The Day I went Blind...

I had a busy schedule on a Monday. I spent an hour on the phone with the investors, wait that’s too polite, they were vulture capitalists. The bastards.
When I finished explaining what was going on at least three different times, they seemed satisfied and we hung up. 

I took the dog to the park, he peed and pooped. Back in the house, I gave him a cookie and left for a meeting with an engineer and his asshole boss.

It was one of those Boston, cold blustery March days, windy as hell at times, but sunny and 50 degrees. I got on Route 2 in Cambridge and worked my way through traffic to 128, doubled back at the exit, parked at the tower site. The engineer and his boss were late. We got nothing done. 

I left, got back on 128 South headed for Wellesley and a meeting with my lawyer at his office. The traffic was shitty as usual. I worked my way over to the left lane and pushed the old Range Rover up to 80. About a mile from the Route 9 exit it happened. I went blind in my right eye. Nothing but black. I blinked, I rubbed it. I couldn’t fucking see.

My right eye is my good eye, as in it’s been surgically rebuilt, it’s 20/30. The left eye is useless, they don’t even have a number for it. Know what I can read on an eye chart with the left eye? The huge E at the top and that’s it.

I can’t see shit and I’m driving in traffic at 80 miles an hour. I take a chance, speed up and cut across 4 lanes to the right shoulder and stop. I heard a lot of horns honking, I couldn’t see the Massholes flipping me the bird. I know they did.

I was relatively calm considering the situation. I ran scenarios through my head. Should I call and have somebody pick me up? Should I drive slowly down the shoulder to the Route 9 Exit, the lawyers office was only a couple of tricky U turns and a few blocks from the exit. Should I call 9-11? Fuck, I couldn’t even read the numbers on my little Nokia phone. I told myself to chill and stop thinking, try to be Zen about this. I cranked the seat back, closed my eyes and listened to the emergency flashers click. I can’t remember how long I sat there listening to the click, click, click of the flashers. Every time a big rig went by, the Range Rover shuddered. I finally put the seat back up, opened my eyes and the right was still blank. A thought crossed my mind, what if this was the new me. I opened the window and gulped some fresh air. Decision made, I’d try to get the hell off 128, the exit wasn’t that far, I could do it. I put the Rover in gear and started slowly down the shoulder to the Route 9 Wellesley Exit. Take it slow and steady. As I crept along at maybe 10 miles an hour, my eye started began to come back. The process was like a series of window shades opening, from left to right. One tiny shade would slowly open, then another, I didn’t keep track, there were maybe 5 or 6 tiny roll up blinds opening one after another. By the time I reached the exit, I could see. I looked at the clock on the dash, I couldn’t see it a few minutes ago, I was late. I sped up made the U turns on Route 9 and parked in the lot.

The meeting lasted an hour, I took good notes, I didn’t mention what happened. With that taken care of I drove home to the Back Bay. It was 3 in the afternoon, I walked the dog again and it occurred to me during the walk, that I should probably find out what happened. When I got home, I called my eye surgeon at Mass Eye and Ear. He said, “Get your ass down here now” he added, “take a cab, do not drive!” Yes sir!

Cakes was flying the shuttle at the time and she’d be home around 5. Thank God she was finally taking the T home from Logan. I left her a  cheery note with the car keys on the counter. The dog got another cookie and I caught a cab on Mass Ave. The dog couldn’t figure out why I was leaving again, he had a disappointed look on his German Shepherd face when l closed and locked the door.

Dr Foster ran a couple of tests at the eye clinic, he had a couple of colleagues look at the results and he had one of his assistants walk me over to the ICU at Mass General. More tests, more docs, then they rolled me to the neurology ward and popped me in a bed. They hooked me up to a couple of IVs and started to pump me full of blood thinner, heparin. I had to pee, the nurse handed me a plastic pee bottle and said, “When you’re finished, just set it on the side table, the head resident will be in to see you in a few minutes.”

There was a guy in the other bed, when his wife drew back the curtain to leave, I noticed he was laying there, staring straight up at the ceiling, his wife was talking to him, he didn’t answer. She looked at me and started to cry.

The Head Neurology Resident came in, the guy looked like a miniature version of my nephew John. He said it wasn’t my eye, it was my brain. I’d had a transient ischemic attack (TIA). It occurs when part of the brain experiences a temporary lack of blood flow. He was sure that the part of my brain controlling my vision, stopped supplying blood to my right eye and shut it off. The job now was to figure out why it happened and stop it from happening again. To get to the answer, it would take tests, lots of tests. I heard my phone ringing in the closet, he got it for me. It was Cakes. She wanted to come down, I told her to wait, because I was headed for a CAT scan.

Cat Scans or CT scans in my case can show with reliable results the probability of a permanent stroke, that was why I was getting the test, of course they didn’t tell me that at the time. I was the mushroom in the dark.

When I was rolled back to my room, my roommate was gone and they’d moved me to his bed, this made me nervous at first, but I liked the view from the window. The nurse got me settled in and Cakes walked in. She was very upset and scared. I found myself reassuring her everything was going to be fine. I was in good hands. I explained what the docs had told me so far, not much really. We held hands and she decided I needed some proper pajamas. We shared my hospital, low fat dinner and joked that it really needed some wine to wash it down. I hated to see her go when visiting hours were over.

Cakes brought me the book I’d been reading, I couldn’t read, I watched TV, shut it off. I wondered if what had happened today was a one-off event or a predictor of my future. I decided that I’d rather be blind and functional than condemned to wearing a drool cup the rest of my life. If that happened, I’d rather be dead. I was in a dark mood.
I couldn’t read, I couldn’t watch TV and I couldn’t sleep, it was after 11 and I’d gotten up at 5 to get ready for my conference call with the Vultures, I’d gone to two meetings, one bad and one good and god damned killed myself on 128. Oh, and I’d gone blind for what, 15 minutes? 

I got up and went to the bathroom dragging my IV stand along with me. When I go back, there was an angel in the room. Her name was Dr. Monica Watson, she was the resident on duty. Dr Watson was warm, funny and scary smart. She was a black woman who’d grown up poor in Dorchester, she’d gotten into the premed program at U Mass and then into Harvard Medical school. Dr. Watson listened to me whine, she answered my questions, calmed me down, patted my arm and left. I felt better and was asleep in minutes. She sure as hell had the human side of medicine down pat.

Cakes was back in the morning, she brought me a coffee from the Charles Street Bakery. We nibbled at the low-fat breakfast. We watched the Today Show together in bed. It felt good to have her head on my shoulder.

It didn’t last long, in marched the head Neurologist with his platoon of residents, he said “GOOD MORNING” at the top of his lungs, picked up my chart and continued like a god damn Army DI. I finally said, “Jesus can you tone it down”. He didn’t. What an asshole. He performed like this everyday I was in the hospital. A very tired looking Dr. Watson rolled her eyes at me as they marched out of my room.

Cakes left to buy me some pajamas and I read the Globe until I was picked up and rolled away for more tests for the rest of the morning, back to my room for a delicious zero fat lunch, after lunch, I napped and then was rolled to the basement for another CT scan.

I’d been out of contact with the Vulture Capitalists for 24 hours, I had Cakes send an email saying I was involved in a “family emergency”, not the truth, on the other hand it wasn’t a lie. If the bastards thought I was sick, who knows what they would do.

I felt great, I could see and I began to wonder what the hell I was doing in Mass General. While I was contemplating my escape. I got a new roommate. He was an Italian from Rome.

Pietro was really pissed off, he’d had a stroke while visiting his America relatives, he couldn’t use the left side of his body, but his mouth worked just fine and he worked it overtime, in Italian and English.

“Hey Roberto, you gotta god damned mirror?”

I got out of bed, rolled my IV stand over to Pietro’s bed and pushed the bed tray up to where he could see it, I flipped up the top and he looked at himself in the mirror. “Mother of God, I look like chit!” And he did. Pietro’s face drooped on the left side. His curly hair was sticking out at every possible angle. “Look at my fucking eye, Roberto, I look like that fucking actor, Marty, what the fucka is his name?”

“Marty Feldman?”

“Yes, the guy from Frankastein!”

“Pardon me boy is this the Transylvania Station?”

“Yes, yes, and “walk this way”.

We both laughed and Pietro felt better. Pietro loved American movies and Frank Sinatra.

That night, Cakes came back, we watched a steady stream of Pietro’s American relatives’ parade in and out of the room. They ranged from mustached old ladies in black to young tarts from Revere with huge hair. His male relatives ranged from god father cast members to well dressed guys in Italian suits with blonde wives. One of the old ladies combed his hair.

When visiting hours were over, Pietro winked at me with his good eye, his immigrant older brother had slipped him a bottle of grappa, we each had a stiff drink and fell asleep.

Wednesday it was more tests for me. Pietro had the same routine, different schedule. We bitched about the food, I hated it, Pietro said, “questa è spazzatura, non posso mangiarla” translated, “this is garbage, I can’t eat it”. He was right, it was low-fat garbage. He asked me what my favorite Italian food was, I told him pappardelle with chicken and mushrooms in broth. Pietro’s mouth began to water out of his good right side.

Thursday morning I walked my IV stand down to the cafeteria, I got some good coffee and buttered rolls. Pietro was grateful. We skipped our egg whites and dry toast breakfast, listened to the loud neurologist again and my roomie was rolled off for more tests. Since I was ambulatory, I walked to mine. 

That afternoon I got the good news, I was going to be discharged on Friday morning. Pietro was going to moved over the weekend to rehab, they needed to get him going so he could fly home to Roma. He said, “6 fucking weeks, Roberto, 6!” His good news was his wife was coming to be with him.

I told Cakes the good news and suggested she do her scheduled shuttle trip on Friday, she agreed.

I was released at ten on Friday morning, it was a beautiful late March day, so nice I walked all the way home from Mass General carrying a plastic bag with my new pajamas and a bunch of medicine. Straka the Dog was happy to see me, I was happy to see him. I made some coffee, poured it in a to go cup and took Straka to the dog park. I tossed his ball, watched him pee a hundred times, we walked some more and sat on a park bench in the sun and contemplated how lucky I am.

I checked on my Italian roommate, the rehab people at Mass General got him walking and he left for home. I hope Pietro is doing okay, I am.