Hospital Interruptus! - Poem: In honor of my bloodletting

Kidney clinic on Monday morning, they called in the afternoon and said, Get your ass back here, young lady, your blood sugar is out of control.

Dutifully I trudged back and checked into the overcrowded ER waiting room. Scott and I waited two hours before being seen, captured, and hospitalized all nite long.

H-E-L-P.

Remember reading the sad story of the 28-yo pregnant woman hit by a motorcycle on Roosevelt Blvd? Yep, they all arrived in the ER. She died and the man is in critical condition.

There was also a 25-yo schizophrenic young man who lay in front of my room on a stretcher mouthing inanities. The man w/him, probly his father, said they just discovered he'd stopped his pills. Whenever the doc questioned him, he said ridiculous things like, I'm a doctor of technology!

After they moved him on, the doctor said to the nurse, A Beautiful Mind.

She had no idea what he was talking about.

BUT WE KNOW, don't we smart people?

Vat else?

Oh, I was set free today from Einstein Medical Center, where I spent four horrible days.

You know those hospital beds? Dreadfully uncomfortable. My sciatica returned with a vengeance.

They couldn't get my blood sugar under control until today when they discharged me at around 5 pm.

50 percent of kidney transplant patients develop diabetes.

I'd called my friend Phil and asked if he could come over to demonstrate principles of "shooting up" which he did beautifully. My sister Donna was also here so she could watch and prompt me later on.



Now a quick run-thru of the past four days.

I remember when my dad, at 58, was in Abington Hospital, and just diagnosed w/ lung cancer that meta'd to his brain. He said to me, This is the worst day of my life.

Well, these were not my worst days.

My dad also said, when he went home to die, It takes a lot to kill an organism.

The hospital brings out thots like these. I was back on Eighth Floor Klein Bldg where I'd spent four days after the Kidney Transplant.

I met the most interesting people! You had to be careful tho who you talked to. The majority were not interested in talking. But Dennis was and agreed to be on my blog.

Say hello to Dennis Kelly of Gibbstown New Jersey, proud owner of a new kidney in February, rehospitalized, not uncommon, due to infection.

He received the kidney of a 50-yo man who died from cystic fibrosis. They keep CF people alive so much longer today.



Dennis is a prince among men. A biker, he rides in charity-rides and with his friends has raised thousands of dollars for charity.



Sarah joined me in listening to Dennis's exploits and travails when he was on dialysis for 8 long years. Family members wanted to donate kidneys but Dennis refused, waiting for a cadaver.

Cubicle in Einstein ER. My doctor, Paul, said the ER is huge. Between patients, doctors would busy themselves making sure supplies were well-stocked.

I had a supernice ultrasound tek, Gencie from Albania. When I said he spoke great English, he thanked me. He said my kidney looked great - looks, that is - not function, which you can't tell from the ultrasound.

One doc, Julie an endocrine trainee, said my kidney is working brilliantly!

Thank you Sarah Lynn Daughter Deming.

To while away the oceans of time, I took photographs inside my cell.

Free TV for the price of suffering.


Finally got my own room, back in The Tower Bldg.

Above is Chaplain Kyle Dunhagen from upstate New York, son of a preacher, and new graduate of Seminary in N Brunswick NJ. This is his first job. He and his fiancee, who teaches English composition, moved here over the summer and love it!

When he came in, I asked him, What's your religion?

Christian, he said. Protestant denomination.

I'm an unbelieving Jew, I said.

We talked a long time. He's often called upon in the middle of the night to pray with someone, or just listen to them, so he comes back to the hospital from Old City Philadelphia.

Then I asked him to pray for me. He closed his eyes and made up a b'ful prayer while I sat with eyes closed and my sciatica throbbing like a trapped chicken was in my butt.

Dr Saurab H Pande, above, sat in a chair and we chatted quite a while.
He's a resident.

Why dyou wanna be a nephrologist, I asked.

Truthfully, he said, I chose it by the process of elimination.

Oncology there was too much suffering. He said he went home and cried a few times b/c of the suffering of his patients.

He told me about Trake City, a place where terminal cancer patients are kept. Last-ditch measures that don't work are tried on these poor souls at the insistence of their families who don't want them to die.

Why is this? he asked. What is it about America?

We're afraid to die, I said, and told him about the famous NY'r article by Atul Gawande. (Gawande has his own website at www.gawande.com).

Yes, said Pande, he's a Harvard surgeon. I'm very familiar with his work from the NY'r.

Everytime Pande would check in on me at the appt'd times, he shook my hand.

His wife is finishing up her psychiatric residency at Hahnemann and then the two of em will move to El Paso TX in the summer.

But it's so hot! I said.

India is hot, he said.

He told me about McAllen, TX (where my old BF Russell Eisenman lives) having the highest costing medical expenses in the nation.

It's their culture, he said. They don't try natural ways of healing, they operate.

El Paso, on the other hand, has one of the lowest costs of medical care.

Pande is a thinker!

As a nephrologist he would have 'normal hours' and not be called in the middle of the nite as, say, a cardiologist is.

I had a reputation at the hospital as being a writer. Wished I'd brought in a copy of the Compass. Hmm, maybe I'll bring a copy of my bipolar life story to Kidney Clinic on Monday and have Dr Kung give it to Pande.

I told Pande I'd written a poem and here it is. I entered a poetry contest at Montco Community and thought for sure I would win.

When I didn't win, I stopped submitting. But not writing.




IN HONOR OF MY BLOODLETTING

Here is my left arm, Denise,
take it,
the one where the perfect vein for
shooting heroin
pops out.

I never shot heroin,
Denise,
too afraid
but always wondered what it felt like:
Euphoria:
the hawk
soaring overhead
readying himself
for the
kill:
furry fieldmice,
the feral cat.

I rest my arm on the table
eyes fastened
on the aquarium ahead
golden fish and black mollies
float through high-up castles
parading their same seemingly
endless tune over and over again
while a tiny hermit crab with
wheels on his bottom
shoos along the prickery sand,
a man of balance and calm desires.

Is it coming out, Denise?
She’s a’comin, you say,
in your rubber gloves,
I glance over at the tube
as my wine of life
splashes merrily into a glass container
then gaze back at the aquarium
where the fish comfort me
their bliss spilling over
becoming mine.