Patient

<p>Patient is a quirky humorous and occasionally poignant romp through the American health care system. After a seemingly mild case of COVID-19 the author finds himself hospitalized with acute renal failure. The connection to COVID-19 is tenuous at best yet he is examined from head to toe with the ruthless efficiency that only a hospital with the latest technology can accomplish. Scans and tests of every possible type are conducted eliminating the most dire of diagnoses.</p><p></p><p>In Patient the reader is grasped by the lapels and is guided through a week in the hospital interspersed with the author's travels through space (being kissed by an orangutan in Borneo and hijacking a plane in India) and time (a ghost story set in nineteenth-century Southern India). We meet a cast of interesting characters--doctors nurses and children--whose interactions with the protagonist reveal much about themselves as well as the main character.</p><p></p><p>All's well that ends well we discover when the author returns home to a greeting from his cats that eventually move him to tears something that had not occurred during his earlier travails.</p><p></p><p>All in all a delightful charming and engaging piece of prose.</p>