LION IN THE NIGHT
STORIES
JACK ARMSTRONG
Foreword by John R. Perfect
Illustrations by Lena Rodriquez Gillett
LION IN THE NIGHT
Stories
Copyright © 2019 Jack Armstrong. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Resource Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-7436-5
hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-7437-2
ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-7438-9
Manufactured in the U.S.A. 04/18/19
To my patients, who instructed me in the school of life. To Christine, my wife, who encouraged and edited my early writing efforts. To my children, Andy, Matt and Katee who read, laughed and gently guided my storytelling. To editor Daniel, who gave structure and guidance to the publishing experience.
Foreword
Lion in the Night is a compilation of short stories from the medical practice of Dr. Jack Armstrong. In this set of stories Dr. Armstrong provides a personal account of his interactions with patients and life’s issues during healing. They provide clear, entertaining and humble visions and principles about healing through the lens of a physician caregiver.
Dr. William Osler summarizes the following about the medical profession. “I would rather tell you of a profession honored above all others; one which while calling forth the highest powers of the mind, brings you into such warm personal contact with your fellow men that the heart and sympathies of the coldest nature must needs be thereby. Will not your whole energies be spent in befriending the sick and suffering? in helping those who cannot help themselves? in rescuing valuable lives from the clutch of grim death? in cheering the loving nurses of the sick, who often hang upon your words with a most touching trust? Aye!11
Osler describes Dr. Armstrong and his profession. The medical profession is truly a gift for those who enter into the ethical/moral contact of dealing with human misery. Dr. Armstrong simply and elegantly describes through his cases in this book that despite all the technology and knowledge, the clinician’s gift is caring for his or her patients in need (one at a time and necessarily entering into their private space). The medical profession must never forget this gift of care and the special relationship it holds with patients’ health. Despite all the CT/ MRI scans and electronic medical records today, nothing will substitute for listening to the patient! This is Dr. Armstrong’s message and career; it is well described in this book which is useful to caregivers and patients alike. Human misery will continue but healing starts with the gifts of medical professional like Dr. Armstrong who listen and care.
John R. Perfect, MD
James B. Duke Professor of Medicine
Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases
Duke University Medical Center
1. Counsels and Ideals from the writings of William Osler and selected aphorisms. The Classic of Medicine Library. Birmingham. pp 129–30, 1985.
INTRODUCTION
A physician’s life might be viewed as hard and demanding or blessed, depending on one’s perspective. Certainly the intense training period is hard and demanding, lasting over a decade past college for some physicians. Adding to the work demands is the natural and trained desire to never make a mistake in diagnosis or treatment that adds to a patient’s suffering.
So how is a physician’s life blessed? Blessed is he by the permission granted by patients to enter into their lives at the most private, personal, and deepest levels. This permission is granted in part from the patient’s need to understand and treat their illness, but also in part from trust earned from years of confident interaction. With this trust the physician may be witness to extraordinary courage, dramatic events, and remarkable challenges, often in far-away places.
The extraordinary people who speak to you in these stories have a truth to tell. Some of these truths are spoken, but others are acted out in the caldron of everyday life. As witness to these truths, I hope to convey the patients’ stories—and mine—to add a new lens to the reader’s eye into the meaning of life.
Remember, my readers, these stories are 100 percent fiction and 99 percent true.
KNIFE
Lynn shifted in her chair, her black, short-haired head bobbing up and down in anger.
“You did this, didn’t you?” she hissed.
I remained silent as only a guilty, ten-year-old boy is capable of doing.
“How am I supposed to take notes without a pencil?” she asked. “If I tell Mr. Hubbard I can’t take notes because someone broke off all my pencil ends, he’ll know it was you. And you know how hot he gets!” Mr. Hubbard was a large former Marine who was capable of great feats of anger and placing offending students under his desk when provoked.
I reached over Lynn’s shoulder and placed a sharp pencil in her now-outstretched hand.
As we exited the fifth grade classroom, Gordon was visible, leaning against the cinderblock wall of Vetal Elementary School. Gordon was a full foot taller than me, and a notorious, crude prankster. His smirk told me I was his next victim.
“Going to play a little baseball today, Armstrong?” he asked.
“Yeah, after I get my mitt, Gordon,” I said as I tried to slip by him.
Gordon reached out a long arm to block me. “Good luck finding your mitt, Armweak,” Gordon said.
I turned to face Gordon, a quick memory of my brother’s fighting lesson passing through my mind. Plant your feet, face your enemy, land the first punch, hit from the shoulders straight ahead, no roundhouse throws, thrust your body forward with the punch, and keep your right hand up in front of your face to take the counterpunch. “Most fights end after one or two hits,” Mike had said as I wiped the tears from my eyes after he demonstrated with a short jab to my vulnerable nose.
“What ya gonna do, Armpit?” Gordon taunted.
My fist struck Gordon square in the nose. He fell back on the wall, a thin trail of blood dripping from his nose. His eyes teared. I had to reach up to grab his neck, a haze of red anger clouding my vision.
“Go get my damn mitt, Gordon, or you’ll be getting a face full of fists,” I said.
Gordon wiped the blood from his nose, staring at it in studied disbelief as if the blood belonged to another. Gordon had never been hit for his mischief.
“OK, OK, I’ll get it now, Armstrong,” Gordon almost shouted. He hurried away, then returned quickly, mitt in hand. Lynn was watching from the shadow of the classroom door.
“Good punch, Jack. Where’d you learn that?” she asked.
“My brothers and friends box in the garage. I’m the youngest