Next Stop: Methodist Hospital

That Saturday night I felt even worse than I had been feeling, or at least I thought I did. When you've been seriously ill for a long  time, you can start imagining things. Actually, I shouldn't be stating that as fact, but that was my was experience. I would lie in bed thinking, "I'm dizzy. Am I dizzier than I was before? I think my vision is blurry. Is my vision blurry?" And on and on. Understand, too, that at this point I was not yet convinced I would survive. Indeed, I was pretty sure I wouldn't. Ergo, it's possible that many of my symptoms, sans measurability (e.g. pulse oximeter readings), may have been imagined. Do you realize that I just used a Latin word and a French word in the same sentence. Wow, aren't I amazing? Also a word that probably isn't a word (measurability). At about 1:30 AM Chayie and I decided I should probably go to the hospital. We called Hatzoloh and they took me to Methodist, one of the better Brooklyn facilities. A very nice, very pretty doctor whose name escapes me took care of me in the ER. I think she was Greek. I told her I was dizzy, my vision was blurry (maybe) and that I had a headache. Actually, now that I think about it, the pain was in the back of my neck. Technically, that would make it a neckache, I guess. I had convinced myself that I had meningitis. Cute Greek Doctor said I did not. I was glad. They took blood and ran tests and found that my hemoglobin was very low (duh!) and that my potassium level was very, very low. She made me swallow two of the most monstrous pills I ever saw. They were about the size of a DeSoto. She wanted to do a cat scan of my head to see if there was anything floating around inside my skull. I wanted to go home. You see, my mom was staying at Chayie's house that weekend too, and we didn't want her to know that I didn't feel well (more about mom later). I told Cute Greek Doctor that the reason my potassium was so low was because I hadn't taken any since before I got sick, even though I used to take it regularly (Dr. K. had prescribed it). I promised to take it and to follow up with my doctor, yada, yada, yada. She discharged me. I thought about asking her if she liked sick, old Jewish guys, but Chayie was there so I decided to behave. How boring!