The summary of these past 2 weeks have been frenetic, harried, and downright bizarre in some sense. I feel as if I have been floating really. It could also be all the drugs I had intravenously coursing through my veins just as well though. (Not to mention- other pills to be taken orally-incl. more antibiotics, steroids, nexsium -can't spell-but helps with the stomaching of steroids, some pain killers too-they prescribed Vicodin and now acetaminophen with codeine... seriously I say all this, but I hate pills.) Anyways, onwards ... But I've come to realize that being in another city (and now blogging about it, yawn - bored, cliche, i know) thousands of miles away from the familiar-is well, not altogether unfamiliar actually ( maybe i need to go to somewhere like Istanbul or something, yea that might be it, anyways, i detract). Some points to mention. I've had the most minimal interaction with technology in these past 2 weeks. No
internet connection. No television. No newspaper. Hell the last day I was leaving , I didn't even know the Pope himself was in town. Only later riding in the cartel and seeing all of east side being barricaded did we find out. Oops!
I spent most of Monday, April 7
th taking the
AirTrain from JFK to Queens and awaiting the arrival of supposed brother X . I spent three nights with a 92 year old Chinese grandmother and her husband in their grand estate of a home in the Jamaica Estates ( I kept seeing a stream of people coming in that lived there, I never did find out how many floors there were in that house,
sheesh!) It was conveniently located next to the church in Queens. I ate mostly leftover Chinese food those first days. My main point of venture was on Tuesday, the 8
th. I boarded the F subway train from 179
th Hillside inbound to Manhattan. Along the way of walking to the subway station I had a woman yell at me for passing her on the street. These kind of things happened quite frequently. Once I boarded the subway - it was pretty smooth sailing. That day I ended up walking mostly. Passing by the south side of Central Park through Time Warner and Columbus Circle. I met Dr.
Levithin again, paid my $350 chump change and walked down the block to my next appointment at Roosevelt Hospital on 10
th Ave with Dr. B. There I sat in the amassed waiting area for nearly 4 hrs (they usually saw the kids first) Quite a bit of
yamaicas that day too. When I saw Dr. B I had the reassurance of my
embo/
angio treatment on that upcoming Thurs. I met the whole staff - Susie, Michelle, Emma, Trevor, Millie... Wonderful caring people. I left the hospital around 5:45. I went down the street to a
bento box type restaurant and ate like a ravished dog. $10! However, my outing for that day was not over as I had promised Abs a
Kinokuniya visit. I ended up walking extra miles parallel to the street I meant to be on. I retraced my steps and by the time I rerouted and found the place (right next to Bryant Park) it was like 7:15. Oh yeah and in the midst of all of this, I accidentally turned on 42
nd only to land smack in the rush hour traffic mayhem of Times Square. smart. Continuing... I stayed at the store until almost 8 PM -closing time. I managed to scare the
bejeebus out of sister Yeoh (and she missed the meeting). I ended up on her doorstep like almost 9 PM and because of this misadventure I decided not to venture out at all on Wed. I opted to sit and wait on my mother's arrival to NYC. When she arrived I set the alarm early on Thurs. I kept waking up every other hour that night. We woke up, got dressed and got to the hospital on time. I was kept in the holding area until almost noon because there was a baby in the Radiology room having a double procedure. But 'twas okay. I was wheeled in and sedated. I woke up in recovery with the worst abdominal cramps of life (probably because I didn't have a proper poop session earlier). But the nurses attended and gave me something for it. After a bit of time I was sent upstairs to the patient room. Drifting in and out of consciousness with the hum of the machines and IV.
---- >>
I remained in the hospital -not entirely bed-ridden, but practically, for the next 3 days. I had a great view of luxury lofts outside my 8
th floor window. The patient next to me in block A had a tumor removed from her spine. She had this crazy situation where she had to use a straight
catheter to make herself pee, because her nerves had not yet "woken up" around that area. What a bummer. Her husband and her were artists. She of the designer corporate type and her husband the sensitive painter. The nicest people ever! She even offered us a place to stay -since she lived like 20 blocks uptown. My goodness. Days spent in the hospital were not altogether too bad. Hospital food was the same ol' bland-ol'. Nurses came and changed shifts - some were more attentive than others. My mother opted to stay by my bedside for all the days I was in the hospital. Poor thing! Such an uncomfortable place to be for days I tell you. I was to be discharged on Saturday, but because of our hospitality situation (they were out of town until Sunday) I wasn't released until Sunday afternoon-much to the dismay of the day shift PA. ... to be continued
