Bill Coda

by Del Meyer, September 1995

Bill Coda was a crop duster. He spent his life as a pilot of double-winged aircraft loaded with rice to be sown, fertilizer to be spread, and chemicals to kill weeds and bugs. The crop duster sometimes flies under high voltage lines or over them to dip sharply as he sees the marker or flagger at the far end. Wild Bill, as he came to be know, did crash three aircraft. In one of these, his head injury resulted in a three-month coma, but in each case he got back to his calling - flying.

Flirting with death that way can lead a man to smoke with abandon. With one hand on the stick, and one on the elvers to control dusting, he had to hold the cigarette between his teeth. Each breath would deliver smoke to his lungs, where it was competing with dust and chemicals for alveolar space. He always finished the first pack before noon. The inevitable bronchitis ensued, and he began to produce cups of phlegm daily, becoming progressively more short of breath. In 1970, he gave up flying after his doctor gave him three months to live.

When I first saw him, he was loaded with rhonchi and wheezes. His chest x-ray was plethoric. His one-second vital capacity was one liter and his mid-flow rates were 11 percent of normal. He was hypoxic and in congestive right heart failure, and became one of the first patients in the community to be placed on the Linde Oxygen Walker, the first portable liquid oxygen system. Over the next 10 years, Bill came to know the details of pulmonary care in all eight area hospitals, as well as every pulmonologist in our group. Whenever I saw him, he would provide me with a report on the quality of care across the community. When he was in respiratory difficulty, he would get into his van and head down the freeway, having called ahead. Once he assured the ED staff about his ability to get there on his own, saying, "As an old crop duster, I know that if I hang my head out the window and tilt it slightly back, the increase in air pressure helps me get more air."

Shortly thereafter, as I was leaving my office, I saw Bill Coda’s feet protruding from under his van. I could tell it was him by the high-top shoes devoid of laces to accommodate his massive edema, and the oxygen line snaking from the reservoir over the side of the van. I called to him and he calmly stated, "Doc, I’m just having a little clutch problem."

It was in 1980 that someone stole his van as he was making a phone call. After that, his spirit seemed to fail him. He became hesitant, tame and restless. He was admitted to American River Hospital with PFTs almost unchanged from 1970 and ABGs indicating acceptable response to oxygen with moderate retention of CO2. Despite my reassurances that he was in satisfactory and stable condition, he told me, "Doc, without wheels, life is just not worth living."

He ordered up his favorite meal that night and told his daughter goodbye. I was not surprised when the nurse called me during the night to tell me that Bill Coda had stopped breathing. Even in dying, he was what he was - a rugged, weathered crop duster who did things his own way, even insistent on knowing the facts so he could make his own decisions. Bill Coda was not only one of my favorite patients, he was and is an inspiration to many who knew him in those ten years of respiratory insufficiency.