Defying Gravity

I have a love–hate relationship with my time in the Navy. I loved the work I did in ICU and the ER, and I cherish the people I met and worked with during my enlistment. I hated the way my service ended. In hindsight, though, all the good that came from my time as a sailor outweighs the bad.

I loved caring for critical patients. I still regret not becoming a nurse when I left the Navy—especially when I think about some of my more memorable patients, like Gunny Fairchild.

After twenty-four years as a Marine, Gunny retired to Jacksonville, North Carolina, home of Camp Lejeune.

Our patients generally fell into three categories: active duty service members, dependent spouses and children, and retired veterans. Most of the vets landed in ICU after heart attacks or complications from chronic illness. Active-duty patients usually came in with injuries.

I was working second shift—3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.—when Gunny was admitted. I preferred being paired with one of the civilian nurses, all of whom I had good rapport with. That night I was paired with Lieutenant San Giovanni. He was a big guy; I often wondered how he continued to meet the Navy’s weight requirements, something I struggled with even back then.

Hospital corpsmen working elsewhere in the facility wore Navy uniforms and had to look inspection-ready at all times: no wrinkles, sharp creases, perfect appearance. In ICU we wore scrubs. I kept my uniform in the locker room and put it on only long enough to report for daily inspection. Once that was over, I took it off and hung it back up. Five minutes a day. Never needed ironing with that kind of use.

Even in scrubs, as an enlisted sailor, I still caught the occasional nitpick: Byrd, your name tag is crooked. Byrd, are you overdue for a haircut? That was one reason I resented Lieutenant San Giovanni. Another was that he once rewrote my nursing notes because he didn’t like how I described a seizure a patient had while in the unit. He thought it made us “look bad,” so he tore my notes out of the chart and replaced them with his own.

I was the caregiver of record, and I was terrified it would come back on me if the patient declined because the seizure hadn’t been accurately documented.

I was so upset I went to another ward and used their phone to call my favorite Corps School instructor, Lieutenant Davidson.

“What do I do?” I asked.

She told me I was in a bad spot. San Giovanni outranked me and had more time in rate. If it came down to his word against mine, I’d lose—unless I had documentation. At her suggestion, I printed several ECG strips from the bedside monitor and kept my own notes, separate from the official chart San Giovanni had to sign.

The main reason I resented him, though, was simpler: I got flack for wearing an O.R. gown like a housecoat, and this guy went commando.

In scrubs.

Not only was his junk perpetually on display, he was forever scratching and adjusting himself, with no regard for the patients or staff forced to witness it.

I won’t spend much time bragging—who wants to read that?—but when it came to patient care, I knew my shit. The more complicated patients were usually assigned to me. Admissions were normally distributed evenly, so when I was told I’d be getting Gunny instead of HN Mallory, who was next in line, I knew this wasn’t going to be a routine heart attack.

All Lieutenant San Giovanni told me was that Gunny hadn’t urinated in thirty-six hours and his bladder was dangerously distended.

He skimmed the admission orders. “Byrd, before you do your assessment, Gunny needs a Foley.”

A Foley catheter stays in the bladder to continuously drain urine, as opposed to an in-and-out catheter, which empties the bladder and is removed. By then, I was proficient with both.

“Oh, and there’s an order to wash his feet,” he added.

“I can’t do it with my hair like Mary Magdalene, but I’ll get it done.”

“Hey. A little decorum, Byrd. Some of us are Catholic.”

And some of us wear underwear, I thought.

I grabbed a sterile catheter kit and gloves and went to bed six. I introduced myself to Gunny. He was grossly underweight. If he hadn’t been carrying around all that urine, the HVAC vents might have blown him out of bed.

Despite clearly being miserable, he was unnaturally cheerful. Most patients recoil when told I’m about to insert a rubber tube into their penis. Gunny just smiled.

“Do what you gotta do, Doc.”

(All Marines called Navy corpsmen “Doc.” It was practically an honorary title, and one I loved.)

I began explaining the procedure, but he waved me off. “This ain’t my first rodeo, Doc. Have at it.”

I lifted his gown.

I stared at his crotch for a full five seconds before looking up. Gunny was grinning.

“Excuse me one second,” I said. “Wrong glove size. I’ll be right back.”

At the nurses’ station, Lieutenant San Giovanni raised an eyebrow. “Something wrong, Byrd? You’ve only been in there a few seconds.” He adjusted himself under the desk.

“Yes,” I said. “This man has no penis.”

He smirked. “Byrd, dig yourself. He can’t help it if he’s not as endowed as the rest of us.” Tug.

“Lieutenant, I didn’t say he has a tiny dancer. I said he has no dancer.”

He sighed and stood. “Show me.”

Back at bed six, he introduced himself. “Hello, Gunny Fairchild. I’m the nurse supervising HN Byrd.” I needed supervision inserting a catheter as much as Alton Brown needs supervision boiling a hotdog.

Gunny beamed. I lifted the gown to his chest.

San Giovanni’s eyes went full Chancellor Gowron—I hope you get the reference.

“Dude!” he said. “What happened to your dick?”

“Lieutenant!” I said. “Decorum. Some of us are, I dunno, Catholic or something.”

Gunny was having the time of his life. “It got infected, so they lopped it off two years ago. Doc said the penis is for recreation, procreation, and elimination. I don’t want kids, and I’m too old to screw, so I said goodbye to Private Fairchild.”

He lifted his pendulous scrotum, revealing a tiny black dot on his perineum. “They rerouted the plumbing. Had to move it to my taint so I wouldn’t piss all over my balls.”

San Giovanni turned to me. “Now you know where to catheterize him.” He adjusted himself and left.

I figured it wouldn’t be much different from catheterizing a female patient—if you ignored what remained of his naughty bits. Unfortunately, I couldn’t.

I explained the problem to Gunny. “Gravity is not our friend.”

“Neither is whiskey,” he said.

I pointed to his crotch. “The joy boys are blocking access to your urethra. I’m going to have to move them out of the way, which means I need them to be sterile. You’ll feel cold when I swab on the iodine.

That wiped the grin off his face. “You’re not swabbing nothing on them. Damned if I’m walking around with orange balls.”

Right. That would be what made him stand out at the gym.

“Excuse me, Gunny. I’ll be right back. I’ve got the wrong size gloves.”

“Again?”

I went back to the nurses’ desk. San Giovanni asked if I’d figured it out.

“I figured out that I need you to hold his scrotum out of the way.”

“Nope. Not holding his nuts.”

Lillian, one of the civilian nurses, said, “I don’t know why. You can’t keep your hands off your own.”

When I returned to bed 6, I brought a roll of five-inch foam tape.

“What’s that for?” Gunny asked.

“Ball hammock.”

I taped his scrotum up and out of the way. He protested loudly. “You’ll rip the ‘nads outa me when you take that off!” I assured him it wasn’t duct tape, which only calmed him down a little.

Now I could see the urethral opening. It was barely larger than the period at the end of this sentence.

“Excuse me, I’ll be right back. Wrong glove size.”

“Again?” he said.

The smallest catheter we had was neonatal. Still too big.

Eventually, San Giovanni called the urologist.

Dr. Schoenfeld arrived furious. He’d performed Gunny’s penectomy and plumbing reroute. He cussed Gunny for poor hygiene, noticed the tape, and demanded to know who did it.

I raised my hand.

“Why didn’t you sterilize the area?” he asked.

“He didn’t want orange balls.”

“Don’t sterilize me!” Gunny said. “I might change my mind about kids.”

“You remember that procreation thing Dr. Schoenfeld told you about?” I said.

“He’s not crazy,” Dr. Schoenfeld said. “He’s just a noncompliant pain in my ass.”

Gunny grinned.

Dr. Schoenfeld produced a needle the size of a harpoon and aspirated Gunny’s bladder. Dark yellow fluid poured out.

“I don’t know how he’s still alive,” the doctor muttered.

He then threaded progressively larger wires into Gunny’s urethra—twenty of them—until a catheter could finally be placed.

Afterward, I removed the tape and updated my notes. San Giovanni reminded me about the foot-washing order.

Gunny was wearing hospital booties. I assumed they were to protect his feet from the floor.

They were to protect the floor from his feet.

The bottoms were coal black, layers deep.

“When’s the last time you washed your feet?” I asked.

He grinned. “Can’t remember, Doc.”

It took ninety minutes of scrubbing. I got no satisfaction from it; I knew they’d be filthy again within weeks.

Once his plumbing was flowing, Gunny was discharged with yet another referral to Social Services.

A few years ago, after a particularly rough month at work, I booked a solo retreat cabin at an Episcopal church camp—free, quiet, deep in the woods.

That night, sitting by the fireplace, I crossed my legs and noticed the bottoms of my feet were filthy, thanks to the cabin floor.

I went to the bathroom.

Not to wash my feet.

To make sure I could still pee.