A Prisoner's Tale
Williams, Raymond E.
A PRISONER'S TALE Bad medicine Raymond E . Williams large prison complex, like the one in which I a was incarcerated until recently in Arizona, has several units, each with its own set of...
...Had I declined, or tried to delay the surgery, I would most probably not have had the option later...
...I was once a respected member of the computer world, looked up to by my customers and associates...
...The doctor obviously did not understand how the system works...
...I'll stay," he replied, hooking his thumbs into his gun belt...
...The doctor, still holding the catheter, then said to the nurse, "This man is wearing boxer shorts...
...I can only hope that none of them ever has to deal with a system which dehumanizes both the patient and the doctor in favor of the bottom line...
...The second instrument was slightly larger and the feeling of pressure greater...
...After eight days the nurse called me back in to ask, "Has your problem resolved itself...
...If you see any change in your urine stream, have the unit doctor call me...
...There may be some leakage...
...I was still feeling a little discomfort, but my urination problems were gone--at least for the moment...
...The doctor told me that I would have to go back to his office every few weeks for "aggressive dilation...
...The sergeant suggested that I use one of the stalls...
...I was strip-searched and locked into leg shackles and belly-chain handcuffs for the trip to the hospital...
...I thought you were just going to catheter him...
...I thought myself lucky and my problems at an end...
...That's a fact of prison Raymond E. Williams says this about himself: "My first computer had vacuum tubes...
...His unit doctor ordered them last month...
...You've never been in here before...
...At moments and in surroundings like these, as I squeezed my muscles in a useless effort to urinate normally, I realized once again that I had no more control over my situation than I had over my bladder...
...As some inmates are moved from maximum- to medium- and eventually to minimumsecurity units, they are seen by different doctors for a variety of minor ailments...
...So make sure they call me...
...When I came back from the hospital I was moved into a dormitory...
...The stalls were the one place you could have any privacy, and I often retreated there to be alone with my medical problems...
...I do not excuse my actions...
...I'll be quick and he will feel only a little pressure...
...The procedure is defined as noninvasive because it does not require cutting the skin...
...I managed the maneuver without help or release from my chains...
...Did he know something I didn't...
...What are those for...
...I hope that my writing will present a view of my life in prison on several levels...
...life...
...As the pressure increased, I tried to stretch the leg-shackles while pressing the belly-chain handcuffs into the examination table...
...I felt his hands on me...
...It felt cold...
...My only distraction was watching the transportation officer, whose pallor alternated between a bright pink and a dull shade of olive green...
...But even if I could have cleaned off the toilet tank-top sufficiently, the walls were only waist high...
...Didn't I request that he be given briefs and panty liners...
...On my way out the doctor stopped me...
...Those like myself who develop more serious problems are seen by specialists outside the prison after being referred to them by the prison unit doctors...
...Back at the unit, I sat in my favorite stall wondering what was going to happen next...
...Share the adventures of Maryknoll Missioners in distant lands Tune in every Thursday at 10 PM or Friday at 1 AM (Eastern Time) weekly thru September 25th Only on 0 D Y S S E Y [] For channel designations and air times in your zone, call your local cable television company or o D Y S S ~ Y [] toll-free at 1-888-390-7474 Odyssey is also available on Primestar Channel 84 Ma13,knoll's Mission 4"Hope and Healing Produced by Maryknoll World Productions and Hispanic Telecommunications Network Maryknoll Missioners, Maryknoll, NY 10545 Commonweal | 5 May 22, 1998...
...He said I was going to the hospital for emergency surgery...
...Get dressed and go back to your unit," he said...
...He then looked at the door as if he were reconsidering waiting in the hall...
...The nurse consulted my chart...
...He then considered what to do next while the nurse waited patiently for instructions...
...My treatment began when the prison doctor, aware that I had been suffering for several weeks, gave me two rounds of antibiotics as well as medication to control the spasms in my bladder...
...The guard was curious...
...He can get dressed now...
...wo weeks after I got back from the hospital, I was again stripped and thoroughly searched before being put into leg shackles and belly-chain handcuffs to be brought to the urologist...
...I was hurting enough that I asked for an emergency appointment with the unit doctor...
...I can get him to the hospital emergency room tonight...
...I was told that the sewer line under the housing unit on the hill above the tents had broken and the rain had washed the effluent down to our area...
...The lieutenant's suggestion that I use the shower wasn't practical either...
...The nurse laid out a series of silvery stainless-steel instruments that looked like giant barbless fishhooks...
...What I subsequently went through should not happen to anyone, whether in or out of prison...
...Keep on cathetering yourself every evening...
...This request was denied twice before I was finally allowed to see him...
...After I had waited for two hours, the urologist finally called me into the examination room...
...I had spent an extra night in the hospital learning how to clean myself, and the area around me, so that I could perform a self-catherization...
...Iquickly learned that a degree in engineering and thirty years of programming computers had not produced an understanding of male anatomy...
...Shortly after my arrival, a routine blood test and then a biopsy showed up positive for cancer...
...He decided to wait before taking the risk of cutting the scar tissue again...
...The doctor selected an instrument and held it up to allow the sterilizing solution to drain off...
...That was where the specialists came to see inmates referred to them by prison doctors...
...Unlike the maximum-security units where the toilet is in the cell you share with another inmate, or the open stalls in Commonweal | 3 May22, 1998 some medium-security units where the guards can watch, the stalls in a minimum-security dormitory have ceiling-high partitions...
...He entered and addressed the officer accompanying me...
...He tried to insert a Folly catheter with no success...
...If I had known, I might have objected to being moved into an old army tent erected in an area originally intended for water run-off...
...If we wait too long we might have to go back and make more cuts in the scar tissue...
...The doctor raised a platform under my legs...
...But I wasn't so sure that having what looked like a network TV camera and a plumber's RotoRooter shoved up my penis was really noninvasive...
...The doctor held up the catheter, which was beginning to look like a garden hose...
...The water stank...
...He then told me that the scar tissue was only one millimeter from the bladder sphincter and one mistake, one slip, and the damage would be irreparable...
...I developed a whole new set of problems, which I first suspected to be the lingering complications of a staph infection I had acquired in the hospital...
...She put the chart down...
...There are some who believe that prisoners like myself get better medical care than we deserve...
...He left the room to prepare the paperwork that would go back to the prison unit with me...
...I have subsequently been moved to a prison unit for sex offenders in another part of the state...
...A female nurse handed him a syringe...
...The doctor shook his head in what I interpreted to be resolute understanding of the prison system...
...Give him some of these to stuff into his shorts...
...We'll do this again in a few weeks...
...A guard then called my name...
...My visits to the bathroom, however, were no more successful...
...Hurry up...
...I spent two-and-a-half years in a maximum-security unit and another year and a half in a medium-security unit before earning my way to a minimum-security unit...
...All he could do was apologize for the delays...
...The doctor came in and quickly began selecting philiforms, followers, and catheters of various sizes with which he managed to drain my bladder...
...Good luck...
...Today I am serving seven-and-a-half to fifteen years for attempted child molesting...
...The instrument was slender and the curve at the end gentle...
...He then told me that I'd have to stay in the hospital that night...
...A lot had happened in just over seventy-two hours...
...I was about to find out the meaning of "aggressive dilation...
...We went in the back door to avoid the other patients...
...There was no privacy in the tents, so I went into the bathroom trailer...
...they were cold...
...The fourth dilator was the biggest...
...You're wanted at the admin center...
...I began to think he might be right...
...Two days after the procedure I was back in prison...
...A PRISONER'S TALE Bad medicine Raymond E . Williams large prison complex, like the one in which I a was incarcerated until recently in Arizona, has several units, each with its own set of facilities and interior fences...
...For the most part I have found that the doctors and nurses in the prison units are just as capable and compassionate as those on the outside...
...He would do a TransUrethral-Resection-of-the -Bladder-Neck the next day...
...I was much more familiar with how the internal parts of my computers worked than with the functions of my own body...
...Drink lots of water and try to urinate as much as you can...
...The doctor then handed a box of tissues to my guard...
...You can wait out in the hall if you d o n ' t want to watch...
...I was relieved...
...No, it will take longer than that to do the paper work...
...He was upset about the unnecessary delays and talked about another visit to the hospital...
...Eventually an officer came in looking for me...
...So after five years in prison and at the age of fifty-three, I had my prostate removed...
...The next day I was taken to the urologist...
...Frequently, the toilets were also full and toilet paper was unavailable...
...Someone at the prison's administrative center must decide when, or even if, an appointment will be made...
...But my medical problems are not at an end...
...He said, "It's eleven o'clock, can you have him in my uptown office by noon...
...But when I got back to the minimum unit, I found that it had been raining and there were now standing pools of water around the tents...
...Two more trips to the urologist's office for aggressive dilations were followed by delay after delay...
...Like many others who must deal with an unresponsive health-care system, I cannot be sure I will continue to receive the treatment I need...
...I answered, "No...
...My recent experiences with the health care provided by the prison system may well serve as an example of what can be expected from a health-care bureaucracy that treats everyone as just another computer entry...
...But there the comparison ends...
...An inmate just does not have that kind of control...
...At four that afternoon, a nurse pushed an eight-drawer mechanic's tool chest into my room in the hospital's prison wing...
...The bathroom trailer was Commonweal | 4 May 22, 1998 used by two hundred men, and no matter how well I cleaned an area there was still the probability that I would pick up some kind of an infection on the catheter and pass it into my bladder...
...fter three weeks, I was moved from the dorm into a room where my bladder problems were not so public...
...The pressure was eventually released and I was able to relax, unhurt...
...I finally made an emergency medical request...
...Okay, have him drop his pants and shorts and lie back on the examination table...
...The nurse suppressed a laugh...
...When I arrived I had no indication of the cancer developing in my prostate...
...Maybe the scar tissue in my urethra would not constrict too much in the next few days...
...As he squeezed its contents into my penis he said, "This may burn a little...
...Prison policy required a response within twenty-four hours...
...I'll have you out of here and in my office sometime in the next twenty-four hours...
...We use these to stretch the constricting scar tissue...
...In this way prison health care works like HMOs and other health-care systems that require patients to be seen by a primary caregiver before the system will pay for a visit to the specialist...
...But the person at Central Supply who fills their orders has quit...
...Prostate cancer rarely shows early symptoms...
...You'll be okay...
...I just lay there half naked--and fully worried...
...The doctor nodded...
...I've filled his urinary tract with K-Y that has been infused with Zylocane...
...What I did was wrong...
...The cost of the extended care must be approved by the nonmedical staff...
...Unfortunately, the floor of the stalls was usually awash in liquid, making me wonder if some men were afraid to touch their own penises, even to aim...
...I left the hospital confident that I could do this without any problems...
...Then I came down with the flu, which moved from my head to my chest and then into my abdomen...
...There was nowhere to lay out the lubricating jelly, or cleaning supplies, except maybe on the floor...
...The doctor did not keep us waiting...
...I wished it were that simple...
...He promised to recommend that I be taken back to see the specialist who performed the surgery...
...Join us on a journey t o . . . Watch...The Field A f a r . . . a new weekly series that will change the way you see our world...
...He sounded concerned...
...I decided to wait until I could get moved back into a room...
...But he could only recommend...
Vol. 125 • May 1998 • No. 10
