ER Waiting Room

Last Thursday I headed out to Montauk to resume my weekend gig at Winick Diamonds on 771 Montauk Highway. The usual 8:18 departure from Jamaica Station. I sat on the left side to avoid the glare of the morning sun. The old disel train hauled the newer yet still old passenger cars down the line. Everything was so familar. This routine entering its third year. Weekends in Montauk from May to December 24. Weekend days in the city. Familiar, although a few changes. I had moved from Clinton Hill to the NYU professor housing at the end of April. Back into the city after twenty-four years in Thailand, Palm Beach, Fort Greene, Luxembourg, and Clinton Hill. Different, but the same.

The train ride was uneventful. Spring was slowly spreading east throughout suburban Long Island. Slowly. It had been a long cold winter. I fell asleep at one point and woke at last past Amagansett with the train its 60 plus MPH through the beetle-ravaged Pine Barren. Not a single pine had survied the infestation. Last weekend a park ranger explained that the seedlings await a burn. He didn't hazard a guess as to when the fallen forest will catch light. I estimated July.

The train arrived on time. 10:55. Dermont the taxi driver was late, thinking I had caught the Jitney. I avoid the alternate transport to and from the city. Too many of 'them' of those luxury buses. $12 for a five minute ride to the beach shack on Ditch Plains. I was a day early. Richie Boy, the owner, and his lovely wife were on vacation in Scotland. Their first since the birth of their now thirteen year- old twins. I was the baby sitter. I am not considered a bad influence and I relate well to the young. Ignoring them suits them fine.

"Huh" My greeting. I keep it simple.

Pick them up at school

"Huh."

Drop them off. Drive to Camp Hero. Montauk is 70% parkland. I stand on the bluff. Waves crash on the rocky beach over a hundred feet below. Barely audible over the wind. It is not winter, but neither is it spring. That nigt I turned the tent heater up to the max. I fell sleep around 9 and woke with the dawn. Something was not right. Not qith the dawn, but my stomach was usually swollen.

Isza, the young store manager, waited outside, energy drink by her side. The Montauk native is over three times younger than me. She smiles to see my face. Not so much happy to see me. More happy to open the store on time. She is a dutiful employee. I am her slothful antithesis, but have been declared sales manager. Neither title earn us more money.

After setting up the jewelry, I sat nd felt my abdoment.My belly was fine, but below the incision scar beneath my ribs rose a bulge. It hadn't been there yesterday. As a transplant recipient, I was acutely wary in any changes my physiology. I called the transplant and left a message. Five minures later the doctor on call said hello and asked questions. Pain, bleeding, fever, dizziness, vomiting et al? Negative to all. She suggested an ambulance to S'hampton. It was Saturday. I didn't feel like I was dying and I needed to wormk. I needed the money. My family in Thailand needed money. I stayed until Sunday evening and caught the 5.17 to Penn Station.

In bed by 11. Up at six. A brisk autumnal spring morning. Feeling none the worst, but none the better either. After completing a few chores by noon, I headed up to the Weill Cornell ER. Admission took an hour. Minutes became hours. The ER was packed with patients in greater need than me. Bloodwork and EKG. Wait for a Cat Scan. Several hours. A female doctor answered my question and said bowel obstruction maybe and left me, saying we will know more after the Cat Scan. A bowel obstruction according the AI was very serious. Fatality from the surgery 3-20% according to age. At 73 I was in the 20% risk valley. I hate succumbing to the fears after reading medical death porn. I couldn't stop reading. Hoapital stay of 3-7 Recovery time. Several weeks. If not more. A weakened body with possible infections. I had been here before. Death's door.

Four years ago.

I hadn't died. Close. Very close. Maybe I died then. But I came back as Lazarus II. I could come back again as Lazarus III. I said nothing to anyone. I called no one. I was solo. This was all me. Two hour later a Cat Scan. A long wait for the results in the ER. An old Italian man talking to his wife. Non stop for an hour. A different female doctor. Good news. Nothing wrong with me. I was free to go and go I went.

Nothing better than walking out of the ER with a clean bill of health.

Happy Yulemas 2022

Three years on Yulemas the transplant team of Cornell Weill unexpectedly called to inform me that there was a liver waiting for me at the hospital. Near death from impending liver failure I was overwhelmed by this turn of events. A miracle. A Yulemas miracle. I phoned my lifeguard Francis for a ride and then called my sister. Gina was silent for a few seconds, then said, "I was looking through my desk and a Christmas greeting sticker fell out. From a long time ago."

She read me the message.

Peter Merry Christmas Santa Claus.

It was in my mother's handwriting. My mother had passed from this mortal coil in 1997 and I cried realizing Angleine Nolan Smith's grasp on eternity.

We are always us.

MY mother and me outside 8 McKinly Road Falmouth Foresides Maine - 1953

December 19, 2024

Almost two years since my liver transplant. I'm on the Q train crossing the East River. Over the years I've probably crossed he Manhattan Bridge thousands of times. Today it's to Weill-Cornell hospital on the Upper East Side. Yesterday while taking care of Professor Berthell Ollman I noticed my abdomen swelling and the sensation of pressure. Back at 387 I stepped on the scale. Up two pounds in a day. If I've learned anything over the last years it's if something doesnt feeling good, check on it. Last night and this morning I called the transplant doctor on call. This morning she suggested my heading up to the ER to get blood work. The express train is passing 23rd Street. I'll be there by 8. Coffee and a bagel. Unfortunately I will be missing a day's work. Tant pis. Such is life. Happy Holidays.

Later

Almost noon. A MRI. A long one, as the nurse checks all my vents for bleeding. The screen shows the blue blood in the veins and the red oxygenated. Almost an hour on the bed, as she presses the scanner to my belly. There is no pain.

Good thing I came in early. Even better that I didnt go out to Montauk. Blood work. No eating. No drinking. Waiting for a Cat Scan. Cold back here.

A young couple come into the ER. The woman is in pain. The nurse examines her. She has numbness in her side. Lots of nurses in the ER. Not that many patients.

It's early in the day.

Four minutes short of noon.

No telling when I'll get the Cat Scan.

Later

ER's Cat Scan is an old one, a GE scanner from this century. The tech said he had performed fifteen scans since morning. Fifteen minutes each