Making a Wastepaper Can

In the fall of 1964, I was a student at a hospital-based nursing program in a Chicago suburb.  It was my senior year.  One of the patients I cared for was a real character.  His diagnosis was “fever of unknown origin,” but there was clearly a secondary diagnosis of dementia.  He said and did things which made no sense at all.  I’m not sure the poor old guy had any idea where he was.  I never knew what they decided regarding the fever, and he was discharged.

A few weeks later, I was scheduled to spend six weeks at Cook County Tuberculosis Sanitarium in Hinsdale, Illinois, to learn about infectious disease as part of my nursing education. We all looked forward to that affiliation, because the sanitarium was in a lovely rural setting.  The grounds were beautiful, and the food served in the cafeteria was a cut above normal institutional food.    

One of my assignments was on a ward where things were pretty relaxed.  The patients did not have positive sputum cultures, and most were up and around their rooms and dressed in street clothes.  No isolation techniques were required, and there were no critically ill or surgical patients.  Lo and behold, my senile old friend was a patient there.  Apparently, they had determined that the unknown origin of his fever was tuberculosis.

In the room across the hall from senile Old Guy were two men in their 30s who had been partners in an undertaking business.  They had both contracted tuberculosis from a corpse with which they had not exercised proper precautions.  They were jokesters and a bit flirtatious with nurses.

One day I walked into the elderly man’s room and found him sitting in his chair.  He had the wastepaper can from his room between his knees, and he was carefully tearing small strips of newspaper and folding them over the edge of the can.  I asked him what he was doing.  He replied, “I’m making a wastepaper can.”

Next, I went in the room across the hall to check on the two guys over there.  They were craning their necks trying to see into Old Guy’s room and figure out what he was up to.

 “What is he doing?!” they asked.  

With a smile and a shrug, I explained that he said he was making a wastepaper can. 

They didn’t need anything, so I went on about my business with other patients.

Sometime later, I entered the room with the two careless undertakers again.  They were both sitting in their easy chairs with their wastebaskets between their knees, tearing strips of paper and folding them over the edge of the cans.

They looked at me gleefully.

I was speechless.  I hooted with laughter, spun around and left the room unable to say a word.

Raucous laughter from their room could be heard down the hall.

I guess when one is confined to a hospital for weeks or months, there are a variety of ways to amuse oneself and pass the time.