The Dust Cloud Disappears Without A Trace
Two weeks ago this afternoon, I was in surgery.
This morning, I was back on the road, running 4.87 miles in just over 51 minutes.
Abbi and I rose in the dark, stretched, and started slow. We ran west towards the river, north along Hudson River Park, then up into Riverside Park.
It felt great to be outside, breathing fresh air, and watching the sky wake up. I had some pain in my right knee (still, three years after that rogue playground accident) for a second, but that subsided once I warmed up. I could feel some tightness in my stomach (I inadvertently and unironically referred to it as “stitches”), but nothing prohibitive or problematic. And my lungs felt fine, despite Dr. Dawson’s suggestion that I might find my first few runs, “Heartbreaking.”
To the contrary, my first run in over two weeks was encouraging thanks, in large part, to Abbi, who — after two weeks of jogging alone in silence — patiently responded to my steady stream of recent news, overnight brainstorms and general plans.
More than just patiently enduring my prattle, though, Abbi helped pave the way for my speedy return to marathon training. Two weekends ago, just days after my release from Lenox Hill Hospital, she came home with a brand-new pair of “white lightning and brilliant blue” Gel Kayano XIVs tucked under her arm. This morning, they made their New York City debut.
Saturday morning, they’ll run their first half-marathon; next weekend, a twenty mile training run; and in just thirty-days, they’ll carry me from Staten Island to Central Park in what will be my ninth New York City Marathon.
Yes, Dr. Dawson approves.
And no, I won’t be out to break my personal best (3:56:24); I just want to spend some quality time with my wife, and cross the finish line.
And yes, it’s probably ambitious. But like Spike Lee says, “If you allow failure to enter your mind, you’re defeated already.”
The Lost Weekend (Or, Entropy 101)
I called my sister-in-law from the lobby. My nephew answered.
“Where are you?” he asked in his hushed, adorable phone voice.
“I’m on my way to the park to meet Aunt Abbi,” I replied.
“So are we!” he said, only slightly-more enthused.
“See you at the finish line!” I said.
I called my dad from 57th Street.
“Where are you?” he asked. “Sounds like you’re playing in traffic.”
“Doc said I can’t run ’til Monday, but he didn’t say anything about the bike!”
I entered Central Park at Columbus Circle and merged carefully with 5,000 New York Road Runners. I rode slowly, talking with my father (on headset) while scanning the crowd for my wife and brother who were, by just after nine o’clock Sunday morning, closing in on their 18-mile finish line.
“So how’s your weekend been?” he asked.
“It’s kinda’ blown, frankly,” I responded. “We watched the debate with Chris and Meg and the Abadfest Crew Friday night, which was a blast. I mean, the debate wasn’t, but playing CatchPhrase until two o’clock in the morning was.”
“But yesterday sucked,” I continued, dodging an errant roller blader. “I was in the office until midnight yesterday turning around this Obama interview we snagged. We cranked out a bunch of great articles and blogs, but it gobbled up the whole day.”
“Beats the alternative,” he said.
I lost my breath a bit climbing Cat Hill, but otherwise felt fine. I spotted Abbi — who’d run the eighteen miles in under three hours — walking with Jennifer at the 102 Street Transverse. Chris and the boys walked up behind.
Ethan and Edward were a sight in their rain boots. Ethan showed me his temporary tattoos. Edward spelled out “police.” They were a bundle of kinetic energy, hiding behind every tree, climbing every hill, exploring every nook and cranny. Rain began to fall again as we walked towards home.
“BANG!”
My rear tire exploded as we waited to cross the street. We all jumped.
“What was that?” Ethan asked.
“Uncle Benjamin’s tire popped,” Chris explained.
“Why?”
“Well,” I explained*, “Because The Universe’s primary action is entropy. That is, all energy changes decrease the amount of useful energy in the universe. Or, in other words, the general progression of things is from order to chaos. So… tires pop.”
“Oh,” Ethan said. “But energy can’t be destroyed?”
“That’s right, Ethan. That’s the first law of thermodynamics. It’s the second we’re talking about here. Tricky stuff, really.”
And so Abbi and I bid our beloved nephews farewell, then sat on a bench in the rain while I struggled to replace the innertube. Even as I managed to remove the tire and insert a new innertube, though, my pump broke.
“No sweat,” I said, wiping the downpour from my eyes. “There’s a bike shop on 79th. Lemme just put you in a cab…”
Moments later, though, as I inflated the innertube outside Bicycle Rennaissance, a bubble formed. I went in side, humbled myself before the staff (in my experience, bike shops are only a step above music shops in terms of employee arrogance and aloofness), then hit three street again.
“BANG!!!”
Exactly twelve blocks later, the tire blew again.
I walked the remaining fifteen blocks hanging my helmeted head in tights and a bike jersey (there are few sadder sights, I think, than a bicyclist walking his flat-tired bike).
Abbi and I spent the rest of our Sunday eating comfort food and watching TV on the couch.
Ergo, my lost weekend (or, entropy 101).
* Of course Ethan and I didn’t discuss thermodynamics. I just said, “Because it was old.” Which is pretty much the same thing. Or not.
Best M*therf*ckin’ Crew Ever
Hangin’ with the best m*ther*ckin’ crew ever makes me the luckiest m*ther*ckin’ dude ever.
I mean, I don’t wanna’ overstate anything, but tens days ago, I was laid out on a slab of stainless steel, shaved, intubated, swabbed with iodine, and incised. Tonight, I was stompin’, singin’ and scissor kickin’.
But tonight wasn’t about me.
Check it out.
My band mates, Tony, Chris and Jamie, rehearsed my set without me Tuesday night on account of me being too weak (or too lame) to do so. So where I was teetering on the edge of train wreck, they were rock solid. Bruthas have my back.
What’s more, singer/songwriter extraordinaire Jamie Leonhart (who — mark your calendar — is performing at Rockwood next Tuesday at 8pm) killed it again, slogging through the rain to dust her angelic soprano on my rough-and-tumble rock songs. “Killing The Blues” was transcendent (as you’ll hear when we release it on my forthcoming “Live @ Rockwood Music Hall” EP in November). And during “Breathe In,” when I went for a C instead of a G and nearly derailed the whole proceeding, she didn’t fluster, but swayed stoically, waiting confidently for the band to right itself. Which we did, and finished the song strong.
In a brief, micro-conversation before took the stage, Jamie said, laughing, “I have a constant, low-level buzz of anxiety.”
“Me too!” I admitted, relieved, like I’d met a long-lost sister.
See, it doesn’t take much to rattle me onstage: a rogue comment (last night it was “Freebird!” between the first and second songs), a critically-esteemed audience member (last night, “Golden Days” director Chris Suchorsky, Fuse producer Bruce McDonald, and Rich Girls front man Matt Basile had me on my toes), silence between songs.
The narrowly-avoided “Breathe In” fiasco (which, I’m pretty sure no one noticed except the band), partnered with my gravely voice and diminished lung capacity (a result of having a plastic tube jammed down my throat and breathing on a respirator for an hour and a half last week), low-level buzz of anxiety was cranked to eleven.
And so I had a choice as I stared down at remaining tunes on the set list: Get into my head, or out of it. For just a second, I stepped outside of myself, and surveyed the room. There’s my wife, smiling. There’s my sister-in-law, singing along. There’s the Abadfest ‘08 Crew, bopping their heads to the beat.
‘Last week, I was pushing an IV down a hospital hallway,’ I thought. ‘Tonight, it’s raining in New York City and the world’s falling apart, but this rag-tag group of friends and family are here together, singing along to a couple of optimistic rock songs.’
I chose the latter, and didn’t look back until the final, gloriously resolute A major that ends “Dear Elizabeth.”
But tonight wasn’t about me.
Check it out.
So Chris, Jamie and Tony were performing Chris’ songs after my set. And they were crushin’ it. Chris’ songs are catchy, muscular, and angular. They’re full of clever changes and smart stops-and-starts that the guys had dialed in tight. Chris was in terrific spirits to boot, laying into his solos, telling tales between songs — clearly confident and happy. Which is when he pulled the big surprise.
“So we rehearsed without Ben this week, which was weird enough,” he said. “But we decided to take it one step further. So, Ben, if you can spot this one, and we don’t butcher it, pop up and join us.”
It took me a minute to recognize it because they totally Chris Abad-ized it (that is, Chris played some crazy-interesting, slightly-dark chords instead of my straight EmGCD), but there it was: my 2003 “Love & Other Indoor Games” single, “The Rest Of My Life.” I was floored! It was awesome! So, of course I jumped up on stage — totally, 100% moved by the awesome, thoughtfulness of my pals — and pitched in some woozy, half-drunk harmonies.
In the end, as Abbi and I raced uptown through the rain in the back of a cab, there was no low level buzz. All I felt was light, joy, levity and gratitude for the best m*ther*ckin’ crew ever — plus an iota of relief that I didn’t pop a stitch.
Rockwood Music Hall (New York, New York)
Trying To Tell You
Giving Up the Ghost
The Last Time
(I Won’t Let You) Get Away
Promise
Killing The Blues
Breathe In
The Boys Of Summer
Live Forever
Dear Elizabeth
Double-bill with singer/songwriter Chris Abad!
Bee Season
For a few hours before my whole emergency appendectomy ordeal, an entirely different health issue was at hand.
Pun intended.
See, I like fire. Always have. Just ask our former neighbor, Ron Wells, who nabbed my brother, Christofer, and I behind the hedges with a can of gasoline, a box of matches and a few hand-crafted tiki torches.
I was eight-years-old.
Still, when it became apparent that Abadfest ‘08 — the annual Andover, Vermont-based celebration of singer/songwriter (and all-around awesome dude) Chris Abad’s birthday — was running low on firewood for the most-excellent backyard fire pit, I did what any other kid who was born in Iowa, lived there for three weeks, then grew up in various Midwestern and Northeastern cities would have done: I grabbed an ax, and began felling some trees.
Well, not exactly. But I did get the axe out of the basement, pull a few logs from the backyard wood pile, and begin splitting. Or trying to split. It had rained all night, so the pile was wet. Which might explain the semi-circle of dudes crowded around me. Either they dug the gun show, relished watching me sweat, or were convinced I was gonna’ lose a limb (frankly, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d emerge unscathed myself).
I got into the swing of it (pun intended, sorry), and split a few, then repaired to the front yard to find a few more. See, New York City rock ‘n roll quartet, Rich Girls was setting up on the back porch. Imagine: a bunch of tattoo-strewn, bad ass, bonafide rock stars right there in Chris’ backwoods backyard! I wasn’t about to let ‘em down with some twiggy, wimpy little campfire. No sir, we were building a towering inferno.
Some context:
Abadfest ‘08 was a weekend of disco balls, grocery-store bling, and Bud Lite.
Abadfest ‘08 was three days of karaoke, beer pong, and Wiffle Ball ™.
Abadfest ‘08 was also deep in the Green Mountains of Vermont some 222 miles from New York City, and 44 miles from the nearest city (Brattleboro, population 8,160). It was the country. There were bugs.
More specifically, there were bees. Lots of them. So much so that one of the Wiffle Ball ™ teams called itself The Hornets. (The other was The Mosquitoes. You get the idea.)
More context:
On August 25, 1996 (I remember the date well, as I was due at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago the next morning), I was swarmed and stung by a hive’s-worth of angry, homeless bees. (You’d have been angry too if a bunch of knuckleheaded stoners had sprayed your hive with flaming Lysol.) Within minutes, I looked like The Elephant Man. Were it not for the fact that my mother was having dinner with a doctor friend who immediately phoned in a prescription for prednisone to the local CVS, well, who knows.
Back to Abadfest ‘08, and me chopping wood alone in the front yard. And that pile of logs. And those bees. And me feeling a sharp pain on my left shoulder blade. And then my left hand. And then dropping the ax and running around the front yard swatting the little buggers away like mad.
Fast forward an hour. Rich Girls are absolutely tearing up the back porch. It’s one for the record books, a sight to behold. Front man Matt Basile is strutting, staggering and spitting whip-smart lyrics like “Exile”-era Mick Jagger crossed with “Ziggy”-era David Bowie. Guitarists Sean Kensing and Mike Vitacco are trading licks and lines. Drummer Jamie Alegre (yeah yeah, I’m biased ‘cuz the guy’s in my band, so what?) is owning his kit like it’s Madison Square Garden, not, well, a garden. The sound is thundering around the surrounding forest and valley. It’s truly impressive.
And the fire’s raging.
And my hand is swelling.
And everyone’s checking out my increasingly huge paw.
So Abbi is worried.
But life is still good because there’s no indication whatsoever that I’ll be in the hospital barely twenty-four hours later when those pesky bee stings and that swollen meat fist will be the least of my worries.
This Little Light Of Mine
Maybe it was the percocet. Maybe it was the excitement of being out of the house for the first time in a week. Either way, it was over so fast!
I think Dr. Dawson thought I was kidding when, a few minutes into Wednesday’s post-op recovery I asked him if I could play my “rock show” on Saturday.
“Listen,” I said (sounding an awful lot like I was talking him into it), “It’s at five o’clock in the afternoon, it’s all-acoustic, I’ll be sitting down, and it’s for the kids.”
“Well,” he said. “If it’s for the kids.”
(I would find out later, as I gave him a sneak peak of my set list, that his grandmother’s brother-in-law wrote “You Are My Sunshine.” Coincidence? Fate? You be the judge.)
So, Saturday comes. I’ve skipped out on rehearsal on account of my recovery, and done little more than change my guitar strings and sketch out our two “kids” songs. (Frankly, by Saturday afternoon, I’d done little more than sit on the couch and watch TV.)
Chris and I meet at the top of the street. I think, ‘I don’t remember this street being so long. Or so steep.’ It’s 4:31. I tell the cabbie that we have twenty-nine minutes and seventy blocks ’til showtime. The cabbie does his best, but New York is not on our side.
It’s nearly five o’clock and still broad daylight as we stride towards Rockwood Music Hall. Through the window, I see a room full of thirtysomethings and kids, many of whom I don’t recognize. ‘Are they here for us?’ I wonder.
They are.
And we’re on.
The place is absolutely crawling with adorable awesomeness. And it takes them neither time nor excuse to dance. When the music starts, so do they. We trot out the first few from “Invention.” Lack of rehearsal notwithstanding, they come naturally now. “Giving Up The Ghost,” “The Last Time” and “Promise” are part of the canon, a second skin.
“Kids,” I quip, “Tell your parents it’s available on iTunes.”
Chris cameos with “No Myth” (”What if I was Romeo in black jeans?”) and sets the dance floor ablaze. A small space in front of the bar (where Shirley Temples are outpacing Brooklyn Lagers two-to-one) becomes the de facto dance floor. The kids — ranging from two to sixty-two — are alright.
The objective, though, is a full-on sing-a-long. Casey Shea gets ‘em started with his by-request (my request) “Roll Your Windows Down.” He sticks around to add his harp “You Are My Sunshine.” And we drive it home with “This Little Light Of Mine.”
That’s the jam.
That’s the message.
That’s why I wanted to play an all-ages show to begin with.
Because the light’s in all of us. Lord knows, it saved my butt more than once.
And who knows? Maybe it’ll make a difference to one of these kids.
Judging by how emphatically Edward was boppin’ his head to our big “The Boys Of Summer” encore, odds are good.
Discharged
When I woke, my wife, mother, and doctor stood over me like a Holy Trinity.
I tried to speak, but could only gesture to Abbi for a kiss.
I didn’t remember anything prior, or have any idea where I was. Through the fog, I heard Dr. Dawson report that the surgery went by the book. The laparoscopy left just three small incisions. My throat was sore (from endotracheal intubation, I would soon learn). I felt like I had to go to the bathroom (from a catheter, I would also painfully learn). But otherwise, I was fine.
I lie there alone in recovery a while as the anesthesia wore off, woozily taking in the room, slipping in and out of sleep.
Downstairs on the ninth floor, Abbi had secured me a private room overlooking Park Avenue. “This may be a close as we get,” she joked. I lie there motionless as a small army of nurses swarmed around me, periodically taking my temperature, pulse, listening to my heart and abdomen. I watched the clouds pass outside the windows, and the bright sky grow dim, nearly pain-free and relieved to be alive.
Truthfully, the details of my remaining twenty-four hours there are murky. I had a beautiful room with beautiful light. My colleagues sent flowers (which choked me up a little bit). I got lots of well-wishes via Facebook. And I watched tons of TV (lots of news), and tried to read, but never made it that far on account of the words colliding with each other (thanks, percocet).
Abbi laughed when I told her a few minutes after a fresh dose, “I feel like I’m surrounded by thousands of tiny asterisks.” The percocet made me feel warm, but also level: there were no highs or lows, just a constant sense of “blah.”
Still, I regained my appetite pretty quickly, and devoured my first two “clear liquid” meals: jello, apple juice, vegetable broth and Italian water ice.
My, ahem, colonic function returned to normal pretty quickly. And, save for the fact that I didn’t have a ton of energy, and I couldn’t bend or twist my torso, I was in pretty good shape. I took walks down the corridor, smiling at the other patients, and thanking God I wasn’t in worse shape ( I saw lots of people in worse shape. In fact, I told Abbi that I hope to die quickly; a hospital is no place to go).
I grew accustomed to the cycles of the hospital: the changing shifts, the cleaning lady, meal service. I made friends with everyone, and thanked them all profusely. I entertained dozens of residents and interns, each younger than the next, each gazing thoughtfully at me, dispensing nickel-anti advice. But mostly, I stared out the window at the passing clouds, and thanked God that I wasn’t in (much) pain, and that I had an amazing wife and a great family to look out for me.
Dr. Dawson visited Wednesday evening, a few hours after my first solid meal.
“I think you’re good to go,” he said. “Just take it easy this week. No running. And don’t rush back to work.”
“What about rock ‘n roll?” I asked. “Can I play my all-ages show Saturday afternoon?”
Rockwood Music Hall (New York, New York)
Giving Up The Ghost
The Last Time
Promise
Breathe In
No Myth
Roll Your Windows Down
You Are My Sunshine
This Little Light Of Mine
Boys Of Summer
All ages show featuring Chris Abad, Tony Maceli, Jaime Alegre, and Casey Shea.
Patience
The Lenox Hill’s ER was manned by a slight, Russian-speaking security guard.
“Name, age, and ailment,” he said handing me a pink slip of paper.
Benjamin Wagner.
37.
I paused at “ailment,” puzzling over how detailed I should be. I wrote, simply, “APPENDIX,” then took my seat in the dank, crowded waiting room.
An elderly black man, maybe 85-years-old, sat slipping in and out of consciousness to my left. A middle-aged white guy in a softball uniform held his twisted pinkie aloft. A drunken, heavy-set Latina mother berated her daughter under her breath. “This is a pimple,” she said. “Not an injury. I should be home with your brother.” A teenager in a soccer uniform sat in a wheelchair, her face streaked with tears, her knee bound in bandages, her parents darting around the room fitfully.
The second hand swept slowly across the clock face. Lou Dobbs droned on about Sarah Palin on CNN. Sirens passed outside. Triage nurses stepped into the waiting room and plucked patients one-by-one from this fluorescent purgatory.
I riffled through my bag, nervously seeking distraction from the pain, the eye contact, and the awkward environment.
Then Abbi walked in.
“How long have you been waiting?” she asked. “Do they know that your appendix could burst any second?”
One minute later, I was being led inside. Two minutes later, I was changing into a hospital gown. Three minutes later, I was on a gurney. Five minutes later, I had an IV.
A steady stream of doctors, nurses, residents and assistants paraded through my narrow, curtained space. I told and re-told my story, gave more blood and urine, and teased what I could from whomever seemed in charge at any given moment.
Information came in fits and starts, and from various sources. The repetitive nature of my symptoms puzzled them a bit (appendicitis tends towards the sudden, not chronic), though the CAT scan seemed conclusive. “He’s confirmed,” they’d say, then begin poking and probing again. “Maybe it’s a stone? Tell me where it hurts again?”
Abbi and I sat there in the silences between doctor visits staring at each other in disbelief. I knew intellectually that this was a minor operation on a supurfluous appendage. But I was scared. And I was sad, not for the moment, but for the future. Family notwithstanding, I’ve never felt the risk of losing someone or watching someone suffer so tangibly. We laughed at ourselves through crocodile tears.
I was finally admitted around ten o’clock, and rolled upstairs to the ninth floor. The hallways were quiet, if depressing. They wheeled me into room 933. Bright light spilled through the door frame. A curtain separated me from another patient, A. Lartina. Abbi and I looked at each other uncertainly.
“Mrs. Wagner,” the night nurse said. “They need you downstairs in admissions.”
I lay there in the dark listening to the sounds of the ward — groans, wheezes, coughs, and beeps — and puzzling over what would come next. When would they get to my surgery? Would I be able to run the marathon in six weeks? What about Saturday’s show?
Abbi came back with answers.
“The diameter of the appendix should be about 5 cm. Your’s is 13. So it’s definitely appendicitis. Dr. Dawson is scheduled to do the operation at 5 a.m., and he says it’s pretty routine laparoscopy: three incisions, a tiny camera. But they want you overnight again tomorrow night.”
The night nurse strapped my legs into two air-driven sleeves for my calves (to promote circulation), showed me my little, plastic nighttime pee container and remote controls, and left. Abbi kissed me, and left. I plugged in my headphones, tried to find a comfortable spot, and drifted in and out of sleep.
In the small, poorly-lit hours of the morning, Dr. Dawson’s assistant had me sign some papers, my life, I presumed. Still, five o’clock came and went. Finally, an attendant told me an emergency in the OR had bumped my surgery to nine o’clock. I asked if I could take a walk. Which is when I spotted it.
The sky was just turning blue as I wheeled my IV unsteadily down the hall. I was talking to my father on my cell phone as I stepped towards the window. There, overlooking Park Avenue, was a gorgeous, well-lit, wood-floored, fully-vacant single room.
“I gotta’ get this room,” I told my dad.
Hospital time is compressed and extended, especially when anesthesia and pain killers are on the line. I finally made it to the operating room around noon. Abbi stood bedside as Dr. Dawson explained what to expect. He was tall and slender, roughly my age, and always smiling. We talked about swimming. He told me he thought I could still play on Saturday, but that I should take it very easy. He told me he thought I’d be able to run the marathon. And then he told me it was time to go.
Pulling away from Abbi was the hardest part, like a Hollywood movie but with worse lighting. I retained an odd balance of confidence and terror as they rolled me down the hallway towards the operating room. There was gear everywhere, so much so that it was difficult for my gurney to pass. Masked doctors, nurses and attendants rushed about. It was cold and bright, like a high school designed in the 60s with all it’s windows open in the dead of winter.
They rolled me into the operating room, pulled me alongside the table, and asked me if I could get myself across. Two huge, circular, mirrored lights shone overhead. A white television monitor with color bars rest just over my shoulder. Dr. Dawson, his shoulder wrapped in a blanket, talked with a nurse as she removed the laparoscopic instruments from their sterile, plastic wrappers. A nurse strapped down my legs, then my left arm, and then …
Patient
In some strange way, I felt relieved as I strode towards Lenox Hill Hospital’s Emergency Room with my plastic bag full of still-wet CAT scans; at least I knew what was wrong, and what had to be done.
It was a strange day from the start.
I’d slept scarcely a wink the night before, dragging myself pathetically from the bathroom floor to the couch to the bedroom, hunchbacked and mute from nausea, vomiting, and flashes of fever and chill, fever and chill. As the sun rose over a new week, it all felt too familiar.
I called in sick, then fell into a fitful sleep. Moments later, the phone rang. The Big Boss needed to see me at noon. Alone. It was, as they say, an invitation I couldn’t refuse. And so I shaved three weeks of beard from my face, pulled on my sport coat, and limped into the office. As I walked down Tenth Avenue, I noticed that the pain — once present from chest to my knees — was growing sharper and more concentrated, like knives in my groin.
As I sat in my office waiting to be summonsed, it dawned on me that now would be a good time to call a doctor.
Two hours later, I was at 65th & Park describing my symptoms.
“It feels like someone’s constantly kicking me in the balls,” I said.
Dr. Lai was puzzled. She took my temperature, blood, and urine. She listened to my heart. And then she began probing. I think she figured it out when I said, “Fuck!”
“That’s your appendix,” she said. “I’m sending you for a scan.”
For some reason (perhaps finally explained by this week’s diagnosis), Lenox Hill Radiology has become something of a second home. In the last five years, I’ve had three ultrsounds in the dingy, well-worn offices: two for my, um, groin, and one for my heart. On Monday, though, they hauled out the big gun: the Philips 64-channel, thin-slice, computed tomography medical imaging system.
I checked in just before four o’clock, and was handed two twenty-ounce bottles of chalky-white barium sulfate.
“I need you to drink all of this in thirty minutes, wait an hour and a half, then we’ll scan you,” the attendant said with a smile. “And I’m supposed to watch you drink your first cup,” she said pouring, “Yunno, to be sure you actually drink the stuff.”
I chugged two, then sat down. A few minutes later, she gingerly approached with a bottle of red liquid.
“I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly. “You need to drink this kind. My bad.”
The red stuff was just as disgusting, especially on an empty stomach. The wait was even worse. Finally, though, another attendant ushered my into a back room, into a gauzy, blue and white gown, and onto a flat tray in the middle of a huge, plastic donut. He strapped down my legs, raised my arms over my head, said, “Just follow the instructions,” and stepped out of the room.
The scanner began to quietly whir around, slowly sliding me through its laser aperture. I lay there quietly considering love and death, and just what might come next. I took a deep breath when the automated female voice instructed, exhaled, and did it again.
The attendant stepped back into the room.
“Lenox Hill ER is across the street,” he said handing me my clothes.
“You take these scans. I’ll call your doctor,” he said calmly.
“Your gonna’ wanna’ get that thing taken out, like, now.”
