13 Days after Surgery

I have an 11:15 appointment to have my sutures removed at Dr. Ranawat's office at the Hospital for Special Surgery.  This will be my first post-surgical encounter with public transportation, and I'm a little apprehensive.

Typically the 86th crosstown bus moves so slowly that even though I miss it at Columbus Avenue, I'm able to limp to Central Park West and catch it there.  It's nearly empty, so I put down my hip cushion and sit.  It's 10:15 by the time I get to York Avenue. After a 20-minute wait with no M31 in sight, I decide to walk downtown to 70th Street. This requires some careful navigation to avoid some corners where ice has formed or the slush is deep.  This is the longest distance I've walked to date.   I make the appointment with 5 minutes to spare but am kept waiting nearly an hour until a room becomes available.  It occurs to me that I may be a 2nd tier patient and I spend some of the time musing about health care rationing.  As if it didn't already exist!

The young, efficient nurse instructs me to put on a pair of what appear to be the lowest quality cotton gym shorts.  She works quickly and scolds me gently for walking as far as I have, especially without a cane in this weather, but also adds that walking is the best possible therapy.  "If you overdid it today, you'll definitely feel it tomorrow" she warns.

I mention the New York Times article about the recall of titanium prosthetics that appeared the day before my surgery.  "Dr. Ranawat's father is an orthopedic god," she tells me.  "He predicted exactly that outcome--the release of metals into the blood stream--in a paper that he published years ago."

She also agrees to give me a refill for my percoset supply, which is dwindling.  I've been taking no more than 4 pills a day, supplementing the dosage with in-between consumption of acetaminophen, as the Duane Reade pharmacist advised.  She suggests taking tramadol instead.  Fortunately, I still have a supply prescribed by Dr. Goldstein months ago. I stopped taking them when they didn't do much to relieve my pain.

I assure the nurse that I will take the bus home but it takes enormous effort to wait more than half an hour for the M31 to pick me up.  I do some light grocery shopping and return to my apartment a little after 2 p.m., utterly exhausted.

12 Days after Surgery

I don't have any trouble getting to my first appointment at Riverside Physical Therapy.  After calling my social worker, the visiting nurse service and Dr. Ranawat's office, I have decided to forgo completely the home nursing visit and physical therapy visits.  I have chosen Riverside even though they don't accept GHI because of its proximity to my apartment.

Chitra evaluates me by asking several questions, some of which I ask her to repeat because of her heavy Indian accent.  She also tests the resistance of my leg with her hands and teaches me a bridging exercise.  I lift my butt off the table with my knees arched. Chitra tells me to repeat this 10 times twice a day before sending in an attendant with a bag of ice and some kind of electronic device I quickly dub the tingle machine.

Physical therapy doesn't impress me much, especially at $100 a pop out of my own pocket.  Over Christmas, Tom, who has been in physical therapy for different reasons, tells me that he just handed a $6,000 check from his insurance company over to his provider.  "I feel better, but not that much better," he said.

9 Days after Surgery

Tom drops me off at my apartment a little before 11 a.m.  so that he can get home before the blizzard hits that was forecast the night before.  After putting everything away, I take a brief walk to the park.  The snow has begun to fall heavily enough that I can't see the far side of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir.  I realize I am definitely going to be homebound and that it's unlikely I'll see my visiting nurse first thing the next morning as planned.  C'est la vie--by this time, I'm not even sure what the point would be.

And hey--welcome back, libido!

8 Days After Surgery--Christmas Day

Nothing like the kindness of friends, several DVDs ("Barbarella," "Marnie" and "Sid & Nancy") and plenty of naps to speed your recovery.  Audrey has given up her regular seat at the dinner table and Tom his rocker in the TV room because they're the best places for me to sit on my hip cushion.  Although I'm not able to help decorate the tree on Christmas Eve as is our usual custom, I manage to photograph Tom and Zoltan when they visit Tom's family's cemetery plot and even take Georgy, the teacup chihuahua that Magda is pet sitting, for a couple of walks.  

The only mishap of my visit occurred at 2 a.m., when my stomach lurched after eating way too many Christmas Eve appetizers and too much beef Wellington.  I remember the physical therapist telling me that rushing is typically the cause of breaking THP so I decide to head for the bathroom even if it means leaving the warmth of my covers. Smart move.

6 Days after Surgery

I have a 9:45 appointment to get blood drawn at a Quest Diagnostics lab less than 3 blocks from my apartment.  En route home, I realize I can walk without the assistance of my crutches and never use them again.

Tom picks me up around 11 a.m. It takes him 2 trips to load everything.  I'll be co-habiting with Magda in the basement apartment of their home which has a walk-in shower.   I can't wait to take one, my first since Thursday.

After showering, I slowly remove the bandage and take my first look at the wound.  It nearly mirrors the residue of my mid-life crisis on my left hip:  a lightning bolt tattoo, inspired the cover of David Bowie's Aladdin Sane.

4 Days after Surgery

A fully stocked pantry, 2 bags of frozen peas to keep my hip iced and percoset to relieve the pain are all I need to get me through until Wednesday, when Tom, Magda and Zoltan's father, will pick me up in his jeep around 11 a.m. and drive me to Bernardsville for the next 5 nights.  I check my e-mail at work.  It ends up irritating me to no end so I decide to lay low until after the Christmas holiday, during which time the Senate, unbelievably, actually passes the 9/11 health legislation.  By a voice vote, no less.

My entire day is spent anticipating the home nursing visit.  Although I have no idea what to expect, I want to know when the nurse will be arriving.  At noon I call the number I have been given and am told that I'm on Valona Fleary's schedule and that she'll be calling me soon.  At 3:30 I call again and am told the same thing.  Finally, at 4:30, the phone rings and Valona says she'll be arriving within the hour.  At 5:45 the phone rings again while I'm watching "Baby Doll" which I've never seen from beginning to end.  "I can't find the address," she begins, before stopping herself and telling me she's a few minutes away.  I sigh in disgust and return to the welcome distractions of even bad--very bad--Tennessee Williams.

I'm exhausted and irritated when Valona, after climbing the stairs more slowly than I did, enters the apartment with some story about how hard it is get to my apartment from 72nd Street and West End Avenue.  She removes a laptop from one of her 2 heavy bags but as soon as I mention that I'm leaving for New Jersey the next day she tells me she won't be able to open a case because her agency can't be liable for what happens to me there.  The news infuriates me and I inform her that I had made this clear to her agency's representative at the hospital.  She insists on calling the agency, but her supervisor already has left, upsetting me even more.  "If you had shown up a little earlier, we might have been able to avoid this," I accused.  So she has her boss paged and he validates her decision without a 2nd thought.  I erupt in frustration and Valona agrees to take a look around to see if she can offer any advice.  From her vague responses to my questions, I get the sense she isn't even familiar with my THP.  I definitely have hit my first bump in the recovery process.

3 Days after Surgery

I'm scheduled to be released today but once again several things have to fall into place before this can occur.  As usual, a resident is the first person at my bedside other than the nurse.  He had called me prior to admission asking if I would be willing to participate in study.  He hands me the necessary paperwork in a green folder, which includes a consent form, a pre-operative survey and a milestone diary. He speculates that I won't be released much before early afternoon, although a nurse has told me it could be as early as 11 a.m.

A new physical therapist enters the room, the same bearded guy with a yarmulke who participated in the educational session I attended.   He again quizzes me on my THP and asks me to walk for him using crutches instead of a walker.   During our journey to the end of the hall he asks me what I do.  It astonishes me that not only is he familiar with 9/11 health issues, he fully supports Senate passage of the legislation that has been heating up in the final days of Congress's lame duck session.  

"You just made it to Park Avenue," he says.  Then he takes me into a room and teaches me how to climb stairs.  I ascend by placing my good leg on the step first, and descend with the bad leg first.  "Remember, heaven is up, hell is down," he says.  Next, he times me as I get up out of a chair, using the arms, walking about 20 feet with my crutches and returning."  I do it quickly enough earn his approval for my release.

Magda and Zoltan show up around noon bearing huge cookies.  My roommate, who also expects to be released and who has informed me that we are expected to have bowel movements before we go, notices that she's wearing a Columbia sweatshirt.  When he gets up to use the bathroom, they have a 10-minute conversation which ends with Jarvis suggesting that we all stay in touch.  Shortly after Magda and Zoltan leave to pick up some lunch, I hear Jarvis call to his mother, who peeks in.  "I just delivered twins!" he announces.  TMI.

Patience isn't my strong suit and time seems to have stopped still.  A vendor delivers my walker, crutches, a hip cushion, an elevated commode that permits me to observe my THP  and several implements that are designed to increase my self sufficiency, including an odd looking device to help me put on my socks.  A nurse comes in with very specific instructions about my coumadin intake, which will require blood testing and monitoring by Dr. Reimers for the next couple of weeks.  Finally, the last thing falls into place:  a representative of North Shore/Long Island Jewish Healthcare System, which has absorbed the St. Vincent's visiting nurse service, explains that I'm eligible for home visits from a nurse and a physical therapist.  She gets slightly flustered when I mention that I plan to spend the holiday in New Jersey because they don't offer service there, but I assure her I will do everything to coordinate the home visits around my schedule.

Now all that's left to do is to get dressed.  I'm able to do everything except tie my shoes.  A rush of gratitude envelops me when I see Magda and Zoltan loaded with everything.  The hospital insists that I use a wheelchair to leave the premises.  The three of us walk to Park Avenue, my 2nd trip of the day.  Magda hails a cab and I strictly follow the procedure for getting into an automobile, placing my hip cushion on the front seat, and backing in while gripping the dashboard with my left hand and using my right hand to lift my leg into the cab.  The hospital had recommended using an ambulette for $70.  The cab ride to West 88th Street cost me only $10.

I'm able to climb 2 flights of stairs--the thing that had worried me most ever since I resigned myself to hip replacement surgery--with absolutely no trouble.  Magda and Zoltan get me settled, including removing my shoes, and pick up my prescriptions for coumadin and percoset before leaving.  I make a salad, microwave some leftover linguini and clam sauce and watch TV for a little while with a bag of frozen peas pressed against my hip.  I go to sleep confident that my usual 2-3 nightly trips to the bathroom won't be a problem because I made sure to salvage my trusty urine bottle.

2 Days after Surgery

My day begins the same as before, this time with a male resident arriving very early to change my bandage and inspect my wound for any signs of trouble.  None are present and I go back to sleep until breakfast arrives, supplemented by the cookies Jerry brought which taste even better with the fat-free milk on my tray.

More physical therapy.  I get out of bed, grip a walker and begin moving with surprising ease while the same therapist as yesterday wheels the IV behind me.  "Awesome," she pronounces but she also encourages me to stop before I wear myself out. By the time I return, the same nursing assistant has changed my sheets.  She also gives me a washcloth and tells me to wash up in the bathroom as best I can.  I take advantage of the opportunity to relieve my bladder and sit on the elevated commode that is positioned over the toilet.  Not a good idea--as much urine ends up on the floor as in the bowl.  I grab some toilet paper and mop it up as best as I can by extending my good leg out from behind me, and gripping the handicapped bar while swooping down with my right arm.

A hip chair has been placed in my room during my ablutions.  I ask if I can sit in it for lunch which arrives just as Steven and Andrew, 2 of my housemates from the Pines, do.  Andrew points out that there's a diet Dr. Pepper in their gift bag, which also includes a banana, Fig Newtons, Us & People. Hands down, the Dr. Pepper is the most appreciated gift of all and I ration it over the next 2 days.

Dr. Ranawat suddenly appears at my bedside during the afternoon looking very elegant indeed in his hat and overcoat.  "I hear you're doing very well," he says.  "But you may hit a bump," he warns. It seems my pain-free, "awesome" progress may have as much to do with residual anesthesia and intravenous pain killers as my spirit, but as someone who always see the glass half empty, I respond well to his candor.

Now that my blood pressure has returned to normal, a kindly nurse, straight out of central casting, removes my IV.  She also is very deliberate in her itemization of the pills that she provides me in the morning and before she leaves in the evening.  It includes a vitamin and iron supplement, as well as warfarin, a blood thinner to help prevent clotting, percoset and the finasteride that I take on a daily basis.

Later Anthony arrives with a seasoned nut mix and brownies.  During the past few years, he has lost his mother and 2 sisters so I know that another hospital visit can't be at the top his to-do list the weekend before Christmas.  I feel much loved, especially when he agrees to empty my urine bottle, something I was hesitant to ask him to do, but which has filled rapidly in Marie's absence.

My roommate has a visitor, too.  Eavesdropping, I learn that they're both currently students at Columbia's business school and that both have sued their former Wall Street employers for failure to honor salary agreements that involve the sale of credit derivatives.   Now I see where he gets his chutzpah.

1 Day after Surgery

A female resident appears at my bedside around 7 a.m.  She informs me that Dr. Ranawat had installed drains in my hip during surgery and that she is there to remove them, which she does, efficiently and painlessly.

By now I'm hungry, very hungry.  Breakfast doesn't arrive until nearly 9 a.m.  I gobble it down immediately.  The certified nurse's assistant who is friendlier than she is efficient carefully writes her name, the name of the nurse assigned to my room, the day and the date on the little white marker board that faces my bed.  A beautiful Christmas bouquet arrives from Tom.  I still vividly recall the arrangement he sent to my home after I had cataract surgery for the first time.

A little while later,  a perky young woman appears at my bedside, introduces herself as my physical therapist and quizzes me about my "total hip precautions" or THP, which I will have to observe for the next 6 weeks:  my right knee always must be lower than my right hip, I can't walk pigeon-toed and I can't cross my legs. Responding to her encouragement and instructions, I slip out of bed painlessly and stand on my own briefly.  "I'll be back tomorrow," she says.

A nurse named Doreen, enters the room to take my vitals, interrupting my first phone call from Barnet, my oldest gay friend who recently has undergone minor knee surgery and who has just told me that he burst into tears yesterday when the Senate repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" because he knew how much it meant to me, a former Army brat who has long expressed more outrage about not being able to serve my country than not being able to get married.  Not that I've ever tried to do either.  Doreen doesn't operate the high tech equipment as well as Marie, or perhaps it has stopped functioning properly, but she ends of up taking my blood pressure using the hand pump method.  It is low.  "I'll put you on a saline drip" she tells me.  "That usually does the trick." Apparently the resident on duty disagrees.  I gather that doctors are pretty scarce around here on weekends, although Dr. Reimers does briefly poke his head in later to see how I'm doing.

When Doreen returns with this news, she asks me what I do.  She tells me she knows several 9/11 rescue and recovery workers who have benefited from a program offered by the Church of Scientology.  I tell her what I know about the program and that there is no peer-reviewed evidence to support its effectiveness but add "there are many pathways to recovery."  Which I believe but which also is calculated not to offend the woman in charge of my care.

Doreen is quite the chatty Cathy, although I have to ask her and her assistant to empty my urine bottle.  She notices that I have brought along Life, Keith Richards' memoir and engages me in another discussion about rock 'n roll.  When she proclaims that she recently attended the Heart reunion concert I do offend her by observing that it probably made her feel young again.  Full disclosure: I'm a total rock 'n roll snob.

Doreen exits, but returns a few minutes later with some news and an offer.  If my blood pressure doesn't go down soon, she will put me on a saline drip.  "Do you want an oxycontin?" she asks, holding out a pill in an opened cellophane package.  I hesitate, because I'm not in any pain and I didn't particularly enjoy the loopiness that I experienced the day before when the operating room nurse gave me my first.  "Well, if the doctor thinks it's a good idea," I say, tentatively.  She tells me the doctor had nothing to do with her offer and I immediately wonder if our discussion of Keith Richards did.  Perhaps she recognized me as a fellow traveler?  Little did she know how paranoid I am about addictive medications or, in Mick's words, "Mother's Little Helper," after a childhood of watching my own stockpile Darvon in quantities large enough to turn the shelves in her medicine cabinet pink.

Tom arrives with Jerry, another friend.  "Those were supposed to be white lillies," he says, eying the flower arrangement critically and moving it, at my request, into a spot where I can gaze upon the red flowers more easily.  Jerry has brought a lovely assortment of homemade Christmas cookies.  I immediately sample one of each variety:  fruitcake, sesame and lemon.  Yum, so much better than the lunch I completely consumed earlier.  We hear a lot of laughter in the halls.  I ask them to hand me my toothbrush, toothpaste and what appears to be a traditional bed pan so that I can brush my teeth in bed.  Tom agrees to empty my urine bottle before leaving, which is much fuller than when Marie was on duty.  Truth be told, I appreciate this more than the beautiful flower arrangement as I'm reluctant to summon the nurse for any reason.

Until I have to.  When my blood pressure doesn't go down, the resident approves the saline drip.  Doreen wants to wait until the electrolyte drip finishes emptying, but hangs the saline bag in preparation and tells me to buzz when the electrolyte bad is completely empty.  I keep my eye on it and buzz at precisely the moment the last electrolyte enters my bloodstream.  10 minutes pass.  I buzz again.  10 minutes later I buzz again and give up.  Doreen returns an hour after the first buzz, reeking of cigarette smoke, and telling me not to worry.  I don't but I decide the weekend nursing staff leaves a lot to be desired.

Fortunately, Marie shows up during the mid-afternoon.  Although she's not scheduled to go on duty until 4 p.m. she lets me and my roommate know that she's there for the staff holiday party and she's just doing a quick check in with her patients.  I gush over her return and empty my bladder with abandon.

Dinner is served early, around 5 p.m., I spend the evening eavesdropping on the conversation behind the curtain.  My roommate's girlfriend has arrived to relieve his mother.  They are watching "Date Night" when I drift off to sleep.  I awaken at one point and hear my roommate telling his mother about the last time he was in detox.  Am I dreaming?

Day of Surgery

I leave my apartment at 7 a.m., satisfied that I have done everything I can in advance of the surgery, including stocking up on groceries and soda and designating Audrey as the person to pull the plug if necessary because she's the least sentimental person I know. Magda, her 24-year old daughter, has agreed to escort me home when I'm released. These arrangements make me feel pretty secure, as does the knowledge that I will be spending the Christmas holiday with her entire family in Bernardsville, NJ.  Tom, Magda's father, was my roommate freshman year at Columbia.  I introduced him to Audrey.  He now has been in my life longer than either of my parents, both of whom died before I turned 40.  An only child, I have had the great good fortune to be able to pick a replacement family that also includes Zoltan, a 20-year old junior in the ROTC program at American University.

Although my surgery is scheduled for 9:30 a.m., I quickly realize that surgery is not unlike flying commercial:  a lot of things must fall into place before I'm wheeled into the operating room and the surgeon picks up the scalpel.  In my case there's a 2-hour plus delay, most of which I spend reclining in a comfortable lounge chair and answering the same questions about my medical history and allergies over and over again.  These are posed to me by a West Indian nurse; 2 residents,  including one who is overcaffeinated or seriously disorganized, I can't tell which; Dr. Ranawat; the anesthesiologist; and the operating room nurse.  Somebody informs me that a representative of the company that manufactures my prosthetic device will be present during surgery, and a man from security catalogs the contents of my wallet and other valuables before taking them away for temporary safekeeping.

Fortunately, I've brought along a copy of The New Yorker but my attention inevitably switches from "Escape from Spiderhead"--George Saunders' chilling story about psychoactive drug experimentation upon prisoners--to the disembodied voices answering the same questions that I am being asked.  The women next to me suffers from heavy menstrual bleeding.  The elderly man across the way is angry that his daughter failed to pick him up at home this morning, although she now is by his side.  A doctor gently scolds another woman for not following pre-surgical protocol.  There's little drama in my cubicle aside from the fact that I haven't been able to tie properly the 2 gowns I've been given and my refusal to remove my navel ring.  "I've never taken it out," I insist, which the nurse writes down.

I sense that the time is near when Dr. Ranawat finally pulls back the curtain.  "And what are we doing today?" he asks brightly.  "Right hip replacement," I respond.  "Good answer," he says.  "Why?" I ask.  "Because it means we're both on the same page," as he marks my right hip with a black magic marker.  "Skinny--we like that!" he observes.  I flush with pride and fidget for another hour, until the operating room nurse finally appears.  She gives me an oxycontin and tells me she'll be walking me to a gurney in the hallway.  I ask to use the bathroom first even though I haven't had a drop to drink since midnight and by now it's nearly noon.  The oxycodone already has kicked in.  I'm feeling giddy and nearly lose my balance.  So this is what all the fuss is about?

The route to the operating room isn't straightforward.  The nurse has to maneuver around several obstacles in hallways which are crammed with different equipment and push through numerous doors before we enter a fairly small room with 3 or 4 people in scrubs already present, including one of the residents who introduced himself earlier but who ignores me now. The nurse, in her crisp eastern European accent, instructs me to roll over onto what looks like a small saddle, which will support my hip.  It is bracketed by 2 longer tables.  As I look around the room from my new perch, the anesthesiologist re-appears and inserts a catheter into my left arm.  The nurse gently puts an oxygen tube into my nostrils. A radio plays to my disappointment--I had hoped Arcade Fire or classical music would provide the hip soundtrack to my hip replacement.  No matter, I quickly slide into unconsciousness.

When I'm revived, a pretty young nurse asks me how I feel.  "I feel OK," I say, and I do.  She tells me they want to keep me under observation for a little while until my semi-private room becomes available.  I drift in and out of consciousness without a care in the world.

Suddenly, it's time to leave the recovery room.  The nurse wheels me out and I find myself transported to an electrically operated bed in front of a huge window.  Marie, the Filipino head nurse and her certified assistant, joke with me about how young I look for my age.  I score points by guessing that Marie, who is about to go off duty for the weekend, is in her late 20s.  She's actually in her mid-40s.  A TV on a swivel arm looms directly in front of my face but it requires a phone call and $7 to activate.  The nurse summons security and my valuables rejoin my clothes, packed in plastic clothes.  She also provides an "abduction pillow," shaped like a tall isosceles triangle, placing it between my legs so that I won't accidentally cross them and do damage to the tendons that were severed during surgery.

Unexpectedly, another friend named Tom enters the room wearing a chartreuse marshmallow jacket.  I have been deliberately low key about visitors, refusing to provide colleagues or friends with many details.  But Tom had asked, and there he was.  It meant a lot to see a familiar face. A young woman with a handheld computer asks me what I would like for Saturday breakfast.  Oatmeal is on the menu, just like at home.  Things are looking bright.

"It looks like you may have a private room, " Tom observes just before leaving.  No such luck.  A hip dysplasia patient, who makes it clear during our co-habitation that he has undergone more complicated surgery, for the second time in 2 years, is wheeled in.  "I need a room with a window.  I have depression," he demands.  I roll my eyes but during the course of the next few days, I will re-learn a life lesson:  squeaky wheels get the oil, if not the window.

Marie, the quiet, efficient African-American night nurse, pulls back the curtain and enters to take my vitals and re-fill the liquid painkillers that are doing their job splendidly.  A moment or two later she returns.  "Is it OK with you if the mother of the other patient in this room spends the night with him?"  Instead of assenting graciously, I add an absurd condition:  "only if they're quiet."

Pulled curtains make good neighbors, I think, before falling into a sleep that Marie will interrupt every 2 hours to take my vitals.  She wins me over completely by never failing to empty my urine bottle.

Blacklisted!

Lenox Hill Hospital sends me a registered letter informing me exactly what I told the nurse during my autologous blood donation:  I tested positive for Hepatitis B core antibody, just as Dr. Goldstein had told me years ago.  I'll bet it doesn't take more than a keystroke or 2 to call up that information from a computer database somewhere.  It also makes me wonder if my organs are tainted, too, as I have expressed interest in being an organ donor.

In exactly one week, I will be under the knife.  By now I have stopped all exercising completely except my daily push ups and sit ups because of pain and general anxiety.  I wonder when and how easy it will be to resume the regular swimming, walking and biking that make an enormous contribution to my mental health and contribute to the conviction that I am living as healthy a life as possible, aside from indulging in peanut butter, chocolate, ice cream and roquefort cheese whenever I can rationalize consuming an extra 200-300 calories.  Which isn't as often as it used to be.

Pre-Surgical Clearance

It takes me less than half an hour to limp crosstown from my home on the Upper West Side to Lenox Hill Hospital which means I arrive 10 minutes early for my 9 a. m. autologous blood donation. Given the fact that staff in various departments already have entered my personal and insurance information into a computer, you might expect the system to produce it upon command.  This doesn't seem to be the case when I register.  For the first time, I'm also asked if I have a health proxy.  I don't.

The nurse who takes my blood donation tells me she has put off getting a hip replacement.  She decided to do the injections first.  They haven't helped her much, she says, which I find more reassuring than her telling me that Dr. Ranawat is a great physician.  I tell her I have been advised never to donate blood because I am in a high risk group and I have had Hepatitis A and a positive test for Hep B antibodies, although I have tested negative for HIV.  She duly records this information.

I've never given blood before but am pleasantly surprised by the comfort of the reclining chair she tells me to sit in.  For the next 20 or so minutes, she tells me about the superior care available in New York City hospitals, based on the near-death experience her husband had with a mouth infection in New Jersey.  After my veins dutifully pump out a pint of blood, I can't believe how greedily I consume the Lorna Doones, Fig Newtons and cranberry juice that she gives me.

Next I need to be medically cleared for surgery by Carl Reimers, MD a Lenox Hill Hospital cardiologist in the adjacent building.  While setting up the electrocardiogram, his assistant apologizes but she will have to send me back to the same building where I gave blood for a chest x-ray and a urine sample.  Dr. Reimers appears briefly, asks me a couple of questions, reads my EKG and pronounces me fit as a fiddle.

So far, so good--all this has been accomplished in the allotted 2 hours.  But as I register for the 3rd time that morning with the chest clinic, I become a little weary of repeating the same information over and over.  I also have to wait nearly an hour before giving a urine sample and then it's another 30 minutes before a technician escorts me into the x-ray room.