A Visit to Lennox Hill Hospital
Recently I was prescribed medication that had an adverse reaction on me. My whole body ached. I vomited all night. At first Kelly admonished me. ‘’Oh Mum, don’t be so melodramatic,’’ he chided. By morning he realized I was not being ‘melodramatic.’ He called the doctor. Upon examining me, the doctor arranged for me to go directly to Emergency. Kelly drove me there. Poor guy he had his hands full that day. He was about to close on a house he had just bought. It was the day before his closing. He was to go for his final walk through before his closing the next day. Here I was, sitting in the emergency room, wretching my guts out. He sat with me so patiently, waiting for me to be admitted. I kept asking him to go about what he had to do. There was nothing he could do for me and who knows when they would call my name? Emergency rooms are ruthless! He kept refusing to go. I kept on urging him not to stay. As the minutes turned into hours, he finally left. That is not the way it should be when you’re about to purchase a new home. I had joyously prepared all the symbolic items I would put in his new home to bless it before it was occupied. However, it could not be helped. I ended up staying in the hospital overnight, sleeping on a stretcher in the hallway with dozens of other people and covered with my coat to keep me warm. One would think I had gone to a charity hospital and not one of the best hospitals on Long Island. But that came later and is a story upon itself.
That day, as I sat waiting, my mind drifted back to the last time I was in an emergency room.
I have a problem with dizziness. One day, many years ago, on my way to the bathroom in the morning, I blacked out and crumbled on the landing. At that time, we had Blanca, a sweet Peruvian cleaning lady whom I love dearly. Once a week she came to clean the house. That day it was somewhat early in the morning. Coming out of one of the rooms, she spotted me crumpled on the landing. “Senor! Senor!” she cried. “La senora, la senora!” Her cries were loud enough to wake the dead.
Peter was in his home office downstairs. He was working on a trial he had scheduled for the coming week. He couldn’t imagine what the commotion was about. As he approached, my head was just clearing up. I sat up, leaned against the wall and looked at them. Tears were pouring down Blanca’s face and she was semi hysterical. Peter’s face had paled several shades, even more than usual. He looked like Caspar the Friendly Ghost. “I’m alright,” I mumbled. “Nothing to worry about,” I said, as I attempted to get up. Immediately two sets of hands tried to help me up.
Peter said, “Right! We are going to the hospital.” He loved anything medical and had dreamed of being a doctor. However, his father died when he was young and circumstances changed for them. He became an attorney instead.
“I’m alright. I’m not going to the hospital,” I said.
“Please, Stella, now is not the time for you to act like a prima donna. I have a grueling schedule ahead of me next week. Please don’t give me a tough time,’’ he pleaded.
“I’m NOT going, I tell you! There’s nothing wrong with me!”
Just then a cousin, Kelly and Max, our dog, walked in. The group was getting bigger and they all had an opinion. Peter was getting annoyed. “No arguments. You are going!” he stated in a steely voice. This was not the adoring husband that was talking. This was the tone of the determined, no more nonsense from you, I’m a very busy attorney. He firmly clutched me from the elbow and escorted me to the car and drove off. I like the small, homey Glen Cove Hospital. They are caring and good. I was comfortable with them. My uncle was the head of ENT there. After he retired, my cousin took over. They knew our family and made us feel very comfortable. But Peter did not drive to Glen Cove. Instead he drove me to Lennox Hill Hospital in the city. The reason was that he had received excellent treatment at that hospital, when the ambulance had taken him there recently. They literally saved his life. However, that was not what happened in my case. It was a Saturday and for some reason, I noticed over the years, Saturdays were the days when the ER tended to be overcrowded. We sat there for what seemed to be an eternity. Finally they checked me in and gave me a room. Peter gave me a quick peck on the cheek and rushed off to work on his trial once more. It was dusk by now.
“He knows there is nothing wrong with me, otherwise he would not have rushed off so quickly,” I grumbled to myself. I sat on the bed. There was an unpleasantly fetid odour in the room, it smelled like unwashed rotting flesh and an unflushed toilet. I could feel myself gagging. I controlled myself. To top it off, the person in the next bed was raving and screaming gibberish on top of her voice as well. I felt I had entered the gates of hell. I was not hooked to anything, so I quietly slipped out of bed and sat outside in the corridor. There was no way I was going to stay in that room. I sat on a chair, leaned my head against the wall and tried to sleep. By now it was quite late. I knew I would call Peter first thing in the morning to come and fetch me. I must have dozed off, for the next thing I knew, there was a very pregnant Chinese nurse angrily commanding me to go back inside the room. I refused. We bounced angry words back and forth to each other. Her voice rose higher and became more hysterical, but I was adamant. For a moment I thought she would deliver her baby right then and there, but that was her problem, not mine. There was no way I was going to spend another second in that room. She finally gave in. She found me another room. I entered. It smelled clean. There was a woman sleeping in the bed by the window. With a grateful sigh I stretched out on my assigned bed and promptly fell asleep. What seemed like five minutes later, I woke up to see a group of black women towering around the other bed and on top of their voices chanting, “Glory hallelujah! Jesus Christ is our Lord…” on and on they went. For a second I thought I had died and entered the Pearly Gates of Heaven! But no, these were mortals and they seemed to have no qualms about rudely waking me up early on a Sunday morning with their loud chantings of Glory Hallelujahs! Talk about consideration, or the lack thereof! Now I was beginning to feel as if I had entered a newly written chapter to the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.
Right! I am going to call Peter to come and fetch me, just as soon as we get into a decent hour of the morning. I sighed once more and closed my eyes, but not for too long, for someone began to poke me. In front of me stood a well coiffed and dressed woman underneath her unbuttoned white doctor’s uniform. “What are you here for?” she asked me superciliously.
I was beginning to get extremely annoyed. “A shampoo and a blow dry. Perhaps a manicure,” I answered sarcastically. “You’re holding my chart. If you don’t know, I am leaving! Before you rudely woke me up, no doctor had attended to me. I made a mistake. I have been here since yesterday morning. Not one doctor had examined me as yet! Now I will go home.” I called home. Peter was annoyed and refused to come pick me up. ‘’I will not succumb to your whims. I will not pick you up! They need to see what is wrong with you!’’
‘’I can go to the doctor and see what the problem is. I do not want to be here! I feel as if I have entered the Twilight Zone. Please Peter, please…’’ But I was speaking to a deadline. He had hung up!
I weighed my options. Bless him, Kelly did come pick me up and without any unnecessary comments. That’s when I made up my mind. When it comes time for me to depart this earth, I want to die in my own home, in the comfort of my own room and my own bed. I definitely do not want to die in a hospital. I wish to die in my own home, listening to my beloved classical music, surrounded by people I love, gazing at them one more time before I make my final exit.
I can hear Peter chuckling. ’’Stella, for heaven’s sake! Where do you come up with your weird ideas?”
I look up beyond the ceiling of the room, beyond, beyond up to where I imagine Peter is in heaven. I just smile and shrug my shoulders.