We come now to “The Questionnaire”. No I’m not talking about the one that James Lipton uses in “Inside the Actors Studio” that he famously credits Bernard Pivot from his French talk shows Apostrophes and Bouillon de culture. This was a questionnaire I’d never heard before.

Alone with the nurse in ICU room 2615 she began to ask me a series of questions that she said were standard questions asked to incoming patients. Although I had been in St. Vincent Hospital a number of times, I don’t recall being asked these particular questions before. I can’t quote exactly each of the questions. There were perhaps 10 of them. At first I thought it was measuring my general emotional state. I thought they were standard psychological questions about how you feel about yourself and your situation. Are you depressed? etc. However that isn’t exactly what they were going for. They wanted to know if I felt safe in my home environment at the hands of family members and caregivers. The questionnaire I was receiving was designed to root out patient abuse.

I could be philosophical and analytical about being asked the question because they were so far outside my experience I didn’t have to stop and think about the answers. I’ve never felt at risk for abuse from anyone. We probably had 20 or 30 home health aides in the nearly 8 years that we been getting help and they’ve all been great people except for one guy who stole over $100 from my wallet. Even though he ripped me off, physically he was a good caregiver. Of course he didn’t want to call any attention to himself so he was going to behave as a perfect gentleman and a good friend to hide the fact that he was a fucking thief.

The one particular question that I do recall was “How are arguments resolved in your home?” I sort of chuckled to let them know I was joking and I said “I always win”. I wanted to reassure them that no one was acting on me against my will. I told Carol later I was being so emphatic about how I was in charge it was more likely they were going to arrest me for abusing dad then do anything to him for abusing me 🙂

I remember thinking it was a shame that they had to ask such questions but it made me feel good for the people who needed to answer those much differently than I did. Who knows it might just save someone from a very difficult situation. At least I hope that it would. Again this was so far beyond my experience that I didn’t know what was like to feel unsafe at the hands of a caregiver.

The huge irony behind all of this was that I’ve been dependent on other people for absolutely everything for over 61 years, would never have answered those questions in a way that would indicate that I had ever felt vulnerable or at risk, and less than 24 hours later had they asked me the same questions I would’ve had to answer differently. In the very room in which those questions were asked, I found myself in a situation where I felt helpless and at the mercy of a caregiver who was ignoring my explicitly stated wishes for no medically necessary reason whatsoever. We will describe what happened in a future blog post titled “The First Incident”.

To be continued in the next post…

I was going to end this blog post right here but I can’t resist the temptation to fill out James Lipton’s questionnaire so here goes…

Q. What’s your favorite word?

A. Understand

Q. What’s your least favorite word?

A. Hypocrisy

Q. What turns you on?

A. There’s this spot on my… No we’re not going there… okay let’s see… “Explaining things”

Q. What turns you off?

A. Duplicitousness

Q. What sound or noise do you love?

A. The sound of 33 IndyCars or 43 NASCAR Cup Cars going by a fence 20 feet in front of you on an opening lap.

Q. What sound or noise do you hate?

A. After a serious accident at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway when you suspect that a driver has been killed in an accident, the PA announcer (either the late Tom Carnegie or the current chief announcer Dave Calabro) comes on and says “Ladies and gentlemen may I have your attention please?” Hundreds of thousands of people go immediately silent knowing what they are about to hear next. The track announcer never asks for their attention in that way unless it is the ultimate bad news. He then goes on to say that he is sorry to report that the driver in a recent incident has succumbed to his injuries. It’s that literally deathly silence after the initial announcement and before he actually delivers the news. That’s the sound or noise that I hate. I’ve been there twice at such times.

Q. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

A. Although it’s totally beyond my physical capability my fantasy job would be a keyboard player in a rock band similar to Keith Emerson.

Q. What profession would you not like to do?

A. At one point before I discovered computing, I thought perhaps I would go to law school but in retrospect I realize it would’ve been a terrible mistake. I could never have a passion for “The Law” that exceeded “doing what’s right” but that’s what lawyers have to do all the time. They have to uphold the law even when it doesn’t always lead to the truth or to justice. I could not do that.

Q. Lipton asks “If heaven exists what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?”

A. First of all my fear is he would say “Chris we have this computer virus we’d like you to take a look at.” But what I hope he says is “Well done.” Either that or “Go back… You’ve still got work to do.”

Note however the original version from Pivot which was feared offensive to American audiences was “If God exists, what would you like Him to tell you when you’re dead?”

Q. I think a more interesting question would be “What will you say to God?”

A. I would say “Thanks for everything.”