The hospital shower has very little in common with your everyday shower. It is sterile, cell block-like. There is nothing comforting about the hospital shower ñ no good smelling soap, no familiar washcloths, no welcoming, cushy bathmats. In the hospital you are forced to share your shower with people you do not really want to imagine naked, let alone naked and in your shower. And more often than not, the hospital shower is a chore, an endeavor, a prescribed task by an insistent nurse to an exhausted patient.
But Jonathan Neuman sang in his shower.
He sang in his hospital shower.
I was one of Jonathanís nurses at Memorial Sloan Kettering. Until I met Jonathan, I had never heard anyone else sing in the shower there. I stopped to listen, but I canít tell you what he sang. There werenít a whole lot of words; the melodies werenít like the little tunes people on TV sing in the shower. Jonathanís voice had a blunt sound, almost flat, definitely a little underground. The sounds from the shower were calm, but they made me imagine what he might sound like on stage with his band. I imagined him moaning through a rock song, passionate and unbridled. But in the hospital shower, his song languored steadily until the water turned off.
I reluctantly loved the days Jonathan would shower in the hospital. Loved because shower day meant Jonathan felt a little better ñ good enough to get out of bed. Showers also gave Jonathan some time to himself, away from his cumbersome IV lines, away from all the infringements the hospital made on his autonomy. Reluctant because I knew all the time management skills I had honed as a nurse were going down the shower drain. Showers with Jonathan, hospital days with Jonathan, were a series of little ceremonies. I think some of the rites came with his illness ñ the need to keep everything clean, infection-free, that was a chemotherapy rite of passage. But some of his processes, I suspect, just reflected Jonathan. He paid amazing attention to order and detail. The shower needed to be wiped down and set-up right; I needed to set up the pre-and post-shower towels on the floor; Jonathan needed time to pick out just the right pair of white socks for the next day, although to anyone else all the white socks in the drawer looked pretty much the same. There was a right way to put on lotion on his sore feet, starting with his toes, easing your way up his legs; there was a right way to put on bandages, so he could pull the sleeve of his well-worn flannel shirt all the way down. Jonathan took the time to think this all out. He also took the time to choose the right CD for after every shower. I was never sure what distinguished a French chanteusse shower from a Belle and Sebastian one, but Jonathan did.
I think he truly did. Thatís what made his music more than an inspired mix tape of songs-by-which-to-have-cancer. Thatís what made his rituals more than a means of coping with hospital life through micromanagement. Jonathan, more than any other patient Iíve ever worked with, lived in the moment. He rarely spoke in terms of ìwhen I get out of this placeî or ìbefore I got sick.î Instead, he took notes on his days in the hospital, he learned to meditate, he carefully described to me what he was feeling, what was happening in his body. I think experiencing his hospital days in real time emboldened Jonathan. Instead of spending time worrying about what might happen next, Jonathan seized the opportunity to make as many moments as possible just right. Jonathanís brother recently gave me a photo he took of Jonathan sitting up in his hospital bed, blankets around his shoulders, smiling, playing the maracas; I loom into the picture from the side, wielding a thermometer. Jonathan had developed a fever (one of the many he attributed to the heat of his LL Cool J hat) and had started to have chills. His whole body began to shake. Patients dread getting chills; itís physically uncomfortable and emotionally distressful. But Jonathan didnít panic. Instead, he reached for his maracas. His was shaking all over. It was a perfect time to grab the maracas.
Because Jonathan did not talk much about his past adventures or future ambitions, getting to know him was like watching a Polaroid emerge. I watched his parents enter the picture, his brother and his friends. One by one the Physicals showed up on my shifts. I met the stunningly dred-locked Ari Up, the lead singer of one of Jonathanís favorite bands, the Slits, and then his old piano teacher. No pro-wrestlers came to visit, but it wouldnít have seemed strange if one had. I came to know Jonathan as an amazingly interested, introspective, and compelling rock star of a patient.
What I donít like about getting to know, and appreciate, and love patients like I did Jonathan is that in the end, I feel lost, cold, naked. But what I learned from Jonathan is that even those cold, naked moments can have order and purpose. Even in those cold, naked moments, there is a song.
