lives, so when reading was still difficult, she would read aloud spiritual works of mystics and contemplatives. The TV was off most evenings: news and commentaries were too depressing. After nearly six months of political blackout, nothing seemed to have changed and this political junkie lost interest.

The good fortune of having my stroke in the city where I had lived most of my adult life was especially evident when I compare my circumstance with the wounded soldiers in war zones around the world, far from family, who have few visitors from their units or none if moved to a medical facility far away.

I was reminded of this recently when the local newspaper printed the story of Jim, a Vietnam War triple amputee — both legs and left arm. He is a former student and somewhat reluctant football player of mine, now a successful businessman living in Florida with his family. Imagine what physical, mental and emotional trials Jim had to overcome. When I was still teaching and coaching, Jim returned to address my students. He was kind enough to thank me for the discipline he learned in athletics, which, he said, helped him in basic training and his recovery therapy. The benefits of teaching often arrive in unexpected places.

By the way, Jim’s picture was in the paper that day while he was deer hunting in a county park. Tom, another student and ballplayer of mine and now our County Parks Superintendent, had arranged this hunt for veterans.

Today, as veterans return to civilian life, they don’t know if a job will be available, whether their homes will be foreclosed upon, whether their state or city will be funding schools for their children, whether engaging in politics dominated by money will yield results, whether capitalism’s winner-take-all philosophy will allow them to support themselves or delegate them to simply stand with other veterans for  photo op before returning to the unemployment lines.

History is replete with stories of armies of youth serving the wealthy and of slaves building pyramids and cathedrals for the wealthy and powerful.

The past seven months have been a physical, intellectual, emotional, psychological and spiritual rollercoaster.  There is always another setback. How did I, a successful, self-assured guy end up in the offices of psychologists and psychiatrists for evaluation and counseling? Life looks very different when viewed from over a bedpan.

Two weeks ago, Elaine and I threw away hundreds of pages of notes I had planned to use to write future ponderings. Each pondering I wrote for the past six years was supported by five to fifteen pages of notes with red ink in the margins. In my current condition, that much research is not likely in the future. And so this will be my last “progressive pondering.” If my health, psyche and emotions continue to improve, I plan to begin a new series, "Spiritual Reflections".

Blessings and peace! And to all you Ninety-Nine Percenters around the world, don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop!