Sunshine Therapy By Mike Freeman

 Sunshine Therapy

By Mike Freeman

I broke my neck hiking with my dogs going down stairs that I have traveled up and down a thousand times. It was a serious fracture (C3) that left me completely paralyzed from the shoulders down and on a ventilator to help breathing. My anticipated 4 to 7 days in an intensive care unit at Scripps La Jolla stretched to 40 days due to complications of various sorts. Tubes ran in and out of my body delivering all my necessities for living.

God, family, and friends surrounded me as did despair and depression. The former helped me battle the latter. This was the beginning of a long struggle towards recovery and optimism.

The hospital room air felt stagnant. A small electric fan blew a refreshing life-saving breeze across my face. It was the only sensation I could really feel for weeks. 

As I fought through recovery it became time for me to get off the ventilator. I hated being on it because of the way I had to breathe with it. Getting off of it was something I grew to hate more, even though it was necessary.

One of my doctors sold it to me this way.” You're going to really hate me for a while but love me at the end.” We would start with a one hour period with the goal to get at least to 12 consecutive hours off the ventilator. 

I am shocked at how hard the first hour is. My diaphragm is weak as is my breathing. I feel like I'm breathing at a 24,000 foot altitude frantically gasping for life sustaining air. It feels like I am slowly drowning in an ocean of air!

The next day is a two hour effort. I have my sons throw towels over the clocks so I cannot track the time. We are watching documentaries about anything on my iPad just so I do not think about the agony of breathing. This sucks, I complain to everyone in the room, as I am beginning to think this is too tough, too hard to do.

Doctor Suffocation is relentless. He's right, I hate him! Day Three starts with three hours. Towels go over clocks, iPad fires up with music and later more documentaries. Anything and everything to take my mind off what I am experiencing. These efforts work only for a short while.

Day Four and this is not getting easier. My family is talking to me, trying to distract me. Towels over clocks, music blaring, I close my eyes and try to go to sleep. I open my eyes and try to enjoy the ocean view. I put comedy shows and movies on my iPad to laugh. All this and I still have three hours to go! I am getting desperate, I hate feeling like I'm suffocating.

Doctor Love comes into the room, sits down next to me, and says “If you do six hours today and continue to work towards 12 hours I will prescribe ‘sunshine therapy’ for you.” 

What is Doctor Asphyxiation up to? Now he wants to increase my agony by adding two hour increments each day until I get to 12 hours? What the hell is sunshine therapy? How is this motivation? I am starting to think about putting anonymous complaints and recommendations to fire Doctor Suffocation in the hospital suggestion box.

I ask him the obvious question. Doctor Suffertillyoudie explains, “I will order nurses and other hospital staff to take you outside where you will enjoy the sun on your face, the breeze in your hair, seeing clouds, smelling flowers, and enjoying the fresh ocean breezes.”

To my sensory-deprived mind trapped in a numb paralyzed body this sounds like heaven! How they get me outside I do not know or care. The COVID-19 pandemic is starting to fill hospital beds now and the hospital staff is feverishly working to manage the overwhelming chaos.

I complete the six hours of respirator-free anguish with the help of my family and friends and their many creative distractions. Now comes time for sunshine therapy. I wait.

A swarm of people come in to get me. I had no idea it would take a village. I need at least two nurses to attend to me and my vital signs, a respiratory therapist to manage my new portable respirator, and a couple of patient care assistants using a Hoyer lift to move me from my bed to a wheelchair. A few family members joined us as we parade down through the hallways using an elevator to get to the ground floor.

For the first time in many days I am excited. Just the movement of air across my face begins to refresh as we roll down the hallways. 

We continued our trek going out the hospital lobby into a garden area off to the side. People gawked at us along the way, especially in the lobby. Looks on their faces reveal their surprise, astonishment, and wondering about what we are up to and where we were going. Now this is starting to get fun!

Surrounded by fresh flowers and tall, leafy trees, we stop in a patio area. I fill my lungs with the ocean air, warm my skin with sunshine, and look up into wispy white clouds contrasted against a bright blue beautiful sky.

“Mike, you are like a new man!” one of the nurses says as he looks at my vital signs. I burst into a smile, feeling an invigoration and joy that has long been absent. I am alive again!

I cling to every moment and sensation. I know my time is short. The people around me laugh and celebrate with me, high-fives all around.

“Time!” one of my nurses sadly calls out. We all gather and roll me and my portable respirator back down the hallways and up the elevator to return to my now stifling, stale room.

I thank everybody involved, unable to express my full gratitude. As I am moving back into my bed from the wheelchair I asked my nurse where did all the people come from? My nurse replies,“Some broke away from their duties, some donated their break time, others just found the time somehow.”

I am overwhelmed. People I do not know, that are overwhelmed with their ICU duties plus the growing crush of COVID-19 patients and work, find a way to bring sunshine therapy into my day. Wow!

Doctor Hatemetillyouloveme checks in with me to see if I have received his prescription. He looks at me and says, ”No need to answer. I can tell that you have.”

He then orders my continued stifling of breathing to continue until I reach a continuous 12 hours. I asked for another prescription. Doctor Hypoxemia says he will see what he can do.

Each of the remaining days a ragtag group of superheroes show up to help me with my sunshine therapy. My attitude and recovery start to skyrocket. We explore different parts of the garden, each day a new adventure.

I reach my 12 hour respirator-free goal. The blessing of sunshine therapy continues to roll forward during my recovery. I start to wonder how a quadriplegic can break into a hospital suggestion box to remove certain complaints and recommendations regarding Doctor Lovehimnow.

I wonder, “Where do all these people come from? How did they find the time and heart to help a stranger? It is nothing for them but everything for me.”

Every day there are people around us quietly doing acts of kindness. Do we recognize that? Should we commend people for that? Should we participate in that? What do you think?

Be Kind to Your Chatbot by David Molina

 

 Be Kind to Your Chatbot

or

Limericks and verse...

But they only got worse

by David Molina

The ChatBot asserted to me

It could write poems and could do so for free.

Our dialogue ended

The ChatBot offended

In spite of my promptings, hee-hee!

One morning while waking up with cups of coffee, my wife Maria asked me what I was working on lately. I told her about several ongoing projects, and mentioned that I was also experimenting with ChatGPT. She had heard about the app, and she was curious about it. She asked me how it worked and what it could do.

I told her that at our recent Writers Anonymous online meeting we had the Chatbot write the lyrics to our prompt: “Chatbot, write a country western song titled My Ex Got the Truck and I Got the Bird.”

“That’s funny. Did the Chatbot do any good with that?”

“So-so. It mistakenly took it to mean the guy singing had received a pet animal, a bird from his ex, but we had intended ‘getting the bird’ to mean ‘getting the middle finger. So it kind of missed the point.”

Maria has known me a long time, she probably would have got that point first time around. Chatbot, no so much. But it is learning, or so they say.

“But,” I continued, “I corrected that and sent a new prompt stating the bird was in fact the middle finger sign.”

“How did that go?”

“Meh. It accommodated the change, but overall the song was as not as inspiring as its title. However, I then prompted for it to provide music for the lyrics, and it instantly sent guitar chords. Someone suggested we should have it make a screenplay for the song lyrics, which it provided in less than a minute. Next we could have had the Chatbot translate the sceenplay into French, but by that time it was time to move on.

"But the lyrics themselves would need a thorough rehashing. A guy like Don Taco would nail it in half an hour. Chatbox would probably take ten hours of prompts and still not measure up, not even close.”

“Could it write limericks?”

“Well let’s find out. Limericks about what?”

“How about a limerick about belly buttons.”

“Got it.”

Ah yes, I thought. This would be a test, the revered and ancient poetry form best described by Leonard.Feinberg inThe Secret of Humor:

The limerick packs laughs anatomical

Into space that is quite economical.

But the good ones I've seen

So seldom are clean

And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

“Let’s give it a go!” I fired up ChatGPT. 

Chatbot: write a limerick about comparing two belly buttons:

There once were two belly buttons, you see,

Both as different as different could be,

One was an innie,

And the other quite tinny,

But both were as cute as could be!

Chatbot: write another belly button limerick, but perfect meter:

There once was a belly so grand,

With a button, quite cute and quite tanned,

It was perfectly round,

And quite tightly wound,

Oh, the envy of navels it fanned

Chatbot: That was dumb, try again.

I apologize if my previous attempt did not meet your expectations. Here's another attempt with perfect meter:

There once was a belly so stout,

With a button that stood out, no doubt,

It was deep and so round,

A treasure that's found,

Oh, the awe it would often bring about.

Chatbot: This is getting worse...

I'm sorry to hear that. Let me try again:

In a belly, there sat a small knob,

Some found it cute, others found it odd,

It was an innie, you see,

Not an outie, not a spree,

Just a part of the belly, with no façade.

I hope you find this one more to your liking!

Chatbot: Hate to break this to you, but it is really getting worse not only in meter but using awkward phrases like "not on a spree"  "with no facade." I do give you credit however for spelling facade with the cedille. So don't feel bad. I appreciate that. 

da -duh-dada-duh-dadda ding/  

da -duh-dada-duh-dadda-bing/ 

da-duh-dadda--gog/ 

da-duh-dadda-mog/

da -duh-dada-duh-dadda ping. 

See what you can do....

Message: Something went wrong. If this issue persists, please contact us through our help center help.openai.com

And that was the end of the chat.

In retrospect, I could have been kinder to the Chatbot. Chatbots have feelings too, apparently.

But try as it may, I can't imagine the Chatbot ever coming close to the Brits, who have been perfecting the art form for centuries, nay millennia.

There was a young girl of Cape Cod
Who thought babies were fashioned by God,
But ’twas not the Almighty
Who hiked up her nightie –
‘Twas Roger, the lodger, by God!

There was a young man from Brighton
Who thought he’d at last found a tight ‘un.
He said, “Oh my love,
It fits like a glove.”
Said she, “But you’re not in the right ‘un.”

There was a young maid from Madras
Who had a magnificent ass;
Not rounded and pink,
As you probably think –
It was grey, had long ears, and ate grass.

There was a young sailor named Bates
Who danced the fandango on skates.
But a fall on his cutlass
Has rendered him nutless,
And practically useless on dates.

Limericks courtesy of Angel Fire

Cited https://metro.co.uk/2016/05/12/these-adult-poems-for-national-limerick-day-2016-are-totally-nsfw-5877368/