CNN Headline-1/25/2011
Cleveland, OH. – Doctors at St. Luke’s Memorial Hospital in Cleveland believe several terminally ill patients in the hospital’s east wing would benefit significantly from a visit by the hospital’s resident jester, Frank Corwell. Corwell, however, has not been heard from in over two weeks.
Dr. John Orlund, a Chemotherapist at St. Luke’s, credits Corwell for saving the lives of more than just a handful of his former patients. “Frank is the best,” said Dr. Orlund. “I remember in 2004 we had to put down the family dog, Rick. When I got back to work the next week, Frank was right there for me. He gave me a hug and told me something funny about Rick digging for dinosaur bones in heaven, and it really made me laugh and put my life and troubles into perspective. There’s no way I could have gotten through Rick’s passing without Frank there to remind me that everything was going to be O.K.
“The same goes for so many of my patients. They’ll get out of the operating room after several hours of intensive chemotherapy, and Frank’s always there with a pat on the back and something funny to say – he loves bald jokes – and he helps my patients remember that life can always get better and that this isn’t the end of the world. Well, their world, maybe. But, it still helps to put their cancer in perspective.”
Corwell, 57, has been cheering up patients for more then 35 years, without ever once being paid to do so. Delores Lightgood, one of the few nurses there for Corwell’s first day back in 1974, and who is still working at the hospital, fondly remembers the first time she saw Corwell. “A pen exploded on my uniform earlier that day and I had to wear my old back-up, so I was pretty down in the dumps when I first saw Frank,” she said at her crowded nurses station, opting to tell the story of a great man rather then tending to the whiney patients lighting up her call board with their bedside “Require Assistance” buttons. “He was wearing a big, red rubber nose back then, and when I saw that silly nose, so very out of place at a hospital, well, I just laughed myself blue. He’s been at it ever since, cheering up me and the other gals, cheering up the doctors, the patients, I once even saw him say something to a pigeon outside on the smoker’s corner, and I swear to you, that pigeon smiled before he flew away.”
Corwell’s presence at the hospital has always been somewhat of a mystery. According to several accounts of the story, Corwell wandered into St. Luke’s in 1974 confused, dressed as a clown, and searching for a child’s birthday party he was supposed to work. He was pointed in the direction of some leukemia patients, was a rousing success, and has come back almost everyday since. Steven Forth, an orderly back then, but today the hospital’s CFO, shed some light on the subject. “For the first few years he came dressed as a clown everyday, I thought he was just working independently and going to rooms where kids’ parents paid him. But soon he stopped wearing the costume, he’s so happy and affable anyway he didn’t really need it, and he started visiting people of all ages.
"That’s when I realized he wasn’t being paid at all, nor did he seem to have any concept of money or why he was even here, for that matter. He was quite possibly deranged, but I didn’t say anything. How could I? The man is solely responsible for me getting over Byner’s fumble in ’87. I wasn’t about to tell him he might be crazy and totally kill his buzz. I owe him my life.”
Says Dr. Orlund, “Yeah, I’ve never been sure exactly what Frank’s position here at the hospital is. I suspect he might be a little off kilt, but never wanted to say anything. He makes me laugh so much, and is such a joy to my patients, I couldn’t dream of suggesting he was a lunatic.”
In the two weeks since Corwell’s mysterious disappearance hospital moral has been predictably dreary. People are dying, but neither the patients, nurses, or doctors could care any less. “Who cares about life and death when Frank isn’t around,” says Lightgood. “We’re all going to die anyway.” That seems to be the sentiment throughout the hospital. Employees and patients alike are finding it difficult to perform day-to-day tasks with the cloud of despair looming over the entire building, growing ever larger in Corwell’s absence. “I had to go to the bathroom earlier,” says Peripheral Neuropathologist, Lizzie McNeill, from a pool of her own waste. “But without Frank here I just couldn’t get up the energy. I just couldn’t see the point of moving, when, really, the only direction any of us are moving is towards our own inevitable end.”
No one has any concrete information on what could account for Corwell’s disappearance, but that doesn’t stop theories from springing up. Forth believes Frank is just on vacation. “He might think he has some vacation days saved up, but since he doesn’t technically work here, that’s not the case. We only give vacation days to employees, everyone else is expected to be here. I sure hope he gets back soon, so I don’t have to have an awkward talk with him about our policies.”
Daisy Nichols, 8, a patient at St. Luke’s being treated for Mitochondrial Disease, has her own theory as to what happened to Corwell. “I think Mr. Frank was an angel and God needed him back in Heaven.” While Ms. Nichol’s theory is highly unlikely, it should be noted that she’s on a number of drugs that could affect her reasoning. Still, she’s just a little girl and should let the grown-ups do the thinking. Said Dr. Orlund when told of Ms. Nichol’s theories, “Arrgh. What a stupid little girl. What does she know about science and medicine. I hardly think she’s qualified to give you any sort of theory. She should just focus on getting better and leave the thinking to me.” He’s right. Little girls shouldn’t question men and women of medicine, especially when those little girls are sick and not doing anything for themselves to get better.
Some people, like Dr. Orlund, have mistakenly thought they’ve seen Frank around town. “I thought I saw Frank the other day on a bench in Tremont Park,” said Dr. Orlund, “but it turned out to just be a dead hobo. It looked so much like Frank, the same hair, the same eyes, he was even holding a red rubber nose, but it couldn’t have been Frank. Frank was always so bright-eyed and full of life, and I don’t think I ever saw Frank without a smile on his face. The guy in the park was none of those things; and he wasn’t smiling, his mouth was just sort of open, but definitely not open in a smile, like Frank would’ve done. I sure hope Frank turns up soon, or at least lets us know he’s alright.”
Wherever he is, Frank Corwell can count on one thing: he is needed back at St. Luke’s Hospital immediately, specifically in room 427, where nurse Debbie Howland has just found out her boyfriend of three weeks is leaving her, and needs someone to cheer her up before she heads down to the E.R. where a little boy with a gunshot wound in his abdomen has just been brought in.
-Pete Higgins
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