Friday, October 31, 2014

What I (Really) Did On My Sister Vacation, part one

After I had such a faboo time in Woodstock last year, I decided I wanted to go again, this time with my sister.  As I believe I've mentioned, she and I haven't had a vacation together in a lot of years.  I booked the B&B in January, bought the bus tickets online and counted the minutes until my sister arrived.  After she got out of the car from the airport two weeks ago, it was the start of an adventure we'd rather have skipped, thank you very much...

When my sister e-mailed me the morning of her flight, she made mention of the fact she hadn't been feeling all that well the day before, but was ok now.  She texted me when her plane landed and I called my local car service to go pick her up.  When she got out of the car, I was immediately worried.  She looked pale and she was having trouble breathing.  She said she was having the same problem the day before, but it had gone away until she got off the plane.  She thought she would be ok to go to Woodstock and would go to the doctor when she got home.  I got online and looked up the Woodstock Chamber of Commerce - Woodstock doesn't have a hospital or an urgent care center.  I told my sister I didn't want her to be sick on top of a mountain with no place to go, so I talked her into going to an urgent care center in my neighborhood.  I figured they would tell us she was having an asthma attack, they would give her an inhaler, and we could go to Woodstock the next day as planned.
 
Ha ha.  Normally a ten-minute walk, it took us about a half hour to reach the urgent care center because of my sister's breathing problems (we had to stop every so often for her to rest and try to catch her breath).  We walked in - there were two gals ahead of us, but the nurse behind the desk got one look at my sister and they took her right back.  The doctor there said he used to work in an E/R; he asked her several questions, like is she on birth control? (yes), did her leg hurt? (it did yesterday), was she having heart palpitations? (yes).  After hearing her answers, he said he thought it was probably a blood clot and that he was calling an ambulance.  We weren't there for five minutes before the panicking started to set in.  They put my sister on oxygen while we were waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

The EMTs who came were terrific, they were Ian and Martin.  Actually, I think "Martin" was the guy's last name, but we never got the first name.  So my sister and I call him Martin.  They were both very nice, asked my sister mainly the same questions, then took her to the ambulance.  [I should mention here that I've never taken an ambulance ride.  I'd like to thank my sister for letting me share in that adventure and I never need to do it again. :) ]  While we were in the ambulance, my sister had on an oxygen mask.  I told her that if she felt really sick and needed help, she should raise her hand.  Ian, who was sitting in the back with us, asked me if I am a schoolteacher.  Uh, no.  But he also said that he thought it was a blood clot.  Thankfully, the ambulance ride was smooth and we got to the emergency room at Mt. Sinai Queens pretty quickly.


When they wheeled my sister in, the E/R was PACKED!  Way too many people were there - all the stations for stretchers were full, plus there were people just sitting around in chairs waiting to be seen.  It was crazy.  The area that was supposed to be open for my sister had someone in it, so they stuck her in between station 7 and 8.  They hooked her up to a portable chest monitor and had her on portable oxygen.  It was crazy stupid.  On one side of her was an elderly woman who also couldn't breathe, and on the other side of her was a gent who had overdosed on drugs (when I heard him describe later what he took, I'm surprised he survived).  He also would periodically projectile vomit.  Apologies to my sister, because every time that happened, I had to get away from there.  That is one thing I just cannot remain calm around.


We were assigned a young doctor, who told us to call him Dr. Ben (I gave him another nickname later).  He was very pleasant and very busy.  When we first arrived and for the first few hours, we didn't see much of him.  Ian and Martin hung around for awhile to see what was going on, which was very nice of them.  Because my sister didn't really have an actual space, I couldn't get a chair in there so I probably stood there for around four hours.  Finally, they took her to get a chest x-ray.  I asked the security guard outside the room if the E/R was always packed and busy like this and he said 'this isn't even busy.'  So I can't imagine what it must look like in there when it IS busy!  After coming out of the chest x-ray, my sister had a lot of blood drawn, then we waited for her turn to go up for an ultrasound, to see if the clot was apparent.  During this, her oxygen rate was down in the 70s (should be 100%), her heart rate was in the 170s (should be somewhere between 60-100), and her blood pressure was 200/149 (which isn't good).  But still we sat there...

At one point, my sister had to use the restroom, so I walked her over there.  While I was waiting for her to come out, another security guard came over and told me I had to leave.  I said, oh ok, let me just get my sister back to her bed.  And then I hid from him until his shift change, because I was NOT leaving!  No one else seemed bothered I was there, so why should I leave her there alone?!

So after maybe six hours, my sister was wheeled up to the ultrasound room.  There was a little waiting room outside it, so I finally got to sit in a comfy chair and texted my mother.  I'd been texting her every few minutes since we got there, but I figured I had a few minutes before my sister was done with her test.  She wasn't in there but a few minutes before Dr. Ben came running up.  He asked me, 'where is she?!'  I pointed to the ultrasound room.  He rushed in and pulled her out of there.  He wheeled us back down to the E/R.  Apparently one of her blood tests had shown alarmingly high numbers in a particular way that told him she had a massive clot.  It was the d-dimer test, which when I did internet research, I saw that normal levels are around 250.  He said her level was 10,000!  He said he wanted her back downstairs and on all the monitors until they could do a CAT scan.  Both of us started panicking and crying (tired and scared girls, hello) and Dr. Ben said, "Don't worry, if you were going to die, you already would've.  I won't let you die.  Do I look worried?"  I said, "yeah, not comforting."  And I then immediately dubbed him Young Dr. Doom.  He would keep that nickname throughout the evening.

It probably took another hour for my sister to get to the CAT scan room.  It was interesting watching Young Dr. Doom tell other doctors about the 10,000 thing and watching the other doctors' eyebrows raise alarmingly.  Apparently, none of them have ever heard of numbers that high.  Then they would look over at my sister and me and we could wave and smile.  It was all we could do.  We were trying to keep our spirits up.  She finally went to the CAT scan room and I waited outside.  Next to the gent who was sitting in the hallway with questionable hygiene.  I think they need to rethink the waiting room area outside the CAT scan room.  Even another patient had to stand outside in the hallway!


When she came out of the CAT scan, they wheeled my sister back to her little space in the E/R.  After he read the film, Young Dr. Doom came over to tell us she had a massive pulmonary embolism.  In fact, it was called a Saddle Embolism, since it extended over the top of both of her lungs, which is why she couldn't breathe and why her heart rate was so high.  Young Dr. Doom then explained to us that normally, a clot will dissolve naturally into a person's body.  But hers was so large, that was unlikely to happen.  He wanted us to consider an experimental treatment.  When hospitals treat stroke victims, they give them something called tPA - if they get it within three hours, it can dissolve whatever had gone wrong.  Let's say they give a stroke victim tPA at 100%.  Young Dr. Doom said that they are experimenting with giving PE victims a 50% dose of tPA to try to blast the clot.  He also said that it has the risk of causing hemorrages and killing you.  He ALSO said that he, nor anyone in the E/R, had ever done it before.  At first, he seemed to be recommending this treatment.  My sister and I were dumbstruck, we didn't know what to do or think.  Then Young Dr. Doom said he was going to call some of his teachers/mentors, leaving us to panic and for my sister's heart rate to go up again.  After about a half hour or so, he came over and told us that they were going to admit my sister and that the doctors he really trusted said not to do that procedure.  My sister was young enough to eventually absorb the clot, but she needed to stay in the hospital for monitoring.  Whew.  I think she was leaning towards trying the experimental procedure, so I'm glad she didn't have to.  I think at some point we went upstairs for an echocardiogram too, but I was so tired, I can't remember anything else...

They told us that even though my sister was being admitted, there weren't any beds available on the desired floor, so she would probably be in the E/R all night.  I took this opportunity to run home and get my tablet and both our phone chargers.  I'd been sending so many texts, my power was running really low and I knew I needed to keep updating our mom.  That probably took me only a half hour or so since I was pretty close to the hospital.  I just had my local car service drive me home, wait for me downstairs, then take me back.  When I got back, Georgette, the admitting nurse was there.  I begged her to find us some saltines or something, since we hadn't eaten.  She very kindly brought us some stuff to nibble on.  Young Dr. Doom's shift was over, so he came by, gave my sister a piece of candy and his cell number and e-mail address.  He told her to keep in touch and let him know how she was doing.  That was very sweet of him.

Also before I got back, they had put another person in the E/R near my sister - a girl having perhaps a psychotic break.  Her boyfriend brought her and just left her.  She spent most of the night screaming, cursing, claiming that everyone was trying to kill her.  It was awful.  They kept sedating her and finally they had to tie her to the bed.  I felt so guilty because I just wanted her to be quiet so my sister could get some rest, but I also thought they should take that poor girl somewhere where she could get some real help.  I don't think the E/R of a regular hospital was the right place for her.  I was so tired, every time she started screaming, I started crying.  They had finally found me a chair, but it wasn't really sleep-worthy, so I was wide awake all night.  My sister got next to no rest either.

At around 6am (twelve hours after we'd arrived), I ran next door to a coffee shop and got us some tea and toast.  Growing up, whenever we didn't feel well, our mom would give us tea and toast, so it was comforting for us.  A couple of hours later, they actually brought my sister a real breakfast, so after I helped her get that set up, I ran back over to the coffee shop and had a scrambled egg.  She and I had missed lunch and dinner the night before, so we were starving.  They told me as I was leaving that a room was almost ready for her, so I hurried to eat and go back.  Finally, after around nineteen hours in the E/R, they took my sister up to a room. 

Of course, the first room they took her to was completely unacceptable.  They were putting her in a room with a poor woman on a feeding tube that constantly gurgled and spattered, and the woman constantly screamed.  To her credit, the nurse that started to get my sister's bed ready said, 'oh no, you're not staying here.'  Thankfully, they found her a room down the hall, but it took an hour or so to get her there.  I ran home and took about an hour nap, then came back to sit with my sister. 

There were parades of doctors and nurses, all day long, coming in to check on her.  They all asked the same questions and pretty much all of them expressed surprise that she had survived such an enormous clot.  It was depressing.  Our favorite nurse was the tiny gal who practically beat anyone up who let my sister get out of bed.  She came late in the day and asked my sister if she had gone to the bathroom lately.  My sister said yes, the other nurse had helped her walk to the bathroom down the hall.  The tiny nurse said in a dangerously upset voice, "WHO?!?!?!?!"  It was adorable, actually. 


Have you ever noticed that no matter what time it is, it seems like the middle of the night in a hospital?  Time drags.  Anyway, my sister and I watched TV, texted our mom, posted on Facebook and watched Amazing Race before it was time for me to leave.  Visiting hours are over at 9pm.  So right after Amazing Race, I said bye to my sister, went down the elevator, and found police tape in the lobby.  I looked to my left to exit - police tape.  I looked to my right - police tape.  Finally, someone told me to just climb over it.  Really?  They couldn't have waited ten minutes or so for people to leave?  I figured if I broke a leg, at least I was in the hospital.  But still...

By the time I got home, my sister called me and said she saw another doctor that wanted to transfer her to Lenox Hill for a procedure they only do there.  Sigh.  I thought that piece of news would make it hard for me to sleep, but no.  I slept really hard for about nine hours, which felt good.  My sister said she got a pretty good night's sleep, too.  I picked up some bagels for us and went back to Mt. Sinai Queens.

Ugh.  This post is long enough already.  Sorry.  I'll save the Lenox Hill adventure for another post, along with the fun that occurred when the rest of my family drove into town, and our introduction to Dr. Wonderful...

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

ABT Fall Season 2014 - Jardin Aux Lilas and more!


Why, hello there!  Have you missed me?  Have you been frantically searching, waiting for my post about my vacation to Woodstock?  Well, I'll just say that my sister and I did NOT make it to Woodstock, we instead had a medical adventure I could've lived my life without experiencing.  All is relatively well now, my sister is feeling much better, thank heavens, but rest assured, I will be blogging about it shortly.  Probably later this week.  It will take more than one post to give the whole crazy time the perspective it deserves.  In the meantime, here is a quick review of a ballet performance I went to last weekend, sneaking out of the apartment and leaving my poor sister to convalesce alone for one night...

I bought my tickets to this ABT performance months ago - my Impossibly Handsome Ballet Buddy (remember him? of course you do!) and I picked a date sort of randomly, though we both wanted to see Jardin Aux Lilas and/or Fancy Free - how happy were we that we could find a free night that featured both!  : )  It was a gorgeous night, so we walked around the Lincoln Center plaza for a few minutes, checking out the giant digital art installation.  It's quite fascinating and my photos don't do it justice. 
Tickets seemed to be extra expensive this year, so our seats were in the Fourth Ring.  Aisle seats, which was very nice, but still a little further back than we're accustomed.  The Fifth Ring was completely empty, which was odd.  The orchestra and lower rings seemed full though, and the audience was very enthusiastic about each piece.  I loved all three - they were so different, we got the full gamut of styles and music, which was fantastic.  Of course, I'm always inclined to enjoy myself, but that's a good thing, right?


photo credit: Paco Ruiz
First up was Sinfonietta, choreography by Jiri Kylian and music by Leos Janacek.  I am unfamiliar with both artists' work, so this was completely new to me.  I enjoyed it very much - it was quite modern and freestyle, with lots of leaps and air.  The men were the stars, especially in the exuberant first movement.  I was especially taken with Calvin Royal, whose joie de vivre when dancing is very enjoyable, and Thomas Forster, who is quickly becoming one of my favorites.  I did also particularly enjoy the pas de deux in the third movement, which had a lot of push/pull and longing in them.  It's a lovely piece, maybe not a definitive classic, but very enjoyable nonetheless.  I also enjoyed the extra horn section that was placed on stage, more brass is always a good idea.  I forgot to get a photo at curtain call, but this photo is from the internet (it's a different cast than the one we saw, but oh well)...

The second piece was the one I was most looking forward to, Jardin aux Lilas, choreographed by the great Antony Tudor.  His story ballets are really remarkable, with such detail and cohesion with the music.  I've heard about this piece a lot over the years, but I've never seen it.  I'm not familiar with the composer Ernest Chausson, but the music is gorgeously evocative and fits in beautifully with the choreography.  A young bride-to-be is at a party, and she is having trouble saying goodbye to the man she loves (who is not her betrothed).  Also, her fiance's mistress is at the party.  There's much intrigue and lovely pas de deux between all the various couples.  Roman Zhurbin, who can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned, was fantastic as the fiance.  Severe, yet you could see the passion underneath, especially when Veronika Part as his mistress danced his way.  Part was glorious, very imperious and demanding, but also vulnerable and oh so stunningly gorgeous.  Devon Teuscher was lovely as the young bride-to-be, though she could probably find more shadings in her characterization.  Cory Stearns was again his terrifically danced, rather stalwart self, but it fit in perfectly with his role as the young soldier.  I really loved finally seeing Jardin aux Lilas and I look forward to catching it again next year during ABT's spring season.  


The last piece was the big crowd pleaser, Fancy Free, of course choreographed by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein.  It's fun that this ballet is being danced now while On the Town is playing on Broadway.  I hope I get to see On the Town sometime soon.  Anyway, this Fancy Free was terrific, with the wonderful Herman Cornejo and Marcelo Gomes as two of the sailors, and Cory Stearns as the third (replacing David Hallberg, who is recovering from surgery).  I actually thought Cory showed an excellent sense of looseness and fun, along with some vulnerability in this piece, so I'm hopeful he'll grow out of the stalwart phase and into something more.  Herman and Marcelo were perfection, as expected, and Stella Abrera and my favorite, Julie Kent, were terrific as the gals the sailors try to pick up.  It was breezy and fun, with an undercurrent of nervous energy underneath.  It was really fantastic and a great way to end the evening.  My IHBB and I had a grand time as always, even from the not-so-cheap-seats upstairs.  I have tickets for this Saturday's performance as well, which I'm looking forward to.  It won't be as fun to sit all the way up there by myself, but I'll learn to cope... :)
 







 

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Flashing Back to NOLA!

I am currently on an itty bitty vacation with my sister (woo hoo!) - she liked the blog post about my trip to Woodstock last fall so much that she wanted to come with me this year.  So that's where we are RIGHT THIS MINUTE.

In true auto-post style, here are some photos from the last trip she and I took together.  We went to San Francisco together in 2002 (I have the trip report, but can't find my photos) and New Orleans in 2003 (I have the photos, but didn't keep a diary, so I have next to no memory of what we did, lol).  I spun my magic wheel and decided to go with...photos.  If I can remember anything, I'll fill it in.  I hope to get back to New Orleans someday soon - I do remember having a great time, I remember NOT trying enough of the food, and now I have two friends who live there full-time, one of whom owns a B&B.  I think the gods are telling me the time is right for a return...


May 2003:   I vaguely remember being a little worried about our hotel's neighborhood, but it all turned out ok.  The picture below is of the building across the street.  First thing we did was walk towards the water - we stopped in the casino, then took a ferry over to Mardi Gras World.  We didn't take the tour, but we did get a chance to wander around.  We also bought some fun stuff in the gift store.



we hoped to win enough money to pay for our trip, but it didn't happen










I had a guidebook (but not a d*mn guidebook, if you remember my posts from Paris, lol), which had some suggestions for walking tours and sights to see.  So we just walked around and I took pictures:




we did eat here - delicious!!!





oh, hey, a beautiful church ceiling!








I have a vague memory of being yelled at for wandering into this courtyard


I remember I had to practically force my sister to go with me to Edgar Degas' house.  It was a bit out of the way, so it took us a while to get there.  I enjoyed it, I don't think she did.  Afterwards, we did, however, find a cab driver who was willing to be our tour guide at various cemeteries throughout the city.  It turned out he was a Mason, like our dad, so he was especially kind to us.  He even gave us his card, in case we wanted him to drive us around another day.  He was really nice.





had to get this Masonic tomb shot for our dad










 
 
We also took a walking tour around the really nice homes in the Garden District.  These homes were really lovely, and if I recall correctly, we actually saw Archie Manning around their home...
 






we should've bought this one

WHY DIDN'T WE EAT HERE?!?!?!

I know we got a muffaletta at Central Grocery, we got a po' boy at a restaurant in our hotel, and we had the beignets and chicory coffee at Cafe du Monde.  That was about it for the food department.  When I go back, I'll try to do better with the whole restaurant experience.  We did do Bourbon Street one evening and listened to some jazz in Preservation Hall - we had to sit in the back, on the floor, since it was so crowded.  And as we were wandering around, we ran into a friend of my sister's, who got the two photos below.  We had a great time, that much I do remember.  It was easier for my sister to get away when my nephew was a baby; now that he's a teenager, maybe we can sneak away for more sister trips.  At least I hope we can.  There's a whole world for us to see!!

this guy was incredible!!  and he flirted with us all night...