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30 or as young as 20 no no he demurred you keep it no it s yours i insisted we will share he said firmly and gestured to me to sit down again so i sat back down and read for a while then vlad announced he was hungry this was a positive sign vlad s appetite had been returning slowly since the surgery but the rate of increase appeared to be accelerating he d eaten breakfast both our breakfasts actually a few hours before when an orderly delivered two sealed boxes each containing a dry sandwich water and an apple i was amused to note that the seal indicated the contents were kosher no lunch appeared to be forthcoming i found out later why so i suggested that i pick up some lunch for us both from the cafeteria we shared a picnic of fried chicken and salad for me and sandwich pudding and juice for him on the hospital bed then we had a long afternoon of reading and dozing with the curtains closed it s like being in a tent vlad commented and in a way it was urban camping but instead of the dramatic forces of nature we were surrounded by human drama the young couple next door once again left for tests and returned the young man repossessed the chair while i napped chatting with his wife in yiddish the sound was strangely peaceful and lulling then the doctors came by for a discussion which of course was in english i couldn t help but overhear since they were inches away separated only by a cloth curtain they asked her if she d ever had surgery i had two ceasarians she said in her gently accented english with an unmistakable note of pride so young i thought and wondered who was caring for the children they couldn t possibly be very old then they explained her condition kidney stones just the thought made me wince the pain was terrible but they had medication for it hopefully she wouldn t end up in such horrible pain again and then they said the magic words we ll be sending you home later today my heart leapt with happiness for them oh good the man said do you know when it usually takes a little time to process the discharge papers the doctor said that we would find out would turn out to be the understatement of the year i see the man replied i am hoping we are hoping we have a wedding to go to tonight everyone chuckled we ll do our best the doctor said i thought of the joy of a jewish wedding i ve been to a few though never orthodox and hoped the young couple would be able to make it they stayed for a surprisingly long time at one point when the young man was gone i was returning to vlad s gurney and saw her sitting up in bed i hear you re going home i said yes she replied with a radiant smile i smiled back i m so happy for you thank you it felt good to have a connection with her and with her husband who so decently shared the chair and who despite my many urgings never once asked to use it when i was in it dinner was another hospital picnic from the cafeteria the young couple departed and the bay was left empty for a while to be replaced by a large hispanic family the rules dictated one visitor per bed but the staff tended to look the other way and this patient had at least two or three visitors chattering away animatedly in spanish i dozed for a bit the curtains were closed and the background noise from the er floor was loud machines beeping people talking patients moaning but over all of it i could hear someone speaking rhythmically a man s voice deep and gravelly reciting something it seemed the accent was pure new york but the cadence was strangely familiar as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end amen it was the glory be i realized one of the canonical catholic prayers often recited as part of the rosary and sure enough the man moved on to the our father and the hail mary i d heard those prayers thousands of times in my childhood i found myself reciting silently along with him the words and phrases appearing as if by themselves on my lips and then i drifted off to sleep again i was awakened by the arrival of vlad s night nurse leilani a slight ebullient young filipina with a kind demeanor she introduced herself changed his saline solution and said she d return in a bit to check on him sergei reappeared too on his second twelve hour shift you guys still here he asked incredulously we nodded you are the most patient man in the world he said to vlad he was right patience is one of vlad s strong suits but there didn t seem to be anything else to do complaining wouldn t get him a hospital room that didn t exist and he was getting the treatment he needed plus he wasn t in pain in fact he was feeling better than at anytime since the surgery the evening wore on and even sergei acknowledged he was tired on a rare break in his duties he leaned on a stool and chatted with us he d only gotten an hour or two of sleep himself thanks to a busy schedule and the gridlocked traffic outside then leilani appeared you should go home and get some sleep she said to me my friends had been urging the same thing via email but i worried that if vlad were moved to a hospital bed during the night i wouldn t be able to find him so leilani kindly gave me the er main desk phone number to call if i needed to know where vlad was of course vlad had his phone with him and could easily send me email if he was moved in my sleepy state i d forgotten that at any rate i took everyeone s advice and went back to the apartment for a few hours of restful sleep i set the alarm for 6 am but surprised myself by waking up a few minutes early there was an email from vlad sent moments ago surreal night going to draw blood soon latest i heard if potassium and creatinine are lower i can go home but we ll see surreal that sounded interesting i showered made coffee and packed up optimistically packing vlad s new boots which had arrived the day before in the hopes that he d be released soon one of his feet had been a bit floppy after the surgery and the physical therapist had suggested wearing ankle boots to stabilize it vlad also said he was hungry so i brought cheese crackers yogurt and juice remembering the dry breakfast of the day before and come to think of it that had been the last food they offered us in the er after vlad had finished breakfast he told me the story apparently it was a good idea that i d gone home because the er had gotten even more chaotic overnight and vlad had gotten very little sleep at one point he woke up to the rolling cadences of a southern accented sermon one of the patients 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 https windagainstcurrent com 2025 11 26 a meditation on gratitude feed 4 36196 windagainstcurrent2 the first leg https windagainstcurrent com 2023 06 06 the first leg https windagainstcurrent com 2023 06 06 the first leg comments tue 06 jun 2023 23 52 38 0000 http windagainstcurrent com p 33996 continue reading 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 ...