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a black man who said he was a preacher had launched into a sermon about aaaron and moses in traditional call and response style it was surprisingly good vlad said and the er congregation had listened approvingly even the doctors and nurses there were a few other stories but that was the best one i thought about the ever changing range of cultures and religions packed into that room eastern european hispanic filipino orthodox catholic evangelical overnight the hispanic family had left and the bay next to ours had been occupied by an elderly black woman she occasionally moaned in pain and seemed a bit disoriented poignantly there was no one beside her she was neatly dressed with strikingly well cared for nails in a becoming coral color and she returned my smiles as i came and went though we didn t speak i was sitting beside vlad reading when i heard a doctor come by he was young male and obviously trying to be kind but he clearly didn t understand human dynamics do you have any family he asked the woman i couldn t hear her reply daughters sons brothers sisters is there anyone with you he asked again ask her who does her nails i thought they had clearly been done with love and attention she seemed both too ill to have done them herself and too frugal to pay for a professional manicure find out who did her nails i thought and you d find out who was standing in as next of kin but that detail evidently escaped the doctor who was growing frustrated finally he just broke the news he d come to deliver that leg is looking very bad it s going to have to come off do you hear me we are going to have to amputate my heart stopped and vlad and i looked at each other with shock vlad s eyes crinkled with empathy probably cancer he whispered or diabetes i said he nodded we both winced what a horrible way to find out alone and in the er the only saving grace was that it wasn t clear whether or not the woman understood him that wasn t the only down note of the day we d been in the er nearly 36 hours by this point and the mood seemed to have grown bleaker somehow more patients were moaning or screaming in pain or at least it seemed that way to me the staff was as attentive as possible but the constant onslaught of human misery was draining one woman asked me for pain medication i explained i was just a visitor but she begged me to call a nurse so i did thinking all the while how difficult it must be to be bedridden in pain and alone i was happy to note that a visitor had finally arrived for the woman in the bay next to us a young black woman very poised with an ethereal sense of calm i couldn t figure out her relationship to the older woman but i was gratified by her first question who did your nails see i said triumphantly to vlad she gets it her presence evidently soothed the older woman who started speaking more coherently and animatedly than she had in hours i wondered again if she understood about the amputation i was just about to get some breakfast when vlad s medical team appeared with joyful news he was to be released although his potassium was still a bit high the kidneys were functioning normally he would need to keep drinking water and get another blood test before the chemo but otherwise he was fine all they had to do was submit the paperwork this was great news it was almost 10 and i figured we d be out of there in 30 minutes an hour at the outside it might be longer than that vlad warned reminding me of the conversation with the orthodox couple i can t see why i retorted i soon learned and began to understand something about the medical system that was well surreal after a half hour of waiting i went to check with the discharge team to see what was going on they told me they couldn t discharge him without discharge paperwork and nobody in the er could issue that paperwork apparently once vlad had been admitted to the hospital the day before he was no longer the responsibility of the er medical team although he was physically present in the er his care was the responsibility of his regular doctors that s why we hadn t been offered meals we weren t the er s responsibility though a few kind nurses checked in to make sure we were eating and the er doctors couldn t submit the paperwork to release him that had to come from his own medical team which had gone back to their rounds believing that he was already released we were in limbo and for the first time i began to get frustrated mt sinai had a highly sophisticated online medical records system yet they couldn t discharge him unless a physical doctor physically showed up his doctors were off caring for patients why should they have to come back just to issue some paperwork one of the er doctors stopped by just to check in i now knew that he could do nothing but told him the situation anyway he asked vlad s daytime nurse a young blonde woman named laura to page his medical team she d already done so it turned out repeatedly with no answer another hour drew by i checked with the nurse still no response by now it was 11 30 that s it we re leaving i said i have work to do and this is ridiculous we ll leave now and they can sort out their paperwork later no vlad retorted angrily you leave i ll stay i don t have time for this and neither do you we will do whatever they tell us if it s a matter of medical treatment but i m not going to sit around here while you re not getting treatment and should have been home just for a bureaucratic snafu we finally agreed that i d walk over to his doctor s offices just a half block away and see if there was anything they could do vlad s doctors were as surprised as i was they thought we d have been long gone from the er and said they hadn t gotten any pages apparently there had been a communications gap between the er and the physician s assistant who was supposed to handle the paperwork they volunteered to page her for me and i headed back to the er whether coincidentally or not she arrived a moment or two after i did bearing the precious discharge papers she apologized and reiterated that she d had no idea that he wasn t going to be discharged immediately after she left she said she d gotten no pages until the last one from the doctor s office no matter we were finally on our way and at 12 15 pm on friday 39 hours after we d entered and nearly three hours after we d been told we could go we stepped out into the bright fall sunshine on the short cab ride home i thought of all the people whose lives had crossed ours and whose stories we d been part of we hadn t had a chance to say goodbye to sergei whose second shift had ended at 7 am i hoped he d gotten some rest the young orthodox couple had they made it to their wedding the older black lady i hoped someone was there to hold her hand when she woke up from anesthesia to discover she no longer had a leg and the people whose faces we never saw the man who recited the catholic prayers and the preacher i really hope we never have to go back there i said to vlad three times in two months was more than enough for a while and 40 hours in the er had to be approaching some kind of record on further reflection though i realized the third time was a charm we hadn t gotten any life changing diagnoses and we couldn t honestly say it was a bad experience it wasn t one we d have chosen to have or anything we d like to repeat but for almost 40 hours we d been plugged into the lives of people ourselves included who were grappling with the fundamentals of human experience pain fear faith empathy kindness it left us feeling tired exhausted but also strangely alive back at home we were grateful to the point of tears for the little things a comfortable bed quiet environment enthusiastic colleagues and the generosity of friends who went above and beyond to deliver dinner after we d abruptly cancelled a planned visit ordinary life suddenly seemed bigger brighter and more satisfying than we d realized 4 comments posted in uncategorized tagged emergency room gratitude hospital mt sinai new york new york city the first leg posted on june 6 2023 by johna till johnson 8 comments happy team trimorons in victoria photo react photography kelsey fletcher it was an uneventful sail that is if you don t count bright sunshine dying winds a fierce opposing current towards the end and the usual odds and ends of mechanical issues and trim one of the pedal drives needed adjustment the cruising setup of the boat a full kitchen and bathroom added weight but team trimorons safely crossed the 40 mile open water proving ground which is what the r2ak organizers call the first leg of the race basically they test the sailors mettle with a 40 mile open water passage carefully monitored by support boats there s no guarantee this leg will be the roughest part of the journey in fact there s almost an iron clad guarantee that it won t be but safely navigating and sailing and pedaling across 40 miles of open water tends to separate the do ers from the dreamers team trimorons started in the chill 5 am dawn please note the warm waterproof dexshell caps soon i ll be letting you know how to get a trimoron logo ed cap of your very own jeff in drysuit chris bundled up by midday they d stripped down to shorts and t shirts and exchanged the warm hats for floppy sunhats or none at all chris the pedaling champ about that pedaling i asked jeff if he had to pedal much and here was his characteristically laconic reply 3 4 miles strong tide current against us into victoria the water was moving past us fast but moving over the ground at less than 2 knots this was the first of the fierce pacific northwest currents i m sure it won t be the last you may be thinking a 40 mile sail sounds strenuous heck i think a 40 mile sail is pretty strenuous but maxi the cat was unimpressed maybe it s because he saw what a very small portion of the race they ve completed thus far maxi is unimpressed that little blue line pointed to by the arrow that s how far they ve come see that star way up in the upper right of the chart under the word alaska yeah that one that s where they re going 40 miles down 710 to go 8 comments posted in life nature sailing tagged british columbia r2ak race to alaska trimaran victoria looks like they made it posted on june 5 2023 by johna till johnson 2 comments trimorons arrived in port townsend after four separate boat inspections including the boat sniffing dog team trimorons crossed the mountains and arrived at port townsend the next few days were busy doing last minute packing and organizing and a few other things team trimorons all together logo placement 1 there was the question of attaching the logos logo placement 2 then there was the question of organizing provisions provisioning chris is a neatnik so christina rose is cleaner and more organized than she s ever been in her life and jeff needed a way to remember the occasion r2ak forever vlad can t wait to start eating the roast meat dinner and last but not least a couple of shakedown cruises testing the spinnaker and testing the genoa monday june 5 at 0500 is the big start team trimorons assures me they re rested and ready 2 comments posted in life nature sailing tagged port townsend r2ak race to alaska sailing trimaran more scenes from the northcountry posted on may 30 2023 by johna till johnson 2 comments up ahead the crazy mountains the two thirds trimorons slept deeply and awoke early the plan was to be on the road around 0400 there was a slight delay as they realized they d managed to lock the keys inside the van oops fortunately one of the windows was slightly cracked and they were able to use the boat hook to retrieve them they started on their merry way towards the crazy mountains apparently the name is an anglification of a crow name wikipedia gives two slightly different sources the name crazy mountains is said to be a shortened form of the name crazy woman mountains given them in complement to their original crow name after a woman who went insane and lived in them after her family was killed in the westward settlement movement the crow people called the mountains awaxaawapìa pìa roughly translated as ominous mountains or even more roughly crazy mountains they were famous to the crow people for having metaphysical powers and being unpredictable a place used for vision quests the view alongside in any event you can see why they call montana big sky country the crazy mountains are getting closer and the two thirds trimorons are drawing towards port townsend in washington state they have mussel sniffing dogs finn was certified as a zebra quagga mussel detection dog in 2022 it looks like they ll be following route 90 into seattle and taking the ferry from there 2 comments posted in life nature sailing travel tagged crazy mountains idaho montana port townsend r2ak race to alaska trimaran r2ak scenes from the northern lands posted on may 29 2023 by johna till johnson 3 comments geese in flight by gary greff they call it the enchanted highway it s a 32 mile stretch of highway connecting with route 94 in north dakota decorated with what s billed as the largest collection of scrap metal sculptures in the world despite spending 30 years crisscrossing the united states as a long haul trucker vlad doesn t recall having been on route 94 so 2 3 of the trimorons decided to take the northern route to port townsend they didn t take the enchanted highway but came close enough to have a look at one of its most famous sculptures geese in flight farther along they passed by the theodore roosevelt national park a section of the north dakota badlands cruising through the badlands it turns out that when you re hauling a collapsible trimaran you end up with more than just reduced mileage and a fair amount of wind drag you get bugs lots of bugs whose short lives sadly become still shorter upon contact with the amas bug cemetery as our intrepid heroes drove into montana they encountered something they hadn t expected all watercraft must be inspected it turns out that montana land of 3 227 lakes is fiercely protective of its waters any boats entering the state must be inspected for the presence of invasive species which includes mussels plants and ummmmm barnacles montana boat inspection apparently the boat was launched in high risk waters fortunately for all involved it had been thoroughly cleaned dried and painted since it last touched water i feel a lot better about having spent a saturday morning last month scrubbing barnacles off the bottom johna scraping barnacles in april of course vlad also thoroughly cleaned scrubbed and painted the boat afterward in any event our hard work did the trick and the trimorons were rewarded with this cleared to proceed onward trimorons inform me they re planning to stop for the night and rest up before tackling the mountains tomorrow 3 comments posted in art culture life nature sailing tagged badlands flying geese sculpture montana north dakota r2ak race to alaska trimar...
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