Happy New Year!



Make believe picture of Community's ER.

Actual picture of actual toilet seat in
Community's actual ER
with actual blood on it.

I got to the Community ER at around noon. Candle lighting* that day was at 4:20 PM. A nurse named Boris (I'm pretty sure he was a guy)escorted me to one of those curtained-off cubicles and told me to put on the gown that was lying on the bed. I didn't. He wanted to know why, so I told him that I had been in way too many hospital gowns this year, thank you very much, and that all I wanted was for someone to listen to my chest and maybe get an x-ray. At 2:00 I still hadn't been seen by a doctor. It finally occurred to me that maybe they had just forgotten about me, so I called over a nurse and mentioned that I still hadn't been seen. "Dr. Domsky hasn't seen you yet?" she asked incredulously. She actually tried to convince me that I had indeed been seen. "Are you sure?" she inquired. It was surreal. She wandered over to the elusive Dr. Domsky who assured her he would see me in five minutes. at 2:20 I decided that if he didn't show up by 2:30, I was gonna pull a Rocky and waltz right out of there. At 2:25 he finally came over and listened to my chest. "You take water peel?" he wanted to know. Yes, I said, I take water peel called Lasix. For why you aks? "You are chaving flude in lung." I am chaving fude in lung all the time, I told him, without sharp pain. "We get chast x-ray". After the chast x-ray, nice nursie came over with some bottles. She told me they were Lasix and she was going to administer them intravenously. They had already taken blood and put in an IV port, L-rd only knows why. It was now 3:30, about 50 minutes before Shabbos. There was no way I was going to let them start an IV, especially an unnecessary one. "I think I"ll pass," I said, while putting on my coat. "You no want?" "Yes, I no want." "For why you no want?" "I am chaving Lasix at chome, I go chome, take peel." After that, no one liked me anymore. Dr. Domsky sent over an AMA ("Against Medical Advice") discharge form for me to sign. They really get testy when you tell them where to stick their IV. Then I went chome.

* Candle lighting = never mind, you know what candle lighting is.

Actual Fat Guy in Community ER with
actual "Happy 2011" glasses
with actual flashing lights
on his actual head.

...And Never Brought To Mind?

I love Brooklyn. I really do. I've lived here all my life with the exception of 177 days back in...what? 2008? Whatever. You get the point. I'm proud to call Brooklyn my home town. Okay, maybe not proud, but not too embarrassed, either. After all, a lot of famous people are (or were) from Brooklyn. Clara Bow, for example. Can you imagine...
Clara Bow! Also Dom DeLuise, Barry Manilow and Russell Tyrone Jones, AKA Ol' Dirty Bastard. So you see we Brooklynites have a lot to be proud of, by golly! The thing I don't understand is how any of us manages to live past, say, thirty or thirty-five. At the risk of stating the obvious, the facilities to whom we entrust our lives, i.e. our hospitals, are far from stellar to say the least. Hatzolah EMTs, guys who know a thing or two about the quality of medical facilities in our fine borough, recommend exactly three hospitals: Lutheran, Maimonides and Methodist, not necessarily in that order. If you'll recall, when, in a state of delusion (not to mention ignorance), I asked to be taken to Beth Israel, they looked at me like I had two heads. Wow...four commas in one sentence; I think that's a new personal best. Or worst. No EMT worth his salt* would transport a seriously ill patient to someplace like Kings County, for example. Or Coney Island. Or Brookdale. Or Woodhull. Omigosh, Woodhull! Forget "seriously ill"...you wouldn't take someone with a hangnail to woodhull! So apparently we denizens of the Borough of Kings must indeed be a hearty lot. I bring this all up because the Hatzolah members I happened to draw on Friday took me to Community Hospital. Perhaps they were on drugs. Perhaps they had had lobotomies. Perhaps they simply didn't like me, although, as I'm, sure you're aware, that last scenario is highly unlikely. Who knows? Maybe they were new or tired or just plain stupid. Bottom line is they took me to an alleged hospital that makes my old favorite Beth Israel look like Columbia Presbyterian. Ostensibly the reason was that driving was still quite difficult because the many of the local streets had still not seen a snowplow. Frankly, I would rather have taken my chances slip-sliding my way down the street to Methodist than wind up in Community, a laughable hellhole of a hospital if there ever was one. To be continued even more...

*Just in case you're interested in where the expression "worth his salt" came from...
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/330476/popular_phrases_origin_and_meaning.html?cat=37



Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot...

One would think that after the year I had, every acquaintance in a white coat, auld or not, would be forgot as quickly as possible, right? The problem is that in my case, doctors are like women: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. So guess where I spent my New Year's Eve? Yup. In the ER. Okay, don't get all bent out of shape, I'm fine. Let me explain. I had spontaneous pneumothoraces of my left lung three times in my 30's and 40's. A spontaneous pneumothorax is a collapsed lung that comes out of nowhere with no apparent cause. There's no trauma or illness involved; one day you're walking down the street, you feel a sharp pain, and your lung is suddenly hanging limply in your chest like a balloon from last week's birthday party. My first one occurred while I was away at a weekend Bar Mitzvah. It happened Friday night and I didn't get it looked at until I got home Saturday night. After that initial pain, there was a dull ache in my chest and a strange sense of a presence in my chest. It's hard to describe; normally you're aware your organs are inside your body, but you don't actually feel them in there. Well, I felt my lung. This was my left lung, and it collapsed twice more after that, in a span of about ten years. They were never quite sure what caused it, but they suspected I had a congenital weak spot on the lung. After the third episode, I had a procedure done called pleurodesis, whereby the lung is made to adhere to the wall of the chest cavity. This is supposed to prevent the pneumothorax from recurring, and it has worked like a charm for me; I've never had the problem again. Well, last week I started having sharp pain in my chest anytime I took a deep breath, only this time it was on my right side. I remembered well what my collapsed lungs felt like way back when, and this new pain was almost identical. I was convinced that I had a brand new pneumothorax in a brand new location. Short of surgery, the treatment for a pneumothorax entails the insertion of a chest tube which sucks out the air in the chest cavity so the lung can re-inflate and heal on its own. This, of course, requires hospitalization. But I needed someone to confirm my self-diagnosis. I tried to reach a few different doctors, but everyone was either on vacation or had already left his office. So I called Hatzolah and asked them just to send one or two guys just to check for breath sounds on my right side. No ambulance and no sirens, please; Babby and I were at Chayie's for Shabbos and I didn't want to worry her if it wasn't necessary. Two EMTs were there almost before I hung up the phone. Their diagnosis was inconclusive, so they wanted to take me to the hospital to have it checked out. Many of the streets in Brooklyn still hadn't been plowed, so driving was still quite treacherous and some streets were still unpassable. So they took me to the nearest medical facility. And I use that term rather loosely. To be continued...

"Don't Complain, Wally"

I was at Burgers Bar on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn last Wednesday night. I only go there on Wednesday night. That's because I go to Weight Watchers on Wednesdays, which means that I can go there after my WW meeting and pig out, and have a whole week to be good and make up for it. I'm not sure if that logic makes any sense to anyone else but me, but I find it quite ingenious. So here's the thing about Burgers Bar: they have the best kosher burgers on the planet, IMHO*. Burgers Bar charges a lot more for their burgers than other kosher fast food joints do, but they taste like meat, and that seems to be a foreign concept to the other places, whose burgers generally taste like styrofoam. I chose that picture up there on the left (an ad for a new Burgers Bar opening in Israel) to show you what their burgers look like. And they actually do look like that! When was the last time you saw a burger that inviting that didn't come off your grill at last Labor Day's barbecue? Now, the question of just how kosher they are is for another blog at another time. Suffice it to say that there are those in my community who consider this emporium of bovine perfection to be below their impeccable kashruth standards.

As far as I can tell, there can be two reasons for this:

1. They can't believe anything that tastes this good can actually be kosher, and

2. Burgers Bar's propensity to change their rabbinical supervision

every twenty minutes or so.

As far as I'm concerned, ever since I found a gray hair in my burger that came from the rabbi's beard, I consider the place to be 1000% kosher. Also, even if it's not and I have to do time in purgatory as a result of my having partaken of this evil, mouth-watering delicacy, I think it'll probably be worth it, especially if I can bring along a few raw Burgers Bar patties that I can grill down where I'll be going**. I will now attempt to salvage the rest of this post from tumbling into more useless segues and/or tangents and get back to where I was going. I think it was Bayonne. No, probably not. I was going to discuss Wally*** and family. When I was leaving Burgers Bar after having my Wednesday Night Usual (house burger with BBQ sauce and Garlic Mayo and fries; don't get me started on their fries), I ran into Wally. He's a guy I've known for quite a while. I'd stop just short of calling him a friend; I'd say he falls into the "acquaintance" category. I like Wally, but I've always felt sorry for him. He's a sad-sack type of guy who never seems to catch a break. Although he's reasonably bright, he's married to a woman who I believe (along with many others who concur) is borderline, um, mentally challenged. I don't know if that's the proper PC appellation du jour (I believe "retarded" is no longer considered acceptable), but you get the idea. Wally was having trouble paying the mortgage on his Brooklyn home several years back, and he came up with what I thought at the time was a clever solution: he sold the house, bought one in New Jersey for a lot less money, paid off his mortgage and even had some money left. He was at Burgers Bar with his aforementioned spouse and one of his sons, who has apparently inherited his mom's penchant for smiling indiscriminately during a conversation, usually with his mouth open. Just to make conversation, I said, "How's it going, Wally?" An innocuous question if there ever was one. "Everything's going just the way everything in my miserable life has always gone." Oooooookay. this is gonna be a fun little chat, I thought. Then I suddenly fell prey to what I like to refer to as the "reformed smoker syndrome". There is a tendency among those who have kicked the habit to try and coax (read: badger) others to do the same. "Don't complain, Wally," I said. Don't complain? Why the heck not? The guy's miserable. Why shouldn't he complain? Just because I went through a near death experience which has changed my attitudes greatly, do I have the right to go around like a pollyanna-ish goody two-shoes telling people to be happy with their lot? Frankly, I don't know. But I can report with some degree of certainty that Wally, recipient of my unsolicited,cheerily banal platitude, did not particularly appreciate it.

His response was a grunt which, freely translated, meant

"bug off, you smiley-faced gadfly!". Well, I guess I've been called worse.

So...next time I encounter a buddy who expresses sentiments similar to Wally's,

do I just shut up and listen and try to be supportive?

I think it's a rhetorical question.

The elusive Banal Platitude.

                                           * IMHO = for you old folks who aren't familiar with texting lingo,

IMHO means "In my humble opinion."

**Just in case G-d is reading this: I'm just kidding.

*** Wally's not his real name.

Browbeaten

Before I begin, I want to make something clear: I have not ingested any hallucinogenic drugs, eaten any magic mushrooms or licked any toads. My eyebrow problems are not all in my head. They are ON my head. So far everyone to whom I've tried to explain my condition either laughs or looks like they're stifling one. When I called Dr. Greenspan about it, even he didn't understand what I was talking about. And he understands everything. So here I go again, trying to explain it one more time, this time in writing. I hope no one from Bellevue reads this blog; I don't want anyone in a white coat knocking on my door. See Mr. Bean over there to the left? See his eyebrows? That eyebrow position is not your average default position. Normally your eyebrows rest right above your eyes, pretty much straight across. That way when you're surprised, for example, you lift them. Your eyebrows are not in a permanent "up" position. Make sense so far? Well mine are in a permanent "up" position. How can that be, you ask? Well, I haven't the foggiest. Sometimes I consciously bring them back down to their regular position, only to find them back up again as soon as I stop concentrating. You're laughing. I know you are. Well, it's not funny, gosh darnit! It's not funny because it actually gives me a headache every so often. Think about it: a part of your body is in a position that takes effort rather than being where it's supposed to be. Don't you think that would be exhausting after a while? Have you stopped laughing yet? Anyway, I called Dr. Greenspan and tried to explain it to him. "So you have an eyebrow spasm," he said. I explained that it wasn't a spasm; it was just that my eyebrows had a mind of their own, and they wanted to be where they wanted to be. "Uh huh," he said. You know you're in trouble when a doctor says "uh huh". Then he told me that he'll be in Sasregen for Mincha* on Shabbos, and that I should show him what I'm talking about there. I haven't gotten there yet. Then I asked my son-in-law Yehuda. He's an LCSW, not an MD, but he's a pretty bright guy and I thought he might be able to offer some insight into my plight without cracking up. "Uh huh," he said. You know you're in trouble when a social worker says "uh huh". He suggested that he hypnotize me. I was game. But the next time I mentioned it, he had changed his mind. So here I am with my rather bizarre eyebrow problem and no one to turn to. I think I'l eventually make an actual appointment to see Marvin (Dr. Greenspan) in his actual office rather than trying to have him diagnose me in shul. I've googled "eyebrows" and haven't come up with anything. So for now I'm in a perpetual state of surprise. Which will probably be appropriate when they finally put me in a rubber room.

Sasregen for Mincha = Sasregen: name of a Temple in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

Mincha: afternoon services.

Stir Crazy

Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder
in "Stir Crazy" (1980)

STIR CRAZY:
stir-cra·zy/ˈstɜrˌkreɪzi/ [stur-krey-zee]
–adjective slang .
1. Informal . restless or frantic because of
confinement, routine, etc.:
I was stir-crazy after just two months
of keeping house.
2. mentally ill because of long imprisonment.

I like my apartment. I really do. But today, December 28th, is the third day I've been cooped up here. It's like when you really, really love pistachio ice cream and you have nothing in your house to eat and someone gives you a few dozen tubs of Breyer's Pistachio (your favorite) and you eat nothing but pistachio ice cream for a week. You'll never look at pistachio again. In fact you may never look at ice cream again. This comes under the heading of "too much of a good thing". So anyway, like I said, I like my apartment. The only thing I don't like about it is that it's been freezing in here lately more often than not. Funny thing is that I get to control the thermostat. It's across the hall and I can just go out there and adjust it upwards anytime I feel cold. Only problem is, it doesn't seem to help. I'm beginning to suspect that it's just a dummy thermostat that does absolutely nothing, and they installed it so that any tenant they happen to rent to can feel better pschologically while their teeth are chattering. But other than the fact that I sometimes feel like I'm living in an igloo, the place is perfect for me. I'm even keeping it c-l-e-a-n (don't tell anyone; I have a reputation to maintain). After roughly half the doctors in the Greater New York area informed me that I better clean up my act or my next address just might be c/o Beth Moses Cemetery, Farmingdale, New York, I figured it was time to see what it's like to dwell in a place where one can actually breathe. It's actually pretty cool. Don't know why I didn't think of it before. So I think I've established that I like my apartment. Did I mention that I like my apartment? Did you know that someone exactly nineteen days from his sixtieth birthday tends to repeat himself? So, finally meandering back to my original point (and, I might add, not a moment too soon), if I don't get out of here soon, they're gonna find me curled up in the bathtub humming "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" while smiling broadly and drooling. The snow started early Sunday morning and just kept coming. I actually had the presence of mind to venture out for a few minutes that day to pick up a container of milk at the corner bodega. I understand that there is now more snow out there than there are prunes in Cincinnati. And everyone knows that Cincinnati is the Prune Capital of the World. Actually, as blizzards go, this one is strictly a rank amatuer. Back in '96 we had over 30" dumped on us here in Brooklyn. Of course I wasn't here at the time: I was bright enough to leave Sunday morning on a bus to a friend's wedding in Baltimore and couldn't get back for three days. But that's for another blog. We got 17.5" inches this time and, thanks to His Highness Mayor Bloomberg, about 17.25" of that is still lying in the middle of the street, waiting to be plowed. I'll bet you want to know what I've been doing for the past two days, other than going through Shas yet again. Well, I've been drawing my version of a Picasso on my kitchen wall. I kid you not. When I was unpacking I found an empty picture frame and thought it would be cool to hang it around a picture drawn directly on the wall. I don't know if I would actually have done it had I not become a prisoner in my own place because of the caprice of Mother Nature. But I am actually doing it. In washable crayons, seeing as how this joint doesn't belong to me (although I can't imagine that they would actually remove it when I leave!). I picked the Picasso because you don't really have to know how to draw to copy it. So far I think it's coming out pretty good. What do you think?

Update

I've never posted about Dr. Marvin Greenspan*. Marvin is my neurologist. I call him Marvin because that's what he prefers. Or Greenspan. Lots of people, including his patients, just call him Greenspan. He is a brilliant guy, and yet the most unassuming, unpretentious doctor you'll ever meet. But that's not what makes him really special. What sets him apart from others in his field is his altruism. Marvin sees patients gratis. Not all of them of course, but for the ones he knows can't afford their copay, he waives it. I've known him since elementary school. He was in the "A" class while I was in the "B" class. There was also a "C" class. In those days they didn't worry about stigmatizing kids; if you were a dummy, you were in the "C" class. Over the years, Marvin has been more than a doctor to my family and me. He took care of my father A"H and has seen my mother as well, and has never accepted a dime. He has become more a medical confidant than a doctor. He had a very serious heart attack a few years ago, and yet he works his butt off. I asked him recently why he doesn't retire; L-rd knows he doesn't need the money. "I love it too much," he said. I knew what he meant, too. He loves helping people. He's funny, he's brash, and he can sometimes be blunt to a fault. He's an absolutely terrific doctor but more importantly an amazing human being. When I first awoke from sedation after being on a respirator for a week, I had Chayie call him for me. I was confused and frightened and wanted him to use whatever clout he could to get them to discharge me. Because of my trach, I couldn't talk. So I listened. "Idiot!", he yelled lovingly, "You just used up one of your nine lives. Now lay on your ass and let them make you well." That's the Marvin I know and love. Back around seven months ago, my hands (and sometimes the rest of my body) were trembling terribly. He told me I had something called Benign Essential Tremor. I got the feeling it was just a catch-all phrase that doctors use for tremors of unknown etiology (or idiomatic tremors, in medical jargon). I wanted him to prescribe something for them. He wouldn't. The only medication he thought was any good was contraindicated for anyone with breathing problems. Of course. "But what should I do?", I wailed. My shaking was really bad back then. There were times I even had trouble writing. "Ignore it," he said. It was difficult to do at first, but after a while a strange thing happened: I kind of got used to it, and as a result I didn't think about it that much. And when I stopped thinking about it, it improved. In fact it has improved to the point where it's almost non-existent. Yes, my hands still shake occasionally, but very slightly and usually in the evening when I'm very tired. My writing is no longer affected whatsoever. Then there was my Drop Foot. Marvin said it would improve on its own, and eventually would probably disappear altogether. Well, it has improved. I haven't bothered to wear my brace for a while and i can walk just fine. My left foot (starring Daniel Day Lewis) still drags a little, but I'm conscious of it so I compensate by deliberately lifting it a bit with each step so it doesn't get caught on a sidewalk crack and send me flying. Marvin is of the opinion that there must have been a period while I was sedated when my brain was oxygen deprived. But he explained to me that the brain is a remarkable organ, very capable of healing itself. It also has the uncanny ability to have different sections take over the function of other sections that have been damaged. Patience is key; I wanted everything to be all better right away, and Marvin cautioned me not to expect overnight miracles. So I waited, and Marvin was right. Doesn't he ever get tired of being right all the time? However, there are still three things that I would like my brain to work on. Are you listening, brain?
1. The ringing in my right ear is still there. It's not loud enough to drive me totally bonkers, but it is rather annoying.
2. I've developed little tics. Sometimes they're in my hands, sometimes my legs. They're tiny and only last a second, so I don't think they're noticeable to anyone but me. But I know they're there and I'd like them to stop.
3. This one is really driving me nuts. I have eyebrow problems. Okay, you can stop laughing now. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. I'm not quite sure how to describe it. I think I might have to dedicate a whole post to it.
I don't want to sound like too much of a kvetch**, considering how much modern medicine has done for me. In the back of my mind I know I'll never be 100% physically again. But if Marvin can arrange for everthing else to resolve, can't he have a little one-on-one with my ol' gray matter and fix everything else? Well, Marvin, can't you??

* Not his real name.
** Kvetch = Complainer, Whiner.