THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 21, 1996 TAG: 9607170056
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REAL MOMENTS
SOURCE: BY WENDY GROSSMAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 87 lines
TWO WEEKS AGO when the American Medical Association passed a resolution calling for medical standards for cruise ships, I thought about Grandpa.
The AMA announced that there are no regulations for medical care on cruise ships and that ship's doctors are not required to have credentials in emergency medicine. It also noted that many elderly people with medical problems often take cruises, and don't receive good health care.
Aaron Schandler was one of them.
Fourteen years ago, after secretly collecting two boxes of cruise brochures and saving up, he finally booked tickets for himself and Grandma on a big cruise ship.
I helped him pack.
When they boarded the ship, Grandpa wanted to do everything. They renewed their marriage vows, danced, met the captain, sunbathed. . . . He was living out the ``Love Boat'' episodes he and I had watched together every week.
Grandpa, 68, didn't know how to swim - he couldn't even float on his back - but trainers at the pool told him that to help his angina, they'd teach him how to snorkel to strengthen his heart muscle. Now, if it's your first time snorkeling - especially if you have an intense fear of drowning - the natural instinct is to hold your breath. Which puts a lot of strain on your heart.
Grandpa had a heart attack.
He went back to his cabin and placed the little white nitroglycerin tablets his doctor had given him onto his tongue.
Grandma found him on the floor trying to clean up his own vomit. She grabbed the phone and called the ship's hospital unit. Thirty minutes later they showed up with a wheelchair (they should've brought a stretcher so he wouldn't have had to strain himself sitting up).
Forty-five minutes later, the doctor arrived in a bathing suit. She wasn't trained in emergency medicine. She was a general practitioner acting as ship's doctor to get a free vacation for her mother.
Grandpa experienced pulmonary edema. His heart and lungs filled with fluid.
Grandma asked to sit with him. She wasn't hysterical. They said no.
I remember that night. At home in Tennessee, all I could see were sharks. Sitting in my miniature rocking chair, 6 years old, I frantically drew 28 pictures for Grandpa with my red crayon. My father, a cardiologist, paced the kitchen, talking on a ship to shore hookup.
Evacuate him, Dad said.
No, they said.
Evacuate him. Get him to Miami. (The ship was just off the Bahamas.)
No.
``You've got to evacuated him,'' Dad yelled. ``HIS ship is sinking.''
They finally agreed.
Dad hung up and dialed the best heart clinic in Miami.
``I guess you see a lot of these coming off the boat,'' Dad said.
``No,'' the doctor replied. ``Most of them don't live to get off the boat.''
The ship planned to evacuate Grandpa at 2 a.m. That way no one would be on the deck.
He died at midnight.
It was Friday night. He was supposed to have led Shabbat services that evening.
Grandma asked to sit with his body.
They said no.
They didn't want other passengers to be alarmed. She was told to be quiet. If word got leaked out to Bahamian officials the body might be impounded.
Scared, she sat alone in her room while her husband was put into a cooler.
Grandpa took me to breakfast every Sunday morning at Denny's. I always ordered scrambled eggs, toast, grits and orange juice.
I can see him slicing meat in his kosher deli, pulling an Eskimo Bar out of the front freezer for me, telling me stories as we tripped along the honeysuckled walkway by great-grandma's grave, or licking the frosting off a chocolate cake that Grandma had meticulously iced. ``We'll make another one,'' he said, winking.
I miss him.
One thousand people came to his funeral.
Now, I know for a fact that you can live after going on that same ship. My eldest brother, for some twisted reason, last December went on the same boat Grandpa died on. He gained some weight. But that's it.
It's summertime. And cruises are running lots of specials. I don't want to ruin people's fun. I just want other grandparents to wait until the AMA establishes regulations making cruises safer for elderly travelers. I want other people to have their grandpas.
All I have left of mine is the silver ID bracelet Grandpa was wearing when he died. His pipe. And re-runs of ``Love Boat'' episodes we watched together. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Trainers at the pool told Grandpa that to strengthen his heart
muscle, they'd teach him how to snorkel. by CNB