Between the years 2003 and 2008 was some of the hardest times of my life. For a year and a half, starting in 2004, I lived in a room in a small motel near the corner of Nebraska Ave. and Hillsborough Ave. in one of the the tougher areas in Tampa.
Royal Palm Motel
I had just begun a new job as an architectural designer and was saving for a better place to live. While I lived at this motel, I met a lady named Lisa Wells. She was the motel's maid and I frequently found myself engaged in conversation with her while she was cleaning my room. During the time I was there, Lisa and I become very good friends. She often spent evenings watching the scifi channel with me. She loved the scifi channel but the TV in her room had a very poor picture.
Lisa and her boyfriend were given their room at no charge in exchange for her maid service and her boyfriend did odd jobs to make money for food. Lisa seemed to me to be in her 60s or 70s, she always appeared as though she was carrying the world on her shoulders. It was obvious to me that she had a very difficult life.
I eventually moved to a small apartment about 2 blocks away from the motel. Before I moved, I gave Lisa my phone number and told her to call me any time she liked and that I'd welcome a visit from her whenever she could get away. She did drop by my apartment a couple times and I was shocked when she told me what a wonderful place I had to live in. I thought it was abysmal.
My Apartment
Several months after I moved, I began to notice that Lisa was beginning to look rather sickly. There had been a fire at the motel and she blamed her problems on the smoke that lingered in her room for weeks.
About a year later, I received a phone call from St. Josephs Hospital in Tampa. It was someone with administration asking me if I knew of any relatives of Lisa's. They had found my name and number in Lisa's purse. I, of course, asked what was wrong with her but was told only that she was in intensive care and only family was allowed to see her and know about her prognosis. I asked if I could call from time to time to see if her condition was improving and was told that it would be ok but that all they could tell me would be whether her condition was getting better or worse. For about two weeks I called every day only to be told that her condition was unchanged.
After Lisa had been hospitalized for several weeks, I received another call, this time from her doctor. He told me that they had been unable to find any of Lisa's relatives, that she had come to Tampa from Texas and all attempts to find family there had been unsuccessful. The doctor then told me that Lisa was still in ICU and had no visitors since her admittance. He gave me permission to see her if I wished. The following day I went to St. Joseph's Hospital and, before I entered Lisa's room, one of her nurses told me that Lisa had been in a coma for almost a week. I found Lisa lying in her bed, unconscious, with a respirator the nurse said was keeping her alive. They still could not tell me what was wrong with her.
I remembered Lisa once telling me she liked the Harry Potter stories so that evening I bought the first Harry Potter book. Every day afterwards, I went to see her and I'd spend an hour or more reading Harry Potter to her. I had asked the nurses there if they thought Lisa was hearing and understanding what I was reading and one of them said that it was very doubtful but they couldn't be 100% sure.
Every day I went there, I would ask if Lisa had done anything to indicate that she was even slightly responsive and was always told no. All the times I was with her, she laid perfectly still with her eyes closed. There was absolutely no movement on her part to indicate she even knew I was there.
This went on for more than a week. Then I received another call from Lisa's doctor. He asked me how well I actually knew Lisa. I told him I knew her only from my time at the motel but had had many long conversations with her. I told him that Lisa was a very religious person and a very warm and caring person. He asked me if I could meet with him and a few other people the next morning. I told him I would and he explained that I should go to a conference room there at the ICU unit. He told me they would be waiting for me and that I should just go into the room.
The next morning I went to the hospital and, when I opened the door to the conference room, I was faced with about a dozen people, including the doctor and the head nurse, who I had gotten to know pretty well. I sat down in an empty chair at the end of the table and the head nurse moved to a chair next to me, scooting the chair right up to mine. She took my hand and said, "We need to ask for your help, Glen." She introduced the others at the table. There were people representing the legal department, the clergy, social services and, of course the medical personnel. I was told that they wished first to know if I was an appropriate person to sign a Do Not Resuscitate order and, if so, if I might consider doing so. For a couple hours I was asked many questions about my friendship with Lisa, the conversations I had had with her and my feelings about what she would wish for herself. I was told also that Lisa was 42 years old. I realized that life had aged her beyond her years. When it was over, I was asked to leave the room for a short time. It was a very short time....about 15 minutes. The nurse came to where I was waiting and led me back into the room.
Lisa's doctor told me that the decision was made to ask me if I would be willing to sign the DNR order. I asked if they had considered her boyfriend and I was told that he had brought her to the hospital initially and that they had phoned him the next day to tell him what her ailment was. They never heard from him again and their efforts to find him were unsuccessful. They then told me that it was necessary to tell me her prognosis so I could make an informed decision. Lisa had AIDS and was deteriorating very rapidly. Her doctor told me that, if her heart stopped, the best they could do would be to resuscitate her and give her perhaps a few more days of life. The resuscitation though would likely cause her a great deal of pain considering the fragile state she was in. I took the papers they asked me to consider signing and said that I wanted a couple days to think about it.
I made my decision after those two days. I signed the papers and took them to the hospital. When I handed them to the head nurse, she hugged me and with a very deep sincerity she told me she understood how hard it must have been.
I told the nurse that I had to go to Lisa to tell her what I had done but first I wanted one of the ministers at the hospital to come pray for her. I went into Lisa's room and told her that a minister would be there soon. In a short time, the minister came in and said a prayer for Lisa.
That is when the unimaginable happened. I held Lisa's hand and kissed her on the forehead. I told her she was loved. I told her that I loved her. Then I told her that her God loved her and that he wanted her with him. I told Lisa that I had just talked to the doctors. As if it were yesterday, I remember saying, "If God wants you to go with him, the doctors will step aside and let you go. It's ok for you to go, Lisa"
I was in tears. I said to Lisa, "If you can, if there's any way you can, please let me know you understand and that I have done what you want me to do." Lisa, who had been comatose for three weeks, turned her head slightly toward me, opened her eyes just barely and grinned. All of these motions were very slight, barely noticeable but unmistakable and must have taken a lot of effort. Then, after a labored breath I swore was a sigh, Lisa closed her eyes. I can't begin to describe the feeling I had at that moment. I could not have uttered a single word if my life depended on it. I leaned back in the chair I was sitting in and noticed that three of the nurses were standing just outside the open door. It was an incredible moment and we all knew it. I spend another 1/2 hour or so holding Lisa's hand with my head lying on the bed next to her. Then I got up and went home.
This all happened at around 9pm in the evening. I received a phone call at around 11pm from Lisa'a nurse. She told me that Lisa had just passed away and she said, "Thank you, Glen."
As a footnote, several days after Lisa's death, a man from the hospital administration came to my apartment. He had some paperwork to finish up so the hospital could apply for medicare for Lisa's care. During our conversation, he told me that they had discovered that Lisa had come to Florida from Texas, where they could find no birth certificate and she had never been assigned a Social Security number. They could find no sign that Lisa had ever applied for a driver's license or any other type of identification in Texas, Florida or any other state, she had never had a job "on the books" and she had never been registered to vote anywhere in the country. Technically, Lisa Wells never existed but I knew she was more real than many and will never be forgotten as long as I am here. If you personally have never known a Lisa Wells, I am pleased I was able to at least introduce you to her.
As I was rereading my story before posting it here, I was in tears again. A little piece of my heart is forever broken.
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