I’ll Be Seeing You

Here I am at the Cleveland Clinic, of all places, where they have the best doctors, for some of the sickest people in the world. Kings, sheiks, movie stars fly here from all over the globe, seeking cures for ailments that others can’t help.       

My first appointment ever at Cleveland’s LeBron of medicine.  And I’m a little apprehensive even though I’m not really sick.  Never liked hospitals or doctors.  Too many bad experiences as a kid.  My mind had long ago been infected was unpleasant memories. I had drifted into day dreaming of as we rode down the hill toward Carnegie.

       Didn’t sleep well the night before, since the appointment was very early. Much too early for me. My daughter was picking me up for the short drive down the hill, and will join me for the session. “Patients” are invited to bring a significant others. So I’m bringing Susan, a wonderful human being, and a marvelous giving, caring daughter.  I am so lucky, I thought. I was up, wobbly but wide-eyed by four thirty, dressed by six, and somewhat awake well in time for the arrival of my ride.

           As we approached the pink granite pyramid like Crile building that has become the centerpiece of this amazing campus, I marveled at how it has changed the face of “Uptown” Cleveland, as we used to call it. (107^th and Euclid down to 79th St.)

           If anything has changed radically in this town, it has been this neighborhood. Once it was ablaze with nightclubs, movies, hotels, the Alhambra bowling alley and pool hall, the Trianon Ballroom where our high school fraternity had sponsored Tommy Dorsey band and kid singer Frank Sinatra.  Lindsay’s Sky Bar, where Nat King Cole played with his trio, well before he was a famed singer on his own.  Where I hung out on Army furloughs during the War. Every sign of life you can imagine

       Now it is an impersonal looking industrial type complex of stone and steel and glass buildings for the sick, the very sick and the dying. A new kind of Cleveland that no one thought they would ever see in our town. Not in my day, at least.   

      As we turn right At E, 100^th off Carnegie, I am fully awake.

I spot the sign for valet parking. Seven bucks. Worth every penny, I decide, as I notice the massive parking garages in every direction.  Not for me, not this day. Perhaps not ever. I hate parking garages. Incessant going around in circles. Not my style.

  A very courteous young man gives me a ticket, and drives off in the car, a red coated door man with a gray beard showed us the entrance…”Just like five star hotel” I murmur to Susan as we walked into the lobby and headed for the elevator.

          The directions said the seventh floor, and there we were.  A large sign above the airy glassed in waiting room declared “Head and Neck institute”. I was not impressed.  Are we in the right place? I wondered.  Went to the desk and gave my name to a nice woman who might easily have e been my next door neighbor.  Yes Mr. Weidenthal, they will call you in a few minutes.

          Exactly at eight two attractive young ladies, appear in the lobby they read out several names including mine.  “Come this way”. Eventually we are in a Conference room. Five of us, each with a companion, and maybe eight people in white coats, representing perhaps five specialties to talk to us about our illness, “Tinnitus” it is called everywhere in the United States except Oregon, where they call it Tin-night-is.  They do everything different in Oregon, says one of the white coats, with a smile. Tinnitus is a  constant ringing in the ear and in the head. Twenty four seven. Can be very annoying at best. At worst, life threatening. Some victims have chosen suicide rather than a lifetime with the noise.

 This is the Clinic’s Tinnitus Management Clinic, one of the few in the world.  We went around the room, each describing symptoms and injuries or medications that might have caused it, and how it was affecting their lives. Each with a different story. Some extremely debilitating. Mine, possibly related to firing an M-one rifle in the war, some ear damage that had become worse with age. Clearly I am not suffering as much as the others who had come from all over the country.

Dr. Scott Bea

         “No cure,” was the report of the experts but plenty of ways of dealing with the symptoms and perhaps some physical issues that make it worse.  Has to do with attitude, mind over matter.  We’re in good company we are told. Dwight Eisenhower, Barbara Streisand, Paul McCartney, even Beethoven. All have been sufferers, we are told.

          The last presenter was Dr. Scott Bea, the psychologist on the team. A handsome, dark eyed fellow with spiked hair. He was sitting in the back, holding what appeared to be a large pointer for his power point presentation. But it wasn't a pointer. As he stood up it snapped open into a long white cane. Like one used by the blind.  He made his way to the front of the room slowly, trying to avoid obstacles. I moved my chair quickly to prevent him from tripping.

   It turns out he has been going blind for the past twenty years.

 Has taken the RTA to work for all those years.  Most people wouldn’t tolerate that with such verve. “You train your mind to accept”, he explains.  He cautions that the brain wants to play tricks on your mind.  Like that ringing, often caused by some damage to the fibers in the ear.  You notice that when you get busy you don’t hear it, or when there are other distracting sounds or thoughts you may not hear it.” He says, "I have trained my brain to react positively to my blindness."

 We learn that he has three “beautiful” children a lovely wife, a good job. “I am 47…it’s a good life.” What he does professionally is called “Cognitive Therapy”.

After the group session we each meet individually with the specialists.  The audiologists, the physical therapist, the dentist, (yes, teeth can cause it.) The neurologists, and finally the blind psychologist.

        “Great seeing you”, were the first words out of his mouth as he grasped my hand. “I get the impression that you are a pretty creative, upbeat person,” he said.  At the end of the short session he said, "I’d happy to see you again," as we walked out the door after our meeting.

          My first thought, “he wants to SEE me again”.  He wants to SEE me.

I focused on that as we drove home. About his taking the bus, standing in the snow and rain, the awful smell of those buses.  The indignity of it all and yet this man says he is happy.

For some reason I started humming that tune from the 40’s that I shared almost daily with my high school sweetheart during the war.

 “I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places that your heart and mine embraces all day through. In that small café, the park along the way, in every little summer’s day, I’ll be looking at the moon, and I’ll be seeing you.”

          When I got home I realized that I had not noticed the ringing during the drive. Not for a moment. My brain had been tricked into overriding it.  And for those precious moments I was winning the contest with Tinnitus.  And I thought, maybe, just maybe I’ll make an appointment for Dr. Bea to “see” me again.  Soon.