an angry stroke patient

I met Mr. L. multiple times when he was an in-house patient in a rehabilitation hospital and later in his outpatient therapy sections. He needed these rehabilitation sections to recover after a severe stroke. Having an extremely hard time coping with the sudden decline of his health after his stroke, he was frequently angry. 

As a man in his early 50s, Mr. L. has a fine figure and impressive big eyes. Although I could not say that Mr. L.is remarkably good looking, I would call him vivacious. But he always frowned, and had bad attitudes towards almost everybody.

According to himself, he was a card game dealer in the MGM casino next to National Harbor. He has been a game dealer for more than 10 years, and has been working in grant casinos in Las Vegas. He said that since the weather in Las Vegas was too hot for him, he and his wife moved to Virginia this year after he got his new job in the MGM casino in hopes of having  a better life in the east coast. He was on probation for four months before he could sign a formal contract with MGM.  Two months into his probation,he had a massive stroke which significantly weakened his right side. Since he was not an official employee of the MGM casino yet, he had no health insurance. His company only paid a certain amount (maybe $5,000) of his medical bill out of humanitarian concern, and let him and his family pick up the remaining cost.

Obviously, the cost for his treatment was colossal, and it was impossible that his family could afford it. In this situation, the INOVA health care system in Virginia, where he got his treatment, offered charity care for him, so that he could continue his treatment in the rehabilitation hospital. It was supposed to be a good news for him, but he and his wife, who looked like the only family he has in the USA, still worried about how long the charity care would last, what would happen if the term of charity care terminated, et al. Once, he asked the physician who was making rounds about these questions for about 10 minutes, and the physician told him that he did not have the answers for them, and he needed to ask social workers about these questions. At that time, his wife was on the phone, and tried to ask the physician the same questions. Because it was very difficult for them to accept the answers given by the physician, the conversation lasted more than 10 minutes. 

Although I thought he should be grateful of the free treatment he received in INOVA, he was highly irritable and would get angry whenever he could not have his needs fulfilled immediately. For example, one day, an occupational therapist asked if he wanted a shower, and he agreed. But, in fact he only wanted to have his hair washed. When the occupational therapist wanted to wash his body, he was enraged. Later, he demanded that the occupational therapist only washes his hair, not his body. Another time, a physical therapist asked him to exercise walking. For some reason, which could be that he would prefer to  exercise his arms, he became angry and yelled that he was dissatisfied with this therapist, and would not work with her any more, and required another therapist. The therapist said he already fired several therapists, and she was not unhappy about not working with him. He would yell at me from time to time. I remembered that once I wanted to get more information from him because I did not fully understand what he meant, he became agitated and said all I need to do is to translate what he said, and it was not my place to ask more questions.

 I felt that the main source of his anger was that he could not accept his condition. He frequently babbled that he was so healthy and never needed to see doctors, how could he suddenly have such a severe stroke.  I thought that he never went to see his doctor was one of the causes of his stroke.  In fact, he was not as healthy as he thought. He had high blood pressure, which was not controlled by medication, and diabetes that he never knew. In addition, he had been a heavy smoker for decades. Because of all these factors, he got a stroke in his early 50s. Now, he promised that he would do his best to control his high blood pressure, diabetes and quit smoking in hope of never being sick again. But I thought it may be too late for him.

After a couple of months of rehabilitation, Mr. L. could walk well with a walker, but still had problems with his balance. Also, he had major problems with the function of his right arm and hand, which means that he could not control his hand well enough to deal cards. Therefore, it was impossible for him to keep his job as a card dealer, and that of course became another major source of his frustration.

Although I could understand his frustration and empathy about his situation, I could not accept his attitude. He was grumpy all the time, and it looked like the whole world owed him. But in fact, his carelessness and ignorance of his own health led to his illness. He has mainly himself to blame. All the people in the rehabilitation hospital, including therapists, nurses and physicians, were trying to help him, and he had no right to act on his frustration and take his anger on them. It was unfair.