Beth Kaplan's Blog, page 63

baseline ambulatory, and how

So many thoughts. I'd say this experience was life-changing except my friends would laugh because I've said that before, a few times. But then, a life can keep changing, can't it?

I cry a lot. Today I met Ruth for a very slow walk, mostly a sit on a bench in the sunny park, and as I saw her approach in the distance, I was overcome: there she is, my dear friend, such a vibrant person, 81-years old and just had her first vaccine! There's so much to celebrate, especially now, as the vaccine slowly arrives and so does spring. 

It still seems miraculous to me that I'm not dead, and it's not everyone who can say that and mean it. I thought a ruptured appendix meant death, but apparently not, at least, not for everyone. I've always been grateful to be alive, but now I've felt the wings brush close, so the breath in my lungs means even more. Plus I spent time surrounded by hundreds of sick people. If anything makes you grateful to be "baseline ambulatory," as the hospital concluded I was, it's that.

Many lovely things. Just after I wrote that second post of praise for the efficient and skilled medical team at St. Mike's, I got an email from a blog follower I've never met, who's a nurse. She told me my first post had made her sad and so she was very happy to read the second. She told me my letters to the nurses would indeed be read and would mean a great deal. They were mailed today. Doing things like this makes me even more glad to be a writer.

I realized about this experience - among many realizations - that in my solitary world, I'm queen. Queen Elizabeth of Cabbagetown. I reign in my house, over my classes, decisions, moi moi moi. Suddenly I was alone in a war-torn environment, in pain, frightened, one pawn among thousands. Nobody is treated better or worse in a hospital, as it should be. My neighbour in Emerg who did not stop chatting with herself was treated with infinite patience and compassion, as was I. Now I'm back to reigning supreme, but with a different perspective. Not quite so supreme.

And another thing: humour. A sense of humour - what evolutionary purpose does it serve? Bonding the tribespeople? I'm sure there are a ton of academic theories about this. Funny. What a miracle funny is. Could we live without it? I think of the moment when I lifted the warming cover and saw that egg with its smiley coffee stain, and my roommate and I laughed and laughed. It felt like we'd both been fighting a battle, not with each other but with life, and had stopped for a hug. Which of course we're not allowed. 

Speaking of funny, my son came over yesterday with food he'd bought - all I want is the plainest fare and he brought baked salmon and scalloped potatoes, so good. My insides are really feeling the powerful medicine; I just went to get probiotics. Monique came over with soup, Jean-Marc has offered turkey. And just now, friends of Sam's left on my doorstep a bag of dinner from his restaurant Round the Horn: lasagna, garlic bread, salad, and a little parcel of gummy bears for dessert. 

So, blessings, no? Wouldn't you be a bit weepy too?

Early this morning, I made coffee and toast and brought it up to bed with the paper, my computer and phone. My bedroom faces east so the morning sun shines in, not on the bed but on the north wall. I sat in bed, and for the first time in many years, I did not open the paper immediately or turn on the machines. I looked at my wall — my mother's teddy bear, my aunt's, my own, the vintage-y record player Lani gave me, Macca, Matisse, and Colette always looking at me. I drank and ate. My life has been the fable of the hare and the tortoise. I've been a speedy hare forever. 

Maybe I'll learn to slow down. Maybe now I have no choice.

completely different take on St. Mike's

Waking this morning after a perfect night's sleep in a soft bed in a dark quiet private room, I realized I needed to say this immediately: St. Mike's may be a very old inner city hospital with lots of problems, but with me, they did their job extremely well. Despite the misfires, lack of communication chief among them, the fact is that I walked in there Monday afternoon very sick and in extreme pain. And I walked out of there on Wednesday afternoon filled with antibiotics and painkillers and very much on the road to recovery. 

It took them two days to choose and carry out the best possible solution for my medical issue. In all the chaos, a raft of nurses hooked me up to drips, kept them dripping, and made me better in two days. 

Today I'm going to spend time writing to people - to the kind nurses Eva and Gowri on the Gyn floor and especially to Julietta, whom I met for five minutes, fell in love with, and didn't say goodbye to in my haste to escape. I need to say thank you to the kindest people on the planet. They will be too busy to read letters, but I will write them.

What I see today, thinking back, is professionals doing their jobs in the most difficult of situations - overcrowding, noise, decaying infrastructure, terrified sick people, and now pandemic, complications we can't even imagine. I may laugh at it, but somehow, in a hospital with thousands of patients, that late breakfast tray was ordered and arrived for me. It was not pretty, but it arrived. That's the miracle. I could not see it at the time, but now I see that ridiculous egg as a symbol of something extraordinary: a world of people at work to make their patients better. 

To be home and not sick and in pain matters most in the world, my friends. If that is where and how you are, give thanks. 

in which Beth muses about some miracles of modern medicine

Well, my blog friends, because we're dealing with the queen of story here, you're waiting for the appendix story, aren't you? It won't surprise you to know there is one. As follows:

The hospital ordeal started at 4 on Monday afternoon, when I couldn't stand the pain any more and finally headed to Emerg - at St. Mike's, a huge old downtown hospital, not the best choice, I saw later, but I'd visited Wayson there often and he loved it. (Later I remembered it was the people he'd loved, not the hospital, and he was right.) It was a long process to be seen, to wait for the scan, to be scanned - being slid into the big white machine just like in the movies - waiting for the diagnosis - "acute perforated appendicitis with significant inflammation." 

Frightening. They said they needed to keep me in because the condition needed to be monitored, and at 1 a.m. took me up to a room. 

The next day they prepared me for surgery - shunts in both arms, an antibiotic drip, no food or drink for hours. Twice, because they said they didn't have a place in surgery yet for me. At first the operation was to be at midnight Tuesday, then they said I could drink and eat until midnight Tuesday b/c it'd be sometime on Wednesday.

I spent Tuesday in bed, hooked up to the drip and filled with pain killers, cancelling my life - two classes, a piano lesson - letting family, friends, and colleagues know where I was and dreading an operation. When I headed to Emerg I'd not expected to stay - what was I @$#@ thinking? - so the only practical thing I'd brought was my cell phone charger. I'd forgotten my reading glasses. Stuck in bed in hospital with no reading glasses! Sam offered to buy some and bring them, and Tuesday afternoon he did. They wouldn't let him in, but this bag of goodies appeared on my bed. Including a notebook and pens and card from Ben. Almost cured me right there.

By end of Tuesday I still had no idea what was planned for me. More fasting overnight. This morning I was a hag with hair sticking out in all directions, had not brushed my teeth for days, was a total mess. Mostly in hospital, especially if you didn't plan to be there, it's the helplessness, waiting, like a child, for the grownups to tell you what's going to happen to you. It's such a shock, coming from your actual life to that. You're in control of nothing, least of all your own body. Your time. Nothing. No sleep possible unless you're one of those miracle sleepers which I emphatically am not, the hospital nightmare of noise and - well, you know - BEEPS! Not knowing what day it was or for me even if it WAS day, since my sweet roommate Danielle had the window side of the room, and her privacy curtain kept out all light to my side - until we became friends and pushed it aside quite a bit. The gowns, the pokes and prods, the food, my god, even the worst jokes couldn't do justice to this food. But I was grateful to get it because much of the time I wasn't allowed to eat, which for me is suffering. I eat every two hours no matter what. Last night the nurse said, we have sandwiches. Yes! She brought me an egg salad sandwich on squishy white bread, one of the best things I've ever eaten, especially as I was about to enter another fast. 

At 10 this morning I called my nurse in tears with still no idea what was happening, and she said she'd call the doctor. Who actually appeared an hour later. She apologized for the lack of communication. No kidding, I said. 

We've decided your appendix is so perforated that we possibly couldn't even remove it, and anyway the surrounding area is so inflamed that surgery would be dangerous, we might damage something. But you are responding well to antibiotics. So we're going to prescribe a course of heavy duty oral antibiotics, and do some more blood work to be sure you're getting better. If it seems to be working, you can go home maybe even tomorrow.

You mean I can eat and drink? I asked breathlessly, taking a sip of water. I'm going home tomorrow? Oh sweet Jesus. I didn't understand a thing, really. Wouldn't this just happen again if they didn't take it out? Apparently, probably not. 

So I waited for my antibiotic. They took some blood and ordered me a late breakfast, which came about an hour later. The nurse told me it wouldn't be much because the kitchen was overloaded and this was late. There was brown water that I think was coffee and juice and a muffin and yogurt. And then I lifted the black warming cover off the plate to find this delicacy. Smile by coffee stain. 

When I told Ruth this story, she said, Are you sure it wasn't a balsamic reduction?

It was good to laugh, even though it hurt. Danielle also laughed, though it hurt her too, after a hysterectomy. I know, I know, it was kind of them to rustle up something for me.

Then they told me I had to change rooms. Rolling down pushed on a bed, clutching my belongings and clothes in plastic bags, to the Gastro floor. When I arrived Monday they didn't have room there so I was on gynaecology. I'd wondered about that. I was settling into my new bed in a four-bed room with three very ill neighbours when my new nurse appeared with the face of an angel, an actual angel - Julietta, a Filipina. Welcome Mrs. Kaplan! she cried, beaming, as if I was the first face she'd seen that day. She explained how things work here, got me settled, brought me ice water in a cup with a top and a straw - a miraculous invention for people lying in bed, the straw, I guess they don't believe in them in gynaecology. It was the first time in at least a week that I began to relax a bit, since I knew what was happening and where I was. Lunch arrived, don't ask, and shortly afterward, a brisk woman. 

You can pack your things, she said. You're cleared to go now.

WHAT?

The blood test showed your white cell count is nearly back to normal, you're ambulatory and able to eat, the antibiotics are working. So here's a prescription for them and for extra-strength Tylenol. Go home and finish the course there. Any questions?

Where's the exit? LOL. No, no questions. Was I hallucinating?

I couldn't hug her b/c Covid, and also brisk, but what blessed words. I called John who lives just down Queen Street and had offered to drive me home. He'd pick me up out front, call when I got there.

A final issue - I still had shunts in both arms, had to wait for someone to come take them out. A nurse did and then said, You need to be signed out by your nurse and she's on break, but she'll be back in around half an hour.

Half an hour?! What if I just leave? I said.

You need your paperwork, she said.

Here it is, I have it, I said, and showed her the prescription, the diagnosis, the follow up. She was reluctant but she let me go. I power-walked as fast as someone who hasn't slept or eaten much and is still sore and feeling frail and carrying plastic bags of possessions including a card from her grandson could power-walk to the Queen St. entrance and called John. We stopped at my local Shoppers to leave the prescription; Robin went to pick it up for me later. John came in to the house with me. When I walked into my living room a few hours ago, I began to sob so hard, I couldn't stand. 

I feel I've just spent time in the seventh circle of hell. But also heaven, where there are healers, helpers, so many kind good people, those nurses, how can we praise them enough, what they do to comfort, I'm weeping again. Some of them are the best people on earth. But St. Mike's serves the roughest part of town with a huge marginalized population who have no doctor and go for health care there. And of course an old building already in very poor shape, an entire health system not in the best shape, is now dealing with a disastrous pandemic. The place was filthy and chaotic, everyone run off their feet. I didn't see the Covid floor or floors, they're sealed off. But God, the extent of human suffering I did see, and with a physical backdrop of neglect and dirt. It shocked me. 

While I was lying in bed, I thought, I eat healthily and keep myself fit and don't smoke - and the most useless part of my body is the part that got me! This is why Wayson always said, when things are going badly, look behind you. When things are going well, look behind you. 

I was hit hard by something behind me. Ironically, perhaps the fact that I ignored it for so long the fucking thing shredded maybe saved me from an operation. It's good, of course, that it didn't kill me first. I won't ignore pain again. DO NOT IGNORE PAIN. 

How lucky can you be, to be seventy and have only ever been in hospital for babies and an afternoon parathyroid operation, and to visit sick people. So very much time in hospitals with my mother and Aunt Do. You know that I often mention feeling grateful for various things. But never have I felt so grateful as right now, to be home, to be healing. To be home. To be healing. 

On the other hand, to show you the extent of my pettiness, after my hot bath I felt bloated so weighed myself. In two days I gained seven pounds! And not from the balsamic reduction! That was one hell of an egg salad sandwich. My friend Cathy the nurse who helped guide me the entire time by text wrote, "Your body is fighting an infection honey so your immune system is in overdrive producing all those great and wonderful fluid systems that have to rush in to do the job....  very common, don't worry."

And I won't. Who gives a shit about that? Health, my friends. Do what you can to hang onto it, though I know sometimes it's out of your hands.

There are lots of other stories, but that's it for now. Be well. I mean that as an order: BE WELL. 

Tomorrow it will be 18 degrees. Now that's a miracle.

PS. Sorry, readers, but in case you haven't heard enough about the appendix, Gretchen just sent this. It's almost exactly my case except that she was obviously in a swanky US hospital where doctors actually came to, like, talk to her. Also, probably windows. But otherwise, more or less the same case. Good to feel part of a trend and understand the science now!

https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2012/07/13/burst-appendix-appendectomy

Mystery solved.

 Dear blog friends. Here is the news. I am in hospital with acute appendicitis, operation tomorrow I hope. I am in good hands. More anon.

Oprah, beautiful young people, sick old people

It's been a long time since I've been this sick. It's the kind of state where nothing else matters, just getting through. Advil is getting me through. I'm now waiting for my doctor's office to open at 9, hope to see her or someone there later today. Lynn just wrote reassuringly that stomach cancer affects mostly men, not healthy women with a good diet. Jean-Marc came over yesterday with a bag of supplies - soup, dahl, freshly made trail mix. The face of kindness, that man. I love my friends. I think I will have to cancel the class I teach at noon today but have left it up in the air for now. 

I'm sorry, this must be very dull, this self-pitying litany. But it's all I'm capable of. Oh, though I did watch Oprah last night. I think those are two very nice young people, and gorgeous too, both of them. The Palace did not come off well. But as always, Americans are entirely uninterested in history or context. British civilization is many centuries old; of course there are traditions incomprehensible to people from newer cultures that specialize in breaking boundaries. I thought the interview must have been torture for Harry, not just British but royal, raised with a list of do's and don'ts a mile long - surely the greatest don't is about airing dirty family linen in public. I understand Meghan trying to clear the air, but I wondered at what cost to Harry, to his relations with his family. They certainly won't be easier to mend now. I felt for him. 

Stay healthy. Sending love. 

PS Just spoke to my doctor's office. She can give me a telephone appointment on Wednesday afternoon. Or else I should call the after hours clinic tonight. I said, there are other illnesses besides Covid - it's shocking that there isn't a single doctor available to see patients. She said, We have a protocol we have to follow.

Yes. Protocol. That's exactly what the Oprah interview was about, that led Meghan to madness. 

Jean-Marc tells me his doctor's office will see people; if your own doctor isn't available you can see someone else. My doctor isn't even in town, is not answering emails. I've a prescription that needs to be renewed and she's unavailable. It's a clinic with 3 family doctors, none available. I feel abandoned by my doctor. What about people with sick children? The receptionist said I should go to Emerg. Just where a sick 70-year old wants to be, sitting in Emerg with Mr. and Mrs. Covid. 

Later. Okay, I have an appointment at a walk-in clinic tmw morning. Jean-Marc is making me a salad. Robin will do a run to Shoppers. The sun is coming out. And my friend and student Brad has a wonderful essay in today's Globe - he wrote it for our class. Enjoy. Now to get ready to teach. As Shania Twain says, I clean up good. I hope. 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/first-person/article-anxiety-is-like-open-app-running-in-the-background-and-draining-my/

And more good news - my Covid test was negative. Not a surprise, but welcome nonetheless.

And my new friend Trevor just wrote from Denmark, "If you can cycle 10 blocks for a Covid test you’re not at death’s door." TRUE!

update

Thanks to all the friends writing in alarm about my health posts. Last night was pretty nightmarish; with quite acute gut pain keeping me awake, I had images of exploding appendix, God knows what. And of course it's the weekend, my doctor's office is closed. 

So this morning I called Telehealth Ontario. Within minutes, a nurse called me, asked a bunch of questions, and said she'd get in touch with the on call doctor at my health clinic. Five minutes later my phone rang and a cheery doctor answered. 

The conclusion is that though not in great shape, I'm not at imminent risk of death, I can wait to call my own doctor tmw. But, she said, you need to have a Covid test asap. I went online and instantly made a booking for 12.30 today at a Covid clinic ten blocks from here.  I'll ride my bike there.

I am so impressed - this level of organization and service in the midst of a pandemic!

Onward. And for today's laugh, a glimpse of my life.

E.coli? Existential ennui of the gut?

Recovery continues. I got dressed, that's big. Actually went for a walkabout with Ruth and did a load of laundry, then had to lie down. It's 5.15 and I'm drinking tea not wine, so you know I'm still not back to normal. Chris thinks it's an e.coli infection, but though I've had stomach cramps, aches, and a bit of fever, I haven't had any of the other symptoms, and anyway, how would I get it when I eat only what's in my fridge and wash my hands all the time?

Mystery. Anyway, what's important is that it's ebbing slowly. 

Appendix? 

Luckily, I have work to do. I'm one of the four long list readers for the CNFC competition, so have 47 two- to three-thousand word essays to read and mark from Poor to Excellent - many more of the former than the latter, but what pleasure when a stellar one beams out from the pile. This is work I enjoy and can do lying down - win/win. 

Tried to remember what I watched last night, could think of nothing, had to fish last week's TV Guide out of the recycling bin. Oh yes! I tried a doc called Colorado on PBS, gorgeous scenery but a weird off-putting soundtrack - no. A movie that's been receiving great reviews called First Cow, which turned out to be dark, monosyllabic, and glacial - not for me. The Nature of Things showed the second part of the polar bear series, incredible footage of a mother bear and her cubs - I had the sound off and was reading and then looked up and she was swimming in what looked like the vast ocean, water everywhere, with the two small ones paddling valiantly behind her. I couldn't bear it - where was she going? Surely those cubs wouldn't make it. Had to change channels. 

If anyone saw the show, please let me know - why was she risking her cubs like that? I know, it's our fault. It haunted me during the night. 

And Bill Maher, who was less surly than usual - maybe he's been reprimanded for being an asshole. In any case, interesting guests and speakers, as always, some I agree with and some not, as it should be. 

The pleasure of the day - donating the gift received from my editing client to Encampment Support Network, which provides the many homeless encampments in this city with food, warm clothes, tents. And here I sit bitching about a sore stomach. 

The Dems, by dint of hard work and compromise, got their huge bill passed. And immediately, though even Bernie spoke in favour, Twitter was flooded with far lefties complaining it isn't good enough. The first rule of writing workshops: force yourself to say something good before you leap in to criticize. My daughter still cannot say a good word about Joe Biden. But she will. 

Maybe. 

Because then I remember - this is Anna we're talking about. LOL. 

blessings

Better, definitely better. What a weird thing. Yesterday, my stomach was so sore, particularly painful and tender on the right side, I thought I might have appendicitis, on top of some kind of flu. Thank God, there were no Zoom meetings, no classes or responsibilities. Spent the day in bed with devices, New Yorker, and books and the evening watching two episodes of "Little Dorrit" on my computer, another terrific British series - Charles Dickens, how many plot lines and rich characters can you dream up and make work? 

Today I woke up to conjunctivitis in one eye, which is stinging and red, but fewer aches. It is passing. Could I be luckier? I picked up a virus somehow - how? How did I get the flu when I got a flu shot in the fall and have been handwashing, distancing, and masking along with everyone else? 

But it's not the big one. When I think what could have been, at this time when the hospitals are overloaded ... Nightmare.

People have been wonderfully kind. Sam walked across town, nearly 10 k., to deliver chicken soup and fresh bread. Gina brought me tangelos and eggs, with a gift of dark chocolate truffles. This morning Jean-Marc pushed today's Globe through my mail slot. Others have written or called to ask what I need. 

Perhaps periodically it's good to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, to remember how lucky we are to be functional and walking and working and getting on with life. I want to get back to that state, but not yet. I'll get up for a bit but mostly stay in bed and drink soup and count my many, many blessings. 

PS As if to reinforce how fortunate I am, a former student and editing client just wrote. After taking my course some years ago, she asked if I'd help her write a book about life with her son who has significant handicaps. We worked together, and her marvellous book came out.

She just wrote that she has been able to sell it to various organizations; it has done really well, and she has e-transferred me a chunk of money as a thank you gift! How amazing is that? I am going to donate it to an organization that supports the homeless in Toronto, in her name. 

Blessed. 

stayin' alive

Last night I did have a temperature. Took my last sleeping pill and slept. Today whatever it is is there but not overwhelming. I'm in bed with tea and toast, the newspaper, the new New Yorker, a second book from the library - Citizen, by Claudia Rankine - with Actress by Anne Enright waiting. I've asked a neighbour to get tangelos for me from No Frills. There's nothing as good as tangelos.

Forgot to mention an interesting encounter yesterday - with a director/actor/theatre teacher from the Bay area who loved my Jewish Shakespeare and wanted to discuss it. We talked via Zoom for an hour. I didn't realize how much info is still stuffed in my head about the Yiddish theatre; it all came spouting out. He thinks the story of these volcanic personalities at the turn of the last century, the importance of theatre, the battles about ethics and personality that ended with thousands demonstrating in the streets, would make a fantastic TV series or film. I've long thought so.  

I know I'm sick when I have tea for breakfast. But I'll live. How the @#$@ did I get a flu bug, with constant mask wearing, distancing, hand washing? A careless moment. Lucky it wasn't worse.

a little bit sick and scared

This is scary. My body aches, my head aches. I'm going upstairs to take my temperature and get into bed. This morning I was only mildly uncomfortable; I did Gina's line dancing and arranged to go for a walk with Annie, later cancelled. It was a gorgeous day of bright sun. Robin my tree trimmer came and cut my willow's hair; she's all shorn now. I wanted to prune the clematis in the sun but gave up. 

Tonight I sat by my fire and started to watch a documentary about a day in the life of the planet, with amazing footage. I read one of the three library books I went to get today, three holds that of course all came in at once. I skimmed and finished The War of Art which has some good points but is just too jocky and macho - creating art as a battle, a war, phooey. 

But now it's 9 p.m. I ache and I'm going to bed, and it's scary. It feels like 'flu. I'm sure it's a little dose of 'flu. Cross your fingers for me.