There
was one experience which we could never forget during our stay in the US.. One
of my Japanese friends who stayed in the same town in the same period as we
did, had a son A, 4 years old, who unluckily contracted the pneumonia of a special
kind called “empyema”, a condition characterized by a collection of pus in the pleural cavity caused
by some bugs.
In this condition, the pus which accumulated in the pleural space should be
raked out manually, of course in a open-chest surgical procedure, in order to
prevent a condition where the pleural cavity is totally stuck by the glue-like
pus which would never allow a smooth friction between the chest wall and the
lungs. (The smoothness between the inside of the chest wall and the surface of
the lungs is necessary for a healthy future growth of these organs as the boy
grows up later.) My heart went out to A’s parents who not only were concerned
about their son’s grave condition but who needed to deal with everything, from
taking their son to the medical service needed, but also getting ready to their
son’s surgical operation which costed considerably, communicating with
necessary people involved in a language that they are still not accustomed to.
Anyway,
what impressed me was that A’s parents stayed (or, actually “lived” in A’s
bedroom throughout his stay for two weeks as though leaving A alone in a
hospital environment. It was just a miracle that the hospital allowed them to rent
a cot for A’s father while allowing A’s mother to sleep next to the boy, which
can cause all kinds of problems of sanitary, safety or administrative reasons
nowadays). When A’s parents told me about their story, later on, they mentioned
an impressive story of a girl, 4 years old who happened to have the same
condition, i.e., empyema, who was hospitalized in a same period as A in a room
just across the hallway. Her American parents, quite naturally visited their
daughter for a couple of hours in the evening and went home, which was rather
typical way that the American parents would do. (When I had a chance to do a rotation
in the resident program in a pediatric unit, I never saw any American parents
of their offspring, “living” in their bed room.)
