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Tuesday, July 20, 2004


3 Things of Note
 
Yesterday afternoon, we had another guy come into the ER cause he fell on his head.  This is beginning to become a sad epidemic.  The fella's intracranial pressure was so high that they had to get a monitor in there right away, called and ICP monitor, so they could keep track of it and know what meds to give him.  With his wife not there, no one else to call, and nothing pressing to do, I decided to stick around and watch this surgical procedure.  The neurosurgeon was there because he needed to do it rather than the nurse, so I just stepped out of the way and watched.  First, he cleaned the guy's head up and put this sterile agent on it.  After draping the surgical field, he got out a scalpel and made a small incision in the guy's head, which began to bleed bright red blood.  I was amazed at how easy the scalpel slid right in.  No pressure necessary there.  He then got another scalpel looking object (this one long and pointy and not so much like a knife as a spear)  and stuck it in the same hole, and twisted!  There was a funny scraping sound.  Thinking that was it, I was impressed at how easy it was to stick this monitor in.  But, oh no, that wasn't the half of it.  He then picks up a drill.  Not an electrical drill or anything with a battery, but one that comes complete with a hand crank!  Inserting the bit into the head, he began to crank, which made an unpleasant sound.  Satisfied the hole (now bleeding more) was sufficient, he removed the drill and I was ok with that until a chunk of skull came out.  Gave me the willies.   He then promptly stuck in the monitoring device and sutured up the excess incision space.  Took all of ten minutes.  The drill is rather precisely measured, I found out, to make sure it goes just the right distance.  All in all, it was a good experience, and I was pleased the surgeon allowed me to watch and ask questions.  This hospital is pretty cool.

Number two thing of note is that today was all Advocate CPE day - a fun day off work, spent socializing together down in Millenium Park.  They had a new exhibit there, a rather cool one, of 100 portraits of different families from around the globe.  This German guy, Uwe Ommer,  spent four years traveling around the world photogaphing families and now, 100 out of 1000 are on display in the Park.   It was a very cool exhibit.  Each portrait had a little blurb about the family underneath it to give you some context, which I thought was fun.  I think it's a cool idea and I really envy this guy for getting to go to all these cool places.

Finally, the crowning piece of the day.  I can now say I've had a Constitutional right infringed upon.  After lunch, which we had in the cultural center enjoying some live jazz, and after all but three people had cleared out of the cafe, the 50 or so folks there with us prepared for our closing worship service.  About three quarters of the way through the service, a woman who worked there approached, somewhat hysterical and says in a loud voice that we had to stop immediately and that we had to either sit down or leave.  Some of our leaders went aside with her and talked it out, which only made her more hysterical apparently.  Well, most people filed out, but this sort of thing gets my blood boiling.  So I stuck around for a minute with about six other people.  I approached the woman and asked why we had to leave and, I shit you not, she said to me, "This is a public space and you cannot do that here," [emphasis all her's].    So, I pushed her (verbally) a bit, and asked what "that" was.  She said, "Gathering like that, here."  I continued, along with some colleagues, and said, "Are you telling us we cannot pray in a public space?"  She said, "Yes."  So, perhaps thinking that the building really was not public space I tried to inquire if it was and she insisted that it was public space.  It was then that we, one of us being an attorney, introduced the U.S. Constitution into the discussion.  Several security guards had now approached and looked somewhat silly trying to be menacing with their sports jackets and sewed on faux-badges.  (After having Israeli soldiers point machine guns at me and demand passports, these guys were way low on the intimidation meter.)  This woman, who was clearly trying hard not to lose it, told us to stay right there and that she would be back.  Our leader insisted we were allowed to be there because we had attained prior permission; the woman fled, presumably to get her boss, or maybe the police, who knew.  She comes back with her boss (to bad too, cause I was all ready to have this discussion with a cop) who was much kinder and explained that we had to arrange to use the space for public gatherings beforehand.  We said we had.  He wanted to know with whom.  We didn't know the person's name, because our leaders had gotten fed up/tired of/frightened by the encounter and went outside, I guess cause they didn't want to cause a disturbance.  But I was totally ready to cause this particular disturbance.  Unfortunately, not knowing the name of the person who had made the arrangements seriously hurt our case, becuase this new guy was sort of on our side and needed to know who he needed to hold accountable.  So, we reiterated that it was our Constitutional right to both gather there, in a public space, and to pray - gosh darn it, right out loud if we wanted to.  He gave us his card and thanked us for coming, apologizing for the disturbance and encouraging us to write to him with our concerns.  I said, "Ok.  Expect to be hearing from me," and the same was uttered out of several mouths, the attorney's not being the least of these.  We then said we were going to finish our prayer service, right there, and then we would disperse.  I gave to him a copy of our prayer service so he could get a flavor for what our prayer was about and reflect on it in light of his employee's behavior - interfaith prayers for the whole human family, celebrating our diversity, differences, similarities, and communion with all of God's creation.  I do intend on writing a letter of inquiry to him to find out what this was all about.  I am going to give him a list of the things we did, an account of what this lady told/yelled at us, and a query as to what we should have done if we were, in fact, in any breach of the rules.  Public spaces, as far as I know, can be used for gatherings of any kind, so long as they are peaceful.  If permits are required, such needs to be posted or in writing somewhere where it can be seen and read by the public.  Such gatherings can be used for prayer purposes, as follows from the same Amendment, 1.  Depending on the reply I receive, should I receive one, I will determine the next best course of action.  If the reply is unfavorable, a letter to the editor of the Tribune is definitely in order, followed by moving right on up the chain of command all the way to the Mayor's office if need be.  We'll see, but right now, I am still just flabbergasted at the entire experience.  Why do wild things always happen to me??

-R


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