Just Like Carrie Bradshaw...

As a waitress in Midtown, I meet a lot of tourists.

Sometimes they like to chat.

Okay. Sure.

I’ll gladly tell you where to go to buy great discount clothes. I can give you directions to pretty much any major tourist attraction. And, if I asked, I will happily offer suggestions on what to see and do in NYC.

But I find it strange when they inquire about my personal life. Particularly when they ask the question, “So, what do you do?”

It just seems too personal to me. Because they can see what I do. I’m their waitress. What they’re really asking is, “What are your dreams? What do you aspire to be besides a waitress?”

For some reason, I find this question insulting. I would never walk into a doctor’s office, greet the receptionist, and, while thumbing thru the year-old magazines, ask the receptionist, “So, what do you want to be besides a receptionist?”

I’m your waitress---not your friend. Let’s make a deal---you don’t ask about my dreams in life and I won’t ask if that’s your real hair color. And I don’t think my aspirations either qualify or disqualify me for the honor of bringing you coffee and a slice of cheesecake.

And frankly, why do you care? Are you an agent? Are you so taken by my sparkling personality that you sense a great hidden talent?

Of course, I am aware that I’m reading too much into this. Waitresses are notoriously snarky. We have to be. It’s a defense mechanism developed thru years and years of being verbally abused without the ability to retaliate.

In my lighter moments, I realize that what most of them really want is simply to get a story to take back home about their encounter with a real-life, New York City Struggling Artist.

For some reason, they think it’s interesting. After all, it always looks interesting in the movies. Huge artists lofts. Glamorous bohemian parties. Daily encounters with celebrity. Sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Juicy bits of gossip to take back home to their small town to impress their friends.

“So, what do you do besides this?” they ask with anticipation.

“Well, I’m a writer.”

Sometimes I can actually see their eyes light up. And then, more often than you would think, I hear this…

“Oh! Just like Carrie Bradshaw!”

Well, no. Not really.

Let me start by saying that I love Sex in the City. It’s a smart, sexy show with great acting and fantastic writing. And yes, sometimes the show is very much like life in NYC. As my friend Jana says, “Life here IS kind of like Sex and the City---but without all that pesky sex.”

But I’m not here to write about sex. Yet another reason why I am not like Carrie Bradshaw. I’m writing this on a PC. Carrie had a laptop. Strike number two.

And Carrie lived on the East Side. I live on the West Side. And if you know anything about Manhattan---that’s a HUGE difference. Strike three.

Still, the comparison continues. I’m a single gal, living in the big bad city, and spending my free time sitting in cafes, sipping cappuccinos and working on my next project.

The operative word is “free”. My FREE time. You see, this is where the comparison comes to a dead stop.

Once I was this temped to reply to a table’s Carrie Bradshaw comparison by explaining, “Yes! My life is exactly like that episode of Sex in the City where Carrie works the dinner-close shift and, after she tips out, walks with $82.”

“I don’t remember that episode, “ they would inevitably reply.

Exactly.

I bring this up now because I've been told that while I spend ample amount of time writing about restaurant life on this blog, I have yet to devote equal time to The Writer’s Life.

Well, if you thought working in a restaurant was boring…

Look, I LOVE writing. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be sitting here now.

But talking about it in conversation is about the most boring thing you can possibly discuss. No one wants to hear about how I spent my day off editing twelve pages, writing six new ones and making a trip to Office Depot for two reams of paper.

I liken it to being a butcher. People may appreciate a fabulous steak---but no one wants to hear how it went from cow to butcher paper.

Nevertheless, I’m about to give it a shot. Over the course of the next week, I will faithfully document what it is truly like to live the life of a writer in NYC. But I warn you now---don’t expect any sex, shoes, or cosmopolitans.

Or puns. That’s the other difference between me and Carrie---I hate puns.

What Happened To You?, Pt.2

The earliest physician, Hippocrates, once said, “To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy.”

Very Zen for a Greek.

While I understand the concept, may I say that as I sat on the gurney, hidden in an emergency room cubicle behind a pulled curtain, I felt like I’d been forgotten.

I had discovered a few minutes earlier that emergency room doctors use a familiar shorthand to refer to their frequently rotating round of patients. How do I know? Because I was The Jaw Lady.

I overheard the nice guy who’d given me a tetanus shot refer to me by my newest moniker as he discussed my impending admittance with an orderly. As he wheeled me down to my waiting gurney, I couldn’t help but smile my crooked smile and let him in on my discovery, “So, I’m The Jaw Lady?”

“Yup. You sure are. We have all sorts of names we use,” he continued. “The Jaw Lady. The Arm Guy. The Stab Wound. You’ll be just fine. Right over here,” he said as he wheeled me into the small little curtained-off cubicle.

However, forty-five minutes later, I was still sitting behind the curtain in a cubicle instead of a comfy hospital bed and felt I’d been completely forgotten.

Now, I will begin this complaint by saying that the hospital staff could not have been nicer to me during my stay---however, I have since discovered that there seems to be a sort of Black Hole in hospitals. They tend to wheel you somewhere for something—maybe x-rays or tests---and then…

Well, you just sit there. Waiting.

Sitting there in a wheelchair in a hallway with people being forced to walk around you; avoiding eye contact, like I was a homeless guy taking up sidewalk space on Fifth Avenue. I don't think this is what Hippocrates had in mind.

Finally, I wrapped my Size 18 hospital gown around my Size 4 body, got out of my gurney, peered out of the curtains and looked around.

It was chaos.

Controlled chaos. But enough of a madhouse that no one would notice The Jaw Lady poking her big blue eyes and goatee out of the thin, blue curtain.

They’d get to me when they got to me, I guess.

As a waitress, I completely understood the whole idea of first ticket in, first ticket out.

In the meantime, I leaned over my gurney and pulled up my hefty bag----a big, black bag with The Strand Bookstore logo on the front---which, despite its heft, contained precious few items for my impending stay. There was some loose powder and lipstick, a hairbrush, a bottle of Vitamin C, my wallet, about fifteen pens, one small notebook, a Tide To-Go Stick, some old, wadded-up receipts, about fifteen dollars in loose change, an eye pencil, an emergency tampon, my cell phone (currently set to ‘OFF’ due to the ever-present signs warning you to turn your cell phones off), and---a book.

Despite my tea-obsessed frame of mind, I had extended the Emergency Preparedness part of my brain just enough to pack a book.

“Salt: A World History” by Mark Kurlansky.

But once I finally got to my room, the nice nurse immediately handed me a couple of Percocets in a cup and told me to take them. Once I started my steady diet of Percocet, I wouldn’t able to pick up a book for weeks.

A few minutes after getting settled into my hospital bed, one of the nurses brought me a welcome basket. Well, it was more like a welcome bedpan or something. A plastic bin that was supposed to contain all the emergency supplies I would need during my stay: A couple of plastic cups, a tiny bar of soap, some other plastic oddly-shaped bin that I had no idea what to do with, a small tube of toothpaste, a baby-sized toothbrush, and a small box of tissues.

Despite the pain and fear, I could only focus on my inadequate supplies. Where was the deodorant? The shampoo? And what was I going to do with my contact lenses?

I guess it seemed like the easiest thing to focus on other than the fact that within 24 hours, I would have a steel plate in my head. People were going to hate me at the airport.

However, now safely in my hospital room, I was allowed to turn on my cell. Luckily, I was able to get two bars to perk up. But I knew they wouldn’t last long. I quickly scrolled down my contacts list, looking for friends who lived at least somewhat nearby who might be able to bring me my much-needed supplies. The other criterion was that they be the sort of person who would still be awake at almost one o’clock in the morning.

Unfortunately, the sorts of people still awake at that hour turn out to be the sorts who are all out on the town. The two I was able to get hold of were, oddly enough, in bed early. I apologized for waking them and said not to worry.

Are you sure? Are you really sure?

Yeah. I’ll be fine. And I meant it.

Because by this time, I had realized that, in the scheme of things, saline solution and clean underpants aren’t really all that important. Well, the saline solution wasn’t. I was still a little disturbed about going into surgery with yesterdays underpants.

But no matter how bad the injury, it wasn’t life or death. I would live. A lot of people in this hospital might not.

A few minutes later, my cell phone rang. It was Mom.

She sounded calm (that’s my Mom in a crisis) but was obviously shaken about the news of her little girl. She had gotten the message from my Aunt and started asking all the questions that a Mom is going to ask. How was I doing? What happened? What’s going to happen now? Do you need anything?

And then, my phone died.

It took almost another hour for the hospital to finish setting up the account for the phone in my room. Luckily, I had given my Mom the name of the hospital, my room number, and warned her that my cell was about to give and that the phone in my room did not make long-distance calls.

So I waited. Waited for Mom to somehow get thru.

Luckily, when it comes to her babies, nothing stops my mother. Despite the fact that the phone took almost another hour to get set up, and that she had gotten yelled at by the nurses for calling the hospital at almost 2:00 in the morning (“This is a hospital, Ma’am”, one of them had said)---my Mother was not to be daunted. An hour later my phone rang and we picked up where we left off.

She told me that, while she’d been trying to get thru to the hospital, she had started making some calls to the airlines and would get the first plane out in the morning. “It’s major surgery, honey. You shouldn’t be alone.”

I admit that at that point, no matter how old you are---you really want your Mommy. However, I told her not to worry and to stay right where she was. I would be fine. By the time she got here, I would most likely be done with my surgery and back at home. Safe and sound.

I also knew the plane fare would be enormous. A last-minute flight out of St. Louis would probably cost about $1200. Not only that, but I was more worried about HER. My mother has osteoporosis, and while my fall was pretty bad---if she fell… Well, it would be another thing entirely. She would be traveling alone with no one around to help with the luggage. And she’d never been to New York. Not that my Mom isn’t pretty darn savvy, but I suddenly worried about her trying to navigate the mean streets of Manhattan for the first time without a guide.

In the end, I had made a good call. The next morning, they had a huge snowstorm in St. Louis that shut down all the airports for the entire day. She would have spent $1200 on a ticket, wouldn’t have gotten out anyway, and might possibly have slipped on snow and ice. At least one tragedy that day averted.

A nurse stopped by to offer me a sleeping pill, but I said I wouldn’t need it. I don’t particularly like the things and felt pretty exhausted from the days activities. I would have no trouble following Dr. McDreamy’s orders and getting lots of sleep.

Unfortunately, I was quickly getting to know my hospital roommate.

Well, not her in particular. Lying in the next bed, behind a thin blue curtain, was an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s who was in for a hip replacement. She wasn’t the problem. She pretty much slept the whole time.

The problem was with the fact that, due to her altered state of mind, the family had (albeit, wisely) hired a staff of round-the-clock nurses to monitor her every move. The nurses, however, weren’t the sort who could sit there and read about The History of Salt. The TV was on constantly---not to entertain the sleeping woman, but to keep the nurses amused. And their other nurse friends kept dropping by for long, extended discussions about who in their neighborhood was getting a divorce and who was cheating on whom.

It was non-stop gossip and late-night TV twenty-four seven.

Finally, at 4:00 in the morning, I rang the buzzer and asked the nurse for a sleeping pill.

Later, when my mother discovered this state of affairs, she almost had a heart attack.

What? No private room?

My mother is The Queen of the Private Rooms. And, while she is extremely nice and polite about the whole business, when anyone in my family has to enter the hospital for any reason, my mother will immediately step up and firmly (but kindly) demand, “And she HAS to have a private room.”

The fact that this family gene had obviously not been passed down to her daughter was almost shocking.

“Oh, honey, you didn’t have an advocate,” she said sadly.

And by this time, as I sat there drifting off with the Ambien, it had certainly dawned on me that I not only did not have an advocate at all---I was completely alone. About to have major surgery and completely alone.

When I was little, I was alone and then I jumped. Now, I jumped and I was alone. I went thru a few more tissues in the box before I finally got to sleep.

In the morning, the head surgeon of the department came by to pay me a visit, explain my surgery, and reassured me that I would be fine.

A few more phone calls came in from my family and friends. My mother also told me that she was putting money into my account.

“You’re not going to be able to work for awhile, honey.”

No, really---I’m fine, I told her. But Mom wouldn’t hear of it. I was going to need money, she informed me, and explained that I certainly wouldn’t be able to go back to work for at least a few weeks.

A few weeks? It seemed inconceivable. Not that I was anxious to get back to a crappy waiting tables job… But really, I would be fine, I said blithely on my Percocet high. Mom thought otherwise.

Not long after, a strange man walked into my room. The Hospital Chaplain. The Catholic in me suddenly felt like I was getting last rites.

Now, while I was raised Catholic, I would not consider myself the practicing sort. Sure, I love all the great values my Catholic school education has given me---fundamental things like be kind to others, donate to charity, have respect for yourself and your gifts, and when things seem bad---pick yourself up and know that things can get better.

But I certainly wasn’t sure about this whole chaplain thing. Would I be forced to sit there in pain listening to some 42nd St. Preacher go on and on about Jaaah-sus!

But he seemed nice and soft-spoken and sat down on the chair. Honestly, he was the first (and most likely ONLY) visitor I would have. I wasn’t about to look a Gift Guest in the mouth.

He asked what had happened to me and what surgery I was about to have. I began to tell the whole sordid tale. His eyes got both large and warm as he listened and then said, “I had my jaw broken, too.”

“Oh my god!”

Oooops. I probably shouldn’t have said, “god”.

“What happened to you?” I quickly continued on.

About fifteen years ago, he was living in Queens and was beaten and robbed. His face had been broken in so many places that the doctors actually took pictures of him for the medical books.

As he continued telling his own much-shorter tale---Hey, he had the advantage of fifteen years to cut and re-write!---we started talking about the pace of life. How fast everything was in the city. And how maybe, things like this made you think about just slowing down. After all, he asked, what was so important that you had to run and jump down the stairs to make a train?

Had it been an interview for my dream job? A meeting with a studio interested in my latest script? A plane to a vacation in Venice with George Clooney?

No. I did all of this to myself to avoid being POSSIBLY five minutes late to a waitressing job on a slow day where I would most likely have sat around drinking tea for two hours before I would even get a table.

Without ever mentioning Jesus, the guy made ya think.

And yeah, the Percocet was pretty good, too.

A nurse stopped by to inform me that I would need to take off ALL my clothes and simply have on my lovely hospital gown for the surgery.

Now, normally I would be a little disturbed about the no-underpants thing. I’m not really a Commando-type gal. But at least the clean underpants issue was off the table.

As I gussied-up for surgery, I also thanked god for the fact that I’d recently had a pedicure and shaved my legs. And that wasn’t the Percocet---that’s just me.

Not long after, a man showed up with a gurney and called out my name. This was it. I took one last look at my face in the mirror and crawled onto the gurney.

I was wheeled into the pre-op area where I saw the head of the department and my cute doctor all huddled up in conference. A couple of nurses were suddenly all over me. One of them started attaching an IV thingy into the pre-made slot in my arm, another put an oh-so-attractive shower cap on my head and propped me up on the gurney, while another took my blood pressure and started asking pretty much the same questions I’d been asked about fifteen times before.

And then, once I was all attached to medical equipment and had that eye-catching hairnet on my head---my adorable doctor walked over to chat.

At this moment, may I say that I have watched WAY too many television news reports about someone going in for a standard procedure and then something going horribly awry.

So, with Dr. McDreamy next to my gurney, I suddenly admitted my latest fear, “So…I hate to say anything, but I just wanted to make sure that you got the right side… I mean, I see all those stories about people going in for surgery and they operate on the wrong side… Don’t forget, it’s this side…” I said as I pointed to my broken face. “I’m sorry; you probably think I’m crazy or something.”

“No,” he said as he smiled and gave a little laugh. “I understand. Wait right here.”

Well, where was I going?

A moment later, he came back with a marker and I felt him draw a line with an arrow underneath my chin on the proper side.

“There,” he said as he smiled, “now you don’t have to worry.’

While you’re laughing at my obvious insanity at this moment, may I just say---Hey, the girl needed an advocate.

The Head Surgeon came over with a digital camera and began to take what I can only assume was a Before Picture.

“Is this for the new ‘Don’t Run On the Subway’ Posters?” I asked.

“Yes,” he smiled, obviously appreciating my warped sense of humor. “That’s exactly what it’s for.”

Dr. McDreamy gave me another one of those little pats and then they all left to scrub-up.

This was it. I was about to have my very first surgery. I can’t say I felt my whole life flashing before my eyes, but I began to feel a sense of finality.

What if this was it? My last few moments on earth? Sure, this thought had occurred to me over the past eighteen hours or so. But what with all the worrying about the cat and the underpants…

What if I didn’t wake up?

My apartment was a mess.

Yes, I did think about this. I know it sounds completely stupid, but I was indeed worrying about someone finding my apartment in a state of disarray after my death.

I was certain there were some dirty clothes lying on my bathroom floor from the night before. I have a clothes hamper---What was so difficult about using that? Hmmm?

No matter how much I was scared in the emergency room, I was terrified as I lay there alone about to face my first surgery. The sniffles started again.

Luckily, before I could get a good cry going, someone from behind started to wheel me out of the prep area and out the door.

Then, it was all like an episode of ER.

The fast-paced shot down the long hall. The double doors with the red light overhead and the big signs reading, “Sterile Area” or something like that. The gurney hits the doors smack in the middle and shoots open the doors like an old Wild West barroom. Inside, the main characters. Everyone sterile, surgical masks, hair nets, gloves in the air---almost unidentifiable. A whole team---twenty, at least---all scrubbed-up and ready to help the girl with the arrow on her face.

Then, everything happened as fast as the moment I actually fell. My left arm was pulled out to the side as a shelf under my arm followed it underneath my gurney. Then my right arm. Stretched out---like Jesus on the Cross. A nurse punched a needle into the IV in my left arm, someone started tying my feet down, a couple of female nurses draped a cloth over me and started discreetly untying the strings in the back of my gown…

The next thing I remember is waking up in the recovery ward---a Socialistic sort of place with a bunch of other post-op people in a huge room. All of us on gurneys. All of us attached to a bunch of tubes. And a bunch of nurses right there waiting for us all to wake up.

“Your Mommy’s on the phone.” a nurse reportedly told me. “It’s your Mommy!”

This, I do not remember. But my mother still laughs when she describes how the nurse brought the phone over to tell me that my “Mommy is on the phone.” But I do remember hearing that she had called and was informed that I was doing just fine.

My actual first memory was of a nurse asking, “Are you in pain?”

“Uh-huh.”

“On a scale of one to ten---how much pain are you experiencing?”

Where I normally would have been pretty frugal in my estimate, I immediately, and without hesitation, responded, “Ten.”

“Okay,” she softly replied. “I’m going to up your morphine.”

Morphine? I was on morphine? Holy Christ!

They wound up upping my morphine four more times.

Afterwards, people kept asking me about the morphine and wondering what that was like---well, all I really got from it was that it definitely helped with the pain and it definitely made me more of a somnambulist than a character in The Cabinet of Dr. Calagari. I had moved up from The Jaw Lady to Sleepytime Gal.

There was a huge bandage wrapped around my head---from my chin to the top of my head. And I was hooked up to an IV. Of course, this was the perfect time for Dr. Handsome to pay me a visit.

“Everything went well and there was no nerve damage.”

Phew. Tho frankly, I didn’t feel like a bucket full of cherries.

“How’s your bite?” he continued. “Is it right now?”

Oh—a lovely little tidbit I neglected to mention: Within moments of my fall, I quickly realized that my teeth suddenly came together at a completely different spot. With the break, my jaw had actually shifted to the left. The question I’d been asked almost as many times as “Are you allergic to anything?” was “Is your bite off?”

I clicked my teeth together lightly and for the first time in over 24 hours, it was right again. Either things were looking up or they upped my morphine again.

However, once I had recovered enough to leave post-op, they immediately wheeled me into a giant x-ray room for my close-up. Where I promptly fell asleep.

“Okay, I need you to wake up. I just need a few x-rays,” the nice technician said as she tried to prop me up into position. “Now just stay very still. Right there.”

And she sped off to her x-ray safety zone behind some lead wall.

Next thing I remember is the same woman standing over me.

“Oh---it’s all blurry. You fell asleep again.”

“I’m sorry,” I moaned thru my bandages. “I’m just so sleepy.”

“That’s okay. It’s the morphine, sweetie. We’ll try it again.”

I must’ve fucked up about $4000 worth of x-rays.

Back in my room, I was greeted with the sound of chatty round-the-clock nurses and Jimmy Kimmel Live. AARRRGGGHHH!!!!

I’m a nice person, but come on. I just got out of surgery. I just want to sleep. I hated to be impolite, but I begged my nurse for a pair of ear plugs or a sleeping pill or something. He not only brought me a sleeping pill---he upped my morphine again.

In the morning, I was greeted with a tray of food. I hadn’t eaten anything in over two days. Unfortunately, I could barely get a spoon into my mouth. The few bites of mushy food I did manage to get in were pretty bland. In fact, I think the only salt in the room was the picture on the cover of my book.

Not long after, the doctors took off my bandages and I saw the stitches.

Ow! Well, I guess it could be worse. I had only needed one incision right underneath the jaw line. They gave me some emollient to help it heal and keep it bacteria-free. Then my cute doctor asked me to make an “O” with my mouth. I did. At least, I thought I did. I remember him simply looking at me making a funny face and then going, “Hmmm. Okay.”

Back in my room, I made the same “O” in front of the mirror.

Oh no. The feeling and movement on that side of my face was pretty much nothing. I had been warned that this was a possibility and might take a while for all the blood vessels to re-connect. But this was kind of freaky.

Nevertheless, I really wanted to get home. Away from the constant chatter and daytime TV. And Bessie was surely out of cat food by now. A few hours later, the hospital gave me the all clear, a different doctor stopped by to write some prescriptions for antibiotics and Percocet and before I knew it, I was downstairs hailing a cab.

My mother had called me that morning, “Oh honey---you’re all alone up there. You don’t have anybody to pick up your prescriptions.”

But I was determined to be self-sufficient. I took the cab to the drug store near my house, picked up my prescriptions and did the short walk home. Yeah, sure I was in pain, tired and exhausted---but I did it. And was extremely proud of myself for not troubling anyone for some measly prescriptions.

As soon as I walked in the door to my apartment, my cat jumped off the bed and began a long litany of meows that led all the way to her empty cat food dish---yes, she will actually go to the dish and bang on it to make sure you are aware of the fact that it is quite deficient in cat food.

My white shirt was still soaking in the bathroom sink. I pulled it out and looked it over---two days soaking in cold water and Woolite seemed to do the trick.

Outside of a few phone calls and trying to get a few bites of food in my system, I pretty much just wanted to sleep. I quickly discovered that this was a problem. My surgery was on one side and (my soon to-be-discovered broken ribs) were on the other. I would be forced to sleep on my back for weeks.

The next morning, I immediately discovered the astonishing fact that I literally could NOT get out of bed. I could not move. I was in so much pain and so stiff that the only way I could move was to actually roll my body over and slide down to the floor. Wow. I couldn’t believe that I actually felt ten times worse.

I’ve since been told that the massive painkillers you receive during and immediately after surgery take about two days to really wear off. I was about to enter three weeks of pure hell. Every part of my body ached.

My knee constantly felt like it was going to give. I clung onto railings on the stairs for dear life. I dreaded coughing or sneezing and carefully held onto my face beforehand and braced myself for the pain---not only in my face, but my ribs, which felt like they were going to simply break apart from the pressure. At the market (my only real trip outside the house) I had to opt for the shopping cart instead of the basket---not due to the large volume of my purchases, but simply because I was terrified my knee would give and I’d fall down again.

Oh my god. I was an old lady.

Not wanting to be a burden on anyone, I hadn’t told too many people about my accident---but the few who did find out seemed to spread the news a bit. Calls, emails, cards---even a few gifts. I really wasn’t used to this kind of attention---but it was definitely appreciated. I even got some tea!

By this time, my Mom had deposited some money in my account and I realized that she had been right. I certainly couldn’t work. I could barely move.

“Well honey,” my Mom had offered, “maybe you’ll have some time to write.”

Not only could I not write or even read. Due to the Percocet, I couldn’t even focus my brain on a feature-length film. I watched the same movie on HBO three times and I still couldn’t tell you what it was about. I spent two weeks in bed with the remote, flipping between CNN, The Food Network and (my guilty pleasure) “The Soup” on E!

The first week, I couldn’t eat anything that wasn’t completely pureed. After several cups of chicken bullion and more jello than I could take, I finally broke down and bought baby food. Yes, baby food. And frankly, I don’t know how babies eat the stuff. No wonder they’re always spitting it out. But, I have to say, the Guava was not half bad.

Pureed guava nonetheless---I dropped ten pounds in less than a week. Most women would be thrilled at this side effect. However, not only do I not recomment the Break Your Jaw Diet, but I'm already a size 4---a few more days of this and I would look like I just walked out of Auschwitz.

And then, my face swelled up. HUGE. I hailed another cab and went back to the hospital.
”Yeah, I can definitely see the swelling,” my cute doctor said. Damn. Doesn’t this guy ever take a day off?

And then seemingly the entire department was paraded past me to view this monstrosity. I felt like a circus freak. It didn’t help that I still had the beard.

Apparently, this is common. The swelling was in the salivary gland and would eventually go down. But it hurt like hell---putting so much pressure on my face like a combination of the worst sinus infection and abscess tooth you could ever imagine. They prescribed some small patches that I was supposed to wear behind my ear for the next two weeks that would help drain it all out. Yes, let’s just add one more bit of unattractive medical software to my face.

They then decided that I needed to see pictures of my surgery. I could tell how proud they were of their work and before I could even begin to decline their generous offer, they suddenly had a digital camera in front of my face---with pictures of my face. The INSIDE of my face! All the nerves and blood vessels and all the gory stuff of MY FACE all opened up, skin pulled back and a big metal plate hammered in. I can’t even watch Dr. 90210, let alone pictures of my OWN FACE!

And what do you say when you’re looking at pictures of your bloody, opened-up face? Well, probably something a little like this, “Wow. That’s amazing that you guys can do that.”

That only encouraged more picturesque slides.

“And…yeah…wow. That’s… I don’t know how you guys do that,” was about all I could muster up.

But frankly, I was amazed. After all, my marketable skills are pretty much limited to pouring coffee and putting a few words down on a piece of paper (okay, more than a few). And even my latter skill doesn’t seem to be particularly marketable.

Back at home, the weight continued to drop.

Baby food just wasn’t cutting it. Luckily, I’m an excellent cook. And now was as good a time as any to work on perfecting my Béarnaise Sauce. I went into the kitchen and got to work. I started with a potato leek soup that turned out amazing with lots of cream and fresh watercress---all chopped up in my trusty blender. As the days went by, and my eating abilities improved, I quickly moved up to rice dishes. Then small pasta. Then flaky fish. By the time I was able to eat salmon---it had a delicious Béarnaise Sauce and it was amazing!

Unfortunately, just as I started feeling slightly better---it was time to get back to work. Well, I could have taken more time off, but I had to make a decision early on and felt I would be ready for the next week’s schedule.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. I was still in tremendous pain, still swollen, still with highly visible scars, and still unable to speak properly out of one side of my mouth.

Picture this: Here you are. Out on the town in New York City. All dressed up. About to go and see a Broadway show and have a great dinner. And who shows up at your table?----The Jaw Lady. Looking like a cross between the Frankenstein Monster, The Elephant Man and a recent stroke victim.

The worst part was the fact that one side of my face felt pretty much frozen. And, while I could easily talk in low-tones on the telephone without too much problem---when I tried to project to my tables…

Let me just say, that my fear of being asked the Soup of the Day, was not unfounded. Because my first day back, the soup was Split Pea with Ham. If you’ve never had a partially paralyzed face, may I just say that the words Split Pea with Ham are pretty much your nemesis. No matter what I did, I felt like I was spitting all over their bread as I attempted to convey the message. Not too many people ordered Split Pea with Ham from me. I like to think it was because no one really likes this particular soup. But maybe not.

We had Split Pea with Ham for three days in a row! On the fourth day, I was ecstatic when they had changed the soup to Potato Leek---much easier for me to pronounce. But then, around 7:30, we ran out of Potato Leek and replaced it with….ARRRRGGGGHHH!!! SPLIT PEA WITH HAM!

I don’t think I’ll ever eat Split Pea with Ham again.

Two weeks later, my friend Valerie was telling me how much she admired me for going back to work so soon after such a horrible accident and how brave I was to deal with it alone and how....

And then she stopped.

I knew what she was about to say, but wouldn’t---How embarrassed she would have been to come to work looking like THAT!

Well, the bills wait for no man. Or Jaw Lady.

Lucky for me, (but unlucky for her) an old friend of mine in Minneapolis had also broken her jaw. She was trampled by a horse years ago at a Dude Ranch. Her jaw was broken in three places and she had to be wired shut for six weeks. After hearing her stories, I was definitely relieved I had opted for the surgery. She said that the worst indignity was being forced to wear a pair of emergency wire-cutting scissors around her neck for six weeks in case she got nauseous---and be prepared to CUT those wires to avoid becoming the next Jimi Hendrix or John Bonham.

She became my sounding board for the next few weeks---happily chatting on the phone with me late into the night; discussing tips for mushy foods, comparing symptoms, and reassuring me that I was indeed making progress. I greedily snapped up every piece of advice she offered and did my best to get better as soon as possible.

But one thing I couldn’t seem to shake was a new fear of---well, pretty much everything.

I constantly kept putting my hand up to guard that side of my face. Every day on my way to work, I would look at the place in the subway where I fell and a sick feeling would creep into my stomach. Just the sound of the train approaching the station made me feel ill. People at work noticed how guarded I was---my left hand constantly shooting up to shield my face. One of the bartenders tossed a bar rag in my direction and I cowered and screamed like Frankenstein to fire.

That first big Saturday night back, they somehow managed to schedule me for a fourteen-hour day. I had saved a few Percocets for emergencies; and seven hours into that shift was about as emergency as you could get. It got me thru the rest of the shift, but by the end of the night, I was so exhausted that I decided to spend the $30 on cab fare so I could just get home.

I hailed a cab and directed him Uptown. Of course, the easiest way to get Uptown 150 blocks is to take the highway. And honestly, I’m sure he wasn’t driving over the speed limit. And I don’t remember any particularly sharp turns or lightening-fast lane-changes. But, for some reason, holding onto my pain-wracked face I suddenly began to have what can only be described as a panic attack. I’d driven on highways thousands of times. What was wrong with me? As we drove up the Henry Hudson Parkway, all I remember thinking was, “Oh god, don’t get into an accident. Oh god. Oh god. Please, don’t get into an accident.”

When I got inside my apartment all in one piece, I started shaking. Then hyperventilating. And then I just lost it. Within moments, for no rational reason whatsoever---I just started hysterically crying. Shaking and sobbing and blowing my nose and drying my eyes and then starting all over again.

Half an hour later, I made a cup of tea and tried to figure out what had just happened to me. All I knew was that I just didn’t want to go thru this again. Because, as much as I try to find the humor in situations and keep pulling myself up and telling myself that things are going to be okay---the past three weeks had been horrible. And I was still no way near close to being well. Every bone in my body ached.

I looked in the mirror. God, I looked awful. Not only from the crying, but the scars and the still-partially paralyzed face.

I took a couple of Tylenol, bunched up my pillows, positioned myself carefully on my back and tried to get some sleep.

Honestly, outside of the few sniffles and the carefully held-back tears in the hospital---it was the first time I had really cried. And I guess I cried for a lot of things. The horrible pain I was constantly in, the stupid physical job I still had, the worry I’d caused my family and friends, the ugly red slash marks on my face, the feeling of being alone in the Big City, and now---the fear that I would never be the same person again.

It wasn’t until the next day that I realized it was mostly the latter. What I was crying for most was a loss of my former self. That person who loved riding horses; biking thru Central Park; hopping on a boat to anywhere (even Staten Island!); dance classes; yoga classes; walking all over Chinatown, up thru Nolita and Soho and then up thru Chelsea to Herald Square. What ever happened to the girl who wanted to jump on the trampolines? Would I ever play tennis again? Would I ever even get on a plane again?

As I walked home from the market the next day, I suddenly realized that I’d been traumatized.

I’d never been traumatized before, but it was the only thing that made sense.

I guess you’re supposed to call someone when you’ve been traumatized. Some kind of professional or something. After all, this is New York---everyone winds up in a shrink’s office eventually. And surely, after 9/11, there were hoards of professional something or others who dealt with trauma disorders.

And I had insurance. Would that cover this sort of thing?

More than anything, I just wanted my life back---whether it meant having to sit on an uncomfortable couch reliving the whole experience again, or not.

However, as I started to unpack my groceries and boil some water for my tea---I suddenly had another idea.

I pulled off my shoes, took a deep breath, muscled up my courage---and I climbed up…

And I jumped on my bed.

After a few short, tentative bounces, I started to laugh. And then I was giggling like six year-old. I felt myself slowly pushing my body to jump higher and higher---laughing even more as I did. It was all so stupid. So silly. The look on my cat’s face made me laugh even harder.

A few minutes later, out of breath from laughing so hard and jumping, I plopped down with a little bounce and dangled my feet over the bed.

I was going to be just fine.

And two weeks later, my scars are healing up nicely, I’m eating bigger and chewier foods, my speech is about 95% back to normal, the ribs are almost healed, my knee is close to 100%, my jaw is healing up nicely, the swelling is almost gone and the little bits of feeling are coming back in my face every day.

If we can go another two weeks without serving Split Pea with Ham, I think I’ll be A-Okay!

What Happened To You?

This is the question I’ve been asked more than any other the past few weeks. It’s taken me this long to saddle up enough again to tell the tale. So, here we go.

I will begin this saga by explaining that I LOVE to jump. When I was a little girl, nothing made me happier than jumping on my bed. My mother was constantly yelling at me, “Are you jumping on that bed again? Stop jumping on the bed!”

When I was about six or seven years old, a momentous event occurred in my young life. It started out like any other spring day. Then, my mother pulled me aside. I was told to sit down. I was about to be given some very important instructions.

“Now honey, I’m going to go to the store.” This seemed like a normal occurrence, but I could tell by the careful tone of her voice that something was different.

“Now, I’m going to leave you here. You’ll be all by yourself. I’ll be back in half an hour.”

What? This was unthinkable! I loved going to the store. I particularly liked to make sure I got to pick out the breakfast cereal. As much as I loved my Mom, she had lousy taste in breakfast cereal. Grape Nuts? Hello! Not only did it taste like a bowl of rocks, there was no prize in the box!

“Now, Aunt Joyce and Uncle are right next door. So, if you need anything, you just give them a call and they’ll be right over.”

Wait a minute. She really WAS leaving me.

“Don’t open the door for any strangers. And if anyone calls and asks if you’re home alone, you just say that your Mommy is in the shower and can’t come to the phone.”

A moment later, she picked up her purse, walked out the front door, got into her red Pinto and drove away.

Wow.

It took a moment for it to sink in. I was alone. Completely alone. For the first time in my life. There was only one thing I could do: I ran to my bedroom and jumped on my bed.

I must’ve jumped on my bed for ten minutes. Laughing, giggling, half out of breath. Jumping, bouncing, up and down, up and down. Ridiculously silly bouncing. A jumping giggle box. Wheeeeeeee!!!!!!

It was the best moment of my life!

At some point, I stopped bouncing, crawled off the bed, settled myself down and got out my crayons. By the time my Mom walked in with the groceries, I was completely focused on a connect-the-dots page in my activity book.

To this day, I don’t think she knows that when she gave me my first test in maturity and independence---I jumped on the bed.

But this is what the approach of spring does to me. Every year around this time I find myself wanting to---well---Spring! Sometimes, I have so much bottled-up winter energy that I just have to go off to a quiet corner and jump up and down.

This year, I felt the jumpies coming on again. Luckily, in New York City, there are all sorts of amazing ways to get Spring Fever out of your system. There are trampoline classes down at Chelsea Piers, mini-trampoline pilates classes at a studio on 5th Avenue, and (if you really want to get in the air) you can take a trapeze class downtown just like Carrie in Sex in the City.

My friend Nicole seemed eager to do some jumping as well. I looked at everything online and sent her links to all the jumping classes in Manhattan.

The next day, on a day trip to the Ikea in New Jersey, I called my aunt. I was still all over the whole jumping thing.

“Oh, honey. Be careful. You can hurt yourself on those mini-trampolines.”

Blah blah blah. For godsakes, it’s pilates. The usual caution of the elders.

“You’re not too coordinated, honey. You’re all arms and legs.”

No matter how old you are, they still think of you as six years-old. I re-assured her that I was INDEED coordinated, and quickly looked around the New Jersey Transit Bus for some wood to knock on. Looking back, I remember that there was nothing but hard plastic and pleather. I hadn’t knocked.

A few days later, I was rushing to work. Our GM seems to be giving the fish eye to people when they walk in five minutes late. And I have that strong Mid-Western work ethic that always seems to bite me in the ass. As I walked thru the subway tunnel, I heard the train pulling into the station. I did what pretty much any New Yorker would have done---I ran.

I ran thru the tunnel as the train was pulling into the station. Swiped my card as I heard it pulling to a stop. Ran down the stairs as I heard the doors open. And when I heard the beep signaling that the door was about to close, I looked down at my feet. I was three steps away from the platform. In less time than it takes to write all of this----I quickly calculated that if I JUMPED down those three steps (instead of simply continuing my swift pitter-patter) I could beat the clock. And I was all about jumping. I would jump down those three steps and then make a flying leap onto the train. Very Jackie Chan.

Unfortunately, my feet didn’t catch up with this mental plan. And when I jumped down onto the cement platform, my feet buckled and I fell face first onto the train.

The front half of me landed on the floor of the subway car. The back half of me was lying on the hard cement.

And then, the doors closed.

Before I list my injuries---may I say---I made that train.

At least one half of me did.

Numerous urban myths tell the tale of the person caught in the doors who got dragged thru the subway---eventually being chopped in half as the train rushed forward into the tunnel.

I have to admit that these thoughts did occur to me as the doors locked somewhere around my upper torso.

Then, what happened next took place in about ten seconds---several beefy guys stepped up and pried open the doors. I remember hearing, “Are you okay? Are you okay?” I felt a lot of pain in all different places, but knew I had to get up on my feet. I quickly stood up. Then the doors shut. I saw huge drops of blood on the floor of the subway car. I felt my chin. Blood dripped thru my fingers.

“I have to get off,” I remember saying somewhat in a daze.

The doors mysteriously opened.

I stepped off the train and stood there alone on the platform pretty much in shock.

The train sped away.

I felt the warm blood trickle thru my fingers as I held onto my chin. A piece of my back molar fell onto my tongue and drifted around my mouth. And then, as I tried to keep the blood from pouring out of my chin and all over my clothes, I heard something horrible---the sound of my jaw going “Eee-ern, eee-ern, eee, ern”. This was not good.

What did I do then? I started walking home.

A good friend of mine says that this seems to be a phenomenon that often occurs after accidents. After a sudden trauma, people just want to get to a safe place. Of course, I knew I needed to get to an emergency room. But before I went to a strange, scary place---I just wanted a few moments of comfort at home.

By the time I walked in my front door, I was pretty sure I had done some pretty serious damage to myself. I was nervous, shaking and scared out of my mind. I dreaded looking in the mirror---but that’s the first place you go. Right?

My hands were shaking as I took off my coat, turned on the bathroom light and geared myself up to view the damage.

Well, I was definitely going to need stitches. My chin was split open pretty bad. Oddly enough, at this moment, I looked down at my blood-covered white shirt, and Hints From Heloise kicked in. This shirt was going to need to soak in some cold water. Why I was so worried about staining my nice white shirt is completely beyond me, but this seems to be the way the mind works in these situations. I took off my shirt, put the stopper on the bathroom sink and swished it thru the cold water and Woolite. However, while this may seem like a calm, homespun, cleaning moment---what was going on in my head was, “Shit, shit, shit.”

Because by this time, I was pretty sure I had broken my jaw. Not only was there a horrific sound (as well as pain) emanating from that corner of my face---when I would try to put pressure on my chin to stop the bleeding, I could literally FEEL my jaw shoving back into place. I can only describe the feeling as sickening.

However, once the shirt was soaking in cold water, it was time to deal with the situation at hand---I needed to call work and let them know I wasn’t going to make it in tonight.

It was Old Fish Eye who answered the phone. The call was nothing if not simplistic---I fell in the subway, split open my chin and think I broke my jaw and I’m off to the emergency room and I won’t be in for work tonight. I don’t even remember what he said. Frankly, I didn’t care. I needed to figure out where the nearest emergency room was.

Luckily, I have health insurance. Any emergency room in Manhattan would surely be happy to help me. I remembered that there was a huge hospital about twenty blocks away on 168th St. With my shirt soaking in cold water in the sink, I somehow figured I had taken care of all the details, looked in my wallet to make sure I had my insurance card, soaked a rag in cold water to take with me to help stop the bleeding and walked out the door.

I walked to the corner and stood there on Broadway holding my bleeding chin as I tried to hail a cab. I remember consciously trying to look well and fit---why? I don’t know. My deluded mind somehow thought that a cab driver might not stop for a bleeding, pathetic-looking woman. So I held my head up, gave a little (if slightly crooked) smile, made every effort to look full of energy, life and vitality, and blithely waved down a cab. Phew.

Within moments, I was at the Columbia-Presbyterian Emergency Room door. I walked into the emergency room, bleeding, broken, insurance card in hand and ready to tell my tale. Then I saw the line. Damn.

I think this is a good time to mention that I had done something wonky to my knee. Come on, I fell on cement!

I stood in that line for an hour---yes, a full hour. On a wonky knee. The only person who spoke to me was a nurse encased behind plexiglass. After about half an hour standing in the line, I peered into the plexiglass and asked if I was indeed in the proper line.

A nurse squinted at me thru the scratched two-inch, bullet-proof plastic, “Yes. This is the line.”

Then she did what can only be described as a double-take.

“Here, honey,” she said as she pulled a few paper towels out of a dispenser. “This is for your chin,” she added as she slid the paper towels under the metal bullet-proof barrier. I guess I was bleeding pretty bad.

I stood in the line for another half an hour. No one talked to me. No one even asked my name or what was wrong with me. I looked around the crowded emergency room. It was a madhouse of sick people. None of whom appeared to be getting any immediate care. Then, the person a few ahead of me in line was a middle-aged woman trying to get care for her older husband. Being a polite mid-westerner, I didn’t try to listen in; but being a person in severe pain, I was certainly interested in knowing how soon I would get some medical attention.

She said she’d been waiting for over two hours---she pushed her husband and his wheelchair up to the attending nurse and began the litany. It began with his heart problems.

AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!

Okay. Not that I don’t have compassion for this man’s heart problems. But when the nurse in charge of triage left her station and immediately began a thorough examination----well, let me just say, I realized a couple of things. First of all---this man should NOT have sat there for two hours trying to get treatment for a possible heart attack. Second---I should not have to stand there bleeding for an hour with a broken jaw before anyone even speaks to me. Third---I had to get the hell out of there.

A decision like this only comes when one is almost in tears. But I looked around that emergency room. It was packed to the brim. And when I heard an old woman walk up to the plexiglass and complain that she’d been waiting for FOUR HOURS!---well, I figured it this way: If this was the sort of treatment one got while waiting in the emergency room, I can’t imagine what the rest of the hospital was like.

I walked out.

Walked out of there crying.

Frankly, I didn’t know where else to go.

Damn me and my jumping! Damn that Fish Eye! This was terrible!

So where does one go an hour and a half after a horrible accident still bleeding and with broken bones?

I went home.

Yes. I walked over twenty blocks back home. Uphill. They don’t call it Washington HEIGHTS for nothing.

Well, what was I supposed to do?

As I walked home, I pulled out my cell phone---beyond the last-minute call to say I wouldn’t be able to make my shift---the first call I’d made since the accident.

I called my friend Timmy. Thru a series of odd misfortunes, Timmy had had the opportunity to visit just about every hospital in Manhattan and Queens in the past year. Surely HE would know where I could go.

Unfortunately, he was currently the picture of health and blissfully away from his cell phone. I left what was surely the most pathetic message in the history of the world.

I don’t remember much of what I said on his machine. A few days later, Timmy told me he felt HORRIBLE when he hadn’t chequed his messages for a few days and hadn’t returned my desperate cry for help. At the time, all it meant to me was that I was no closer to an emergency room than I had been almost two hours earlier.

I called my friend Nina. She lived in the Upper West Side. Maybe she knew where I could go. Another answering machine. Another pathetic message.

My knee was starting to buckle as I walked up Broadway. Then a few blocks away from my building, I saw a neighbourhood health clinic. Sure, this was the sort of place where women went to get their annual pap smear and brought their kids for immunizations---but it was health care. I dabbed at my still-bleeding chin to look presentable and walked in the door.

A moment later, I stepped up to the counter and explained to the nice lady, “Hi. I know you guys can’t help me here. But I fell in the subway and I think I broke my jaw. I just came from the Columbia-Presbyterian Emergency Room and I waited for over an hour and no one would even talk to me. I have health insurance. Where can I go?”

She looked at me with the most sympathetic face I’d seen in almost two hours.

“Okay, sweetie. I’m going to give you this card here, and I’m writing down the address of St. Luke’s. We’re affiliated with them and they’ll get you in right away. They’re right down on 114th St. You can take the train down there and it will let you off a few blocks away. Or you can take a cab. But they’ll take good care of you.”

I thanked her SO much and walked out. You’d think I would walk across the street to the 1 Train Station to St. Luke’s. Or at least hail a cab. But where did I go?

Home.

To this day, I don’t exactly know why. I had the address in hand. But I was only two blocks away from a safe, comfortable place.

I walked in the door. My cat Bessie (17 years-old and counting) was doing her usual activity of sleeping on my bed. She looked up and meowed at me as I walked in. The white shirt was still soaking in my sink. I swished it around a bit and then I did something that only my family and close friends will understand.

Okay, bear in mind that I had just spent an hour in an emergency room where no one paid any attention to me. I was about to go to another strange emergency room. And, despite the kind face of the lady at the neighbourhood health clinic, I had no guarantee of anyone even asking my name.

What did I do?

I made a cup of tea.

I can only explain this by saying that the pain was SO intense that all I could focus on was the fact that I could not sit in an emergency room for another hour without a cup of soothing, warm, safe and comfortable hot tea.

I usually keep a few empty Starbucks cups on hand for… Well, tea emergencies. With my jaw still shifting around inside my head, I boiled a cup of hot water, popped a Twinings English Breakfast tea bag into the mix and let it steep for a few moments while I Googled “St. Luke’s Hospital” to make sure I had the correct address.

Five minutes later, with the milk and sugar added, I grabbed my cup of tea and headed out to Broadway to hail another cab.

For some reason, everything seems better when you’re holding onto a cup of tea.

I made every effort to look fit and healthy for the cab driver and, within moments, a Yellow Cab pulled over to the side of the road and whisked me to St. Luke’s.

This was a different sort of Emergency Room. As soon as I walked in, a woman greeted me with a clipboard and asked my name and ailment.

Ten minutes later, I was called in to see the doctor.

“What happened to you?”

This was the first time anyone had asked me this obvious question in almost three hours.

I quickly explained my fall and began to detail the possible damage.

“Oh my god,” the nice female doctor said. “What time did this happen?”

“About three hours ago.”

She stopped writing and looked at me.

“What took you so long to get here?”

I started to explain my trip and long wait at Columbia-Presbyterian---a little too embarrassed to mention the time it took to make my cup of tea, which sat nearby on the floor next to my coat and warm wool hat.

“Well, that’s typical there. They’re great at gunshot wounds. If you ever get shot, it’s the place to go. But other than that…”

Good to know. I guess.

Moments later, I was whisked to an examining room where she got to work. As she asked more questions about my fall and the possible damage, she seemed particularly interested in my jaw. Not that I wanted anyone touching it at that point, but that’s what they always want to do. I submitted to the painful touching, only to hear her conclude, “I’m going to send you for some x-rays.”

She also asked about my last tetanus shot. Frankly, I don’t remember ever having one. So in came the guy with the syringe who warned me that it wouldn’t hurt that much, but would probably be sore the next day.

Honestly, the next day, I was in so much pain, that the tetanus shot was a pretty big nothing.

Then, she shot my chin up with Novocain, placed a paper towel with a hole cut out of it on my face, and began to stitch up my chin. The shots were painful, but at least bearable. I must’ve had about five shots before it was numb enough for her to begin.

As she stitched, I tried to think of happy things. My cup of tea sitting on the floor. My favourite vacation to Paris. The cute red seat cushions I’d recently purchased from Ikea.

But all I could think of was that my face was being stitched up. For godsakes, it’s your face!

As I laid there encased under the paper towel, I began to explain to the emergency room doctor that I’d never had any kind of an accident. Never had stitches. Never had surgery. Never had anything like this happen to me ever. Happy place. Happy place. Swedish meatballs and lingonberry jam at Ikea.

A few moments later, the paper towel was pulled off my face. I was stitched up and, for the first time in three hours, felt I was in good hands.

She asked me where else (besides my tooth, my chin and my jaw) I felt I’d been injured. I had a cut-up knee. That much I’d discovered while I was waiting for the tea to steep. I mentioned my knee as well as my elbows---which, by now, were all adding to my pain. But after three hours, my knee wasn’t swollen and my elbows just looked a little red. I was a little sore all over, but hey---I fell.

A few days later, I would discover that my elbows had turned horrible colours of black and blue; I had ripped a ligament in my knee and also cracked a few ribs. But, at the time, the pain in my face didn’t even allow the other pains to assert their viability.

Did I want x-rays of any of these other trouble spots? I had the chance and I said, “No. I think I’m okay.”

Oh well.

Then came the guy with the little cup. Could this experience be any more humiliating? I guess they have to make sure people aren’t high on crack before they send them off to surgery or the next round of tests. I didn’t think I had anything in me to get the job done, but it was at this moment that I was thankful I’d finished almost half of my tea. English Breakfast saves the day!

As soon as I handed my cup over to the technician, an x-ray guy pulled me aside and started positioning me for a series of photoshoots. I don’t think I’d been that posed and maneuvered for photos since an embarrassing family portrait at Sears years ago. Nevertheless, I persevered thru the x-rays, only to be told a few minutes later by my physician that she really didn’t even need to see the x-rays. It was a foregone conclusion. The x-rays only proved it. She pulled me aside and informed me in what can only be described as hushed tones that I had broken my jaw.

Despite my now four-hour ordeal, I can only describe the news as shock.

Honestly, I don’t know what I thought the outcome would be. Maybe that I’d simply dislocated it and a chiropractor or something would be on the way down to snap it back into place?

But upon hearing the news, I was suddenly in shock. She informed me that a specialist was on call and was on his way down and that I should just take a seat and wait.

“Okay,” I said numbly as I sat down on one of the four waiting chairs nearby. As I sat down, I was so much in shock that I turned to the guy next to me and quietly muttered, “I broke my jaw.” As if it were a question more than a statement of fact. I was just stunned. The guy looked at me and nodded in silence. But frankly, he didn’t seem too concerned. But why should he? He didn’t know me. He was just another guy who had something freaky happen to him that day that sent him to the emergency room. We were all a bunch of misfits. Broken people waiting. That would make a great name for a band, I thought. Broken People Waiting. I tried not to cry, but I just couldn’t help it. I started to sniffle.

And then, the specialist showed up.

At this point, may I say that two weeks later, my friend Nicole asked the question that every single New York gal wanted to know about my experience, “Did you get any cute doctors?”

Yes ladies, I did. As I was sitting there sniffling, scared and in pain---a REALLY cute doctor walked up and introduced himself.

Oh great.

First of all, let me explain that I have that pale, Eastern-European skin that, when I cry or even start to sniffle, does NOT make me look like Julia Roberts in a lovely dramatic moment. I simply turn red and blotchy. So there I am, red and blotchy, broken jaw, in such pain and fear that I haven’t even powdered my nose or re-applied my lipstick in almost five hours, and… The Big Finish: I now have about ten big black stitches in my chin that make me look like a fourteen year-old boy trying to grow his first goatee.

And I get Dr. McDreamy about my age and no ring on his finger. Great.

Honestly, I was too scared and in too much pain to even worry about anything other than what was about to happen to me. And what was about to happen?

My adorable doctor explained.

I broke my jaw. It was pretty serious. I had two options. They could try to re-set my jaw and I would be wired shut for six weeks or I could have surgery where they would go into my jaw and install a steel plate and a screw.

Frankly, none of these options sounded particularly appealing.

And no matter how cute the doctor, I had no idea what to do here. If ever there was a dilemma, this was it. Since neither option sounded very tempting, I simply started to sniffle again. Well, I realized was I doing more than sniffling when the tears started to fall down my stitched-up face. Getting even more red and blotchy.

“I don’t know what to do. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me.”

Dr. Handsome gave me a little re-assuring pat on my arm.

“Well, that’s good. It’s going to be okay,” he kept telling me as the tears embarrassingly flowed down my broken face.

He discussed my options a little more in-depth, but I still wasn’t coming any closer to a decision. Wow. I had to make a decision.

If you ever break your jaw---well, first of all, my sympathies. I learned later, via a Google search, that it’s the worst bone in your body that you can break. Second, the doctors will explain it to you thusly:

Wired shut means exactly that. You will be eating out of a straw for six weeks. You’ll be able to talk, but you’ll look and sound like pretty much like a beginning ventriloquist. The problem there being that sometimes after six weeks, the bone doesn’t set properly and you have to go back in and they have to re-break the jaw and start all over again. That’s what’s behind Door Number One.

Door Number Two? Well, they make an incision right underneath the jaw. Occasionally, they have to make an incision alongside the ear, as well. They place the steel plate and screw inside, stitch you up and you’re done. You’ll be able to talk and open your mouth right away. You’ll be on mushy foods for a few weeks and have to do a little bit of home-based physical therapy to get things all working again. You might lose some feeling and movement in your face for a few weeks, but that’s normal and will eventually heal. Unfortunately, there’s a nerve right there where they do the work, and there is the possibly of nerve damage. It’s slight. VERY slight. They monitor the nerve throughout the surgery, but there is a slight risk of permanent damage.

So, what do you want to do?

I had no idea. All I could do was to sit there sniffling. I looked at my now cold cup of tea sitting next to my coat on the floor. I was going to have to check into the hospital. I had no overnight supplies. Sure I’d gone back home twice. But I’m not very good at things like Emergency Preparedness. I wish I were the type of person who actually had that “Go Bag” the government agencies are always telling you to have ready-at-hand. But I’m not. I’m a slightly quirky artist/waitress who can’t even leave for work early enough to make the train. Well, half of me is. I remain extremely proud of the fact that one-half of me was on that damn train.

But the tea? What was I thinking?

At the very least, I could have thrown some contact lens solution, deodorant, shampoo and a pair of clean underpants into my bag. But apparently it was more important that I have a cup of tea!

And what about my kitty? Sure, I filled her dish with cat food and gave her nice, fresh water before I left for work that day. But why didn’t I think to throw down an extra dish of food? Why didn’t I throw a few extra pellets into the bowl for my betta fish? All I could think about was that cup of tea!

I asked the handsome doctor for a moment to make a phone call to help me make a decision. He smiled and said that would be no problem and patted me again saying that he would give me a moment alone. One more re-assuring pat and this would’ve been the best date I’d had in months. Well, except for the pesky broken jaw thing.

I got out my cell phone and called the one person who’d had more slips and falls than any other person I know. She was also possibly the one person I knew who would always be there for me and always at home this time of day---my Aunt Joyce.

I turned on my phone and immediately realized one other horrible thing---I was almost out of battery power. Damn that cup of tea! You’d at least think that while the water was brewing I would have thought to grab my charger. Luckily, a couple of bars began to pop up.

I tried to sound as calm as possible when she picked up the phone. I started by apologizing for waking her up. Despite my pain and the obvious emergency, the Catholic Guilt thing always steps in. Then I quickly told her what happened. Re-assured her that I was being well taken care of and I now had a decision to make. She sounded half-asleep as she rendered her decision.

“Well, honey---you just listen to your doctors and do what they tell you to do.”

I guess it was going to be up to me. And the bottom line is, as much as I love to write---damn, I love to talk. I just couldn’t see myself barely able to open my mouth to speak for six whole weeks. Not only that, but I certainly couldn’t work during that time. Not as a waitress. Sure, most of the time you’re just walking back and forth. But at some point, someone’s going to ask you the soup of the day. And if it healed wrong? Well, I’d have to go in for the surgery anyway.

I made my choice. She told me that she would give my Mom a call at work and let her know what had happened, told me she loved me, and said to listen to my doctors and she’d call me in the morning.

A few moments later, I informed my good-looking doctor of my decision. I would do the surgery. However, despite my pain and fear, I kept thinking of the little things. How much food was in the cat food dish? Where was I going to put my contact lenses? And, while I was currently wearing a clean pair of underpants---what would I wear tomorrow? Without bringing up my underpants (after all, despite the re-assuring pats, we weren’t quite on a first name basis, yet) I asked my cute doctor if there was any way I could go home and come back. I’d only be about an hour.

“What do you need?”

It was all so stupid. I muttered something about my cat. My cell phone. I even got up the courage to let Dr. Perfect-Perfect know that I wore contact lenses. He re-assured me that I would be taken care of and that there would be a phone in my room. And surely I could call a friend about my cat. He certainly couldn’t recommend that I leave. And stressed that if I left, it would be against doctor’s orders. I have to admit, he looked extra cute when he was scolding. Well, doctor’s orders. The cat was just going to have to fend for herself.

The handsome doctor took me by the arm and led me to a chair. Under any other circumstances, this sentence would sparkle with the anticipation of wonder and romance. Unfortunately, the chair was a wheelchair. AARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

The indignity of it all! There I sat. Broken. Confused. Scared of out of wits. And with tufts of black string growing out of my chin.

Then they told me to lie down on a gurney. My wonderful doctor gave my chart to the processing people, told me he’d be back to see me soon and gave me another little re-assuring pat.

“You’re going to be okay.”

He was really going to have to stop that.

A few minutes later, a nurse came by to get a blood sample and then came back to stick an IV thingy in my arm.

Could I have any more pieces of medical equipment jutting out of my body? This was certainly not attractive. And then my doctor came back.

“Now, I’ve scheduled you for surgery tomorrow,” he began to explain. The most important thing was that I get a lot of rest.

“I really want you to get some sleep tonight,” he wagged a finger at me. So cute!

“And you can’t have anything to eat or drink after midnight. So you’ve only got one hour left till then. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said softly. This shouldn’t be a problem. After all, how much could I eat with a broken jaw?

As he gave me another one of those pats, I suddenly realized something awful. I turned to him and said, “I’m sorry. But is there any way I could get a cup of tea?”

Stay tuned for Part Two!

The Rats, Pt. 3

If you are reading this and you work in a restaurant and you ever get rats in your restaurant---I will warn you now, you will NEVER get rid of them. They hunker down tighter than a rent control tenant.

A few weeks ago, a certain Broadway personality was dining in our restaurant when a rat literally dropped from the ceiling in the kitchen, jumped down onto the fire extinguisher, fell to the floor and raced out into the dining room. As the cooks and bus boys chased it thru the bar and into the dining area like a scene out of Ratatouille, this particular Broadway actress looked to our Assistant Manager.

“What’s going on? Is it a mouse?” she asked him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said with a straight face.

She paused and then asked, “It’s a RAT?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he insisted.

“Well,” she shrugged like a true New Yorker, “the chicken was good.”

This particular rat got away. Sure, we’d hear about the occasional late-night or early morning sighting. But the General Manager seemed to be content to believe that the rats were gone. In fact, he really seemed to be sick of hearing about the rats.

You see, about eight months ago, he was given a promotion and sent over to our store to be the new General Manager. He was anxious to get started working on all his great corporate motivational ideas---like the sign he put up detailing the particular qualities that make for a great employee. The numbered list included revolutionary ideas like Knowledge of Your Job, Timeliness, Cleanliness---and was photocopied with the name of his previous restaurant simply crossed out and the name of our restaurant written in with a Sharpie. Guys like that want to start firing. They want to start their reign with a clean house. But nothing ruins the potential for a clean house more than rats. Before he could get rid of any of us, he would have to get rid of the rats.

Eight months later, he hadn’t been able to fire anyone. But boy was he itching to do some write-ups. Anything. Unfortunately, the rats kept coming back. After stacks and stacks of sheet metal were drilled into the walls, holes boarded up, nests cleaned out and things seemingly back to normal---he probably felt good. Felt confident that he could finally begin his reign of terror.

And then, just as he was starting to put up notices that had the air of the Nazi “Verboten!” signs…

A lady walked into the restaurant. I just happened to be standing near the front.

“Hi. Are you here for dinner or drinks?” I asked.

“I’m the Health Inspector,” she said as she flashed her badge. Apparently, I was told that they have to flash their badge. I think it’s a bit of overkill for someone who walks around with a thermometer as a weapon, but that’s just me.

Nevertheless, I quickly walked into the kitchen to get our GM.

“I’ve got bad news. The Health Inspector’s here.”

No words will send a restaurant into a tailspin faster than, “The Health Inspector’s here.”

Within seconds, counters were wiped down, sani-gloves were donned, hats were put on, raw meat put away---because the one good thing about a health inspection is that they give you a few minutes to prepare. As for myself, I quickly threw tongs into the bar tray, got rid of dirty dishes, wiped down the counters and immediately grabbed a red plastic bucket (known as a sani-bucket) and filled it with warm water and bleach. Every restaurant is supposed to have a sani-bucket out at all times. I’ve never worked in one that did. But the health inspectors demand to see one out---even if it’s never used.

An hour later, we got the word that we failed our Health Inspection. Failed Big Time. Nothing on the server side---thanks to my quick thinking. Give this girl a raise.

We were fined for a whole load of things the GM should have taken care of had he not been busy making signs telling us not to switch our shifts without permission and putting odd-shaped pieces of plexi-glass all over the place. Frankly, none of us understand the plexi-glass, but it seems to be an obsession with him.

The next day, he was royally chewed out by the higher-ups. His response---take it out on the staff. Little by little he began enforcing long-out-of-date rules and regulations that every GM before him had realized are both unreasonable and/or unworkable.

And then, the rats came back. And we’re due for a follow-up Health Inspection any day now.

Last week they were running between the kitchen and the bar playing some sort of rat game. And it was definitely more than one.

“One of them doesn’t have a tail,” a friend of mine explained. “He looks like a potato. We call him Potato.”

But it was Potato’s tail-enhanced friend who was running back and forth last Thursday night.

“You do realize,” I said to the Assistant Manager, “that he is running thru the kitchen at the exact same time the Health Inspector came in.”

He knew. We all knew. And we all knew that he would most likely try to run out into the dining room. Especially when we saw a group of ladies come in after the theatre. One elderly lady was in a wheelchair. The Assistant Manager and I just looked at each other and had the exact same thought. It’s like in those Laurel and Hardy movies when you see the guy with the gouty foot---you just know something is going to fall on his gouty foot.

And our keen eye for the inevitable just knew that the rat was going to run out right in front of this old woman and give her a heart attack. We did the only thing we could do---we positioned a dishwasher with a broom to stand at the kitchen entrance. A sentry, if you will. It was all we could do.

Luckily, the rat stayed in his hole that night. The Assistant Manager called the extermination company after close and begged them to come down.

“So, if a rat runs across the Health Inspector’s foot,” I asked him, “how many points is that?”

“I think we’re shut down.”

Honestly, it seems it’s all up to the Health Inspector. If they see rodent droppings, they certainly give you points. But if they see the real thing live and in-person? Well, it could mean curtains.

The GM, meanwhile, seems to think we’re all against him and are HOPING the place gets shut down. Where he gets this paranoid delusion, is anybody’s guess. After all, it’s not like getting a Snow Day. If we get shut down, we are all temporarily unemployed. But, as much as he likes to think he’s progressive, he’s certainly an old-school manager---the sort who thinks the employees are out to ruin everything and don’t care at all about the restaurant. Frankly, it’s not that we want to care. I certainly have other things I’d rather be investing my energy in other than a waitress job. But unfortunately, we have to care. And, as far as restaurants go, there are way worse places you could work. I know. I’ve worked in them.

The latest news on the rats came the other day. A bit of sad news.

“We got Potato. Early this morning.”

I was sad. But it’s them or us.

Meanwhile, we’re all starting to place bets on how long our GM will be around. I give it another two months, tops. After all, he’s the tenth GM we’ve had since I’ve been there. They never seem to last long. Only the rats remain.

Christmas Trees

Nothing depresses me more than the Curbside Christmas Trees. Every year, the week after New Years is like walking thru a Civil War battlefield. Dead trees litter the curbs as far as the eye can see. As if the holidays weren’t depressing enough…

I have a hard time with the Christmas tree thing to begin with. Don’t get me wrong---I love Christmas trees. Fresh, beautiful Christmas trees, bursting with pine scent, sparkling with lights and tinsel, and sprinkled with colorful ornaments full of memories and joy. They’re so wonderful---in other people’s homes.

In mine, not so much so.

The problem is me. I’m one of those Charlie Brown Christmas Tree People. I will invariably find the worst looking tree on the lot and drag it home. If there’s a tree that’s thin, scrawny and half dried out---that’s the tree that seems to speak to me.


Now, I’m perfectly aware that trees don’t have feelings and emo- tions. But, in my over-sensitive holiday frame of mind, I will give these trees more emotions than a character in a Made-For-Oxygen-TV-Movie.

To be honest, it’s embarrassing. I am a reasonable, commonsense person in every other aspect of my life. But put me on a Christmas tree lot, and I become a blithering idiot.

First of all, I have to go alone. Not only do few people understand my Christmas tree issues, but other people tend to discuss and evaluate the trees.

“This one looks scrawny. This one is ugly. This one doesn’t smell as nice as the other one.”

This will not be tolerated. Because in my deluded mind, the trees can hear this and will feel bad about themselves. After all, their only goal in life is to get picked and have the opportunity to spend Christmas in someone’s lovely home.

Second, as I will undoubtedly pick the worst tree on the lot, I don’t want anyone around who will laugh or make fun of the tree. There is no talking about the tree in front of the tree. All Christmas trees are beautiful. Even the tree I picked up a few years back. I spotted the poor little guy in the corner, half-hidden under some old pine roping and castaway bottom branches.

“How much for that tree over there?”

“Where? Over there? Oh, that’s not a tree. That’s just a bunch of old branches.”

“No. There’s a tree under there.”

Sure enough, there was. He dug it out and I took it home, decorated it and gave it The Best Christmas Ever.

And then, after New Years, the time came to take it out to the curb.

Now, I will admit something rather embarrassing---I have never been able to take a tree out to the trash without shedding a little tear.

Taking the ornaments off makes me sad. When the lights come off, I feel like I’m pulling the shoes off a corpse. And when the tinsel comes off---well, I might as well be pulling the gold fillings out of a dead man’s teeth.

And then come the goodbyes.

It’s humiliating. I once took a tree down with a friend and stood there talking to the tree like an idiot. Talking to plants is one thing---talking to a dried-up old pine tree… Well, it was possibly the least intelligent conversation of my life. Telling it what nice Christmas we had together. And thank you so much, little tree, for coming into my home. Now is the end of our journey together. You’re going off to a better place…. Sniff. Sniff.

Could anything be more pathetic?

Or borderline insane?

I don’t know what comes over me. I think it’s all the books I read as a kid---The Velveteen Rabbit and that sort of thing. And those goddamned Disney films that tugged at your heartstrings. And that tiny part of me that once believed that stuffed animals had human emotions boils up to the surface every Christmas.

It’s a real problem; because I really like Christmas trees.

I don’t care for artificial trees. And, living in a Manhattan apartment, there’s no place to store one anyway. I would definitely consider getting a living tree---but anything big enough to really hang some ornaments on would be too big to keep in the apartment year-round. The ideal situation would be to have a balcony and just drag the tree inside once a year. But so far the closest thing I’ve come to a balcony is my metal fire escape. And the FDNY tends to frown upon blocking the fire escape with a pine tree.


One year I had a great solution. I decided to build a wooden tree frame. Stay with me here…I built the frame out of plywood in the shape of a tree trunk with branches. Then, I painted it red and green. And then, I purchased pine roping and branches and tied them with string to the tree. It had all the wonderful pine scent of a real tree, without the emotional baggage. Brilliant!

The problem was, my woodworking skills were pretty non-existent. And the tree was prone to falling apart and collapsing. It was a real mess with all the lights and tinsel---not to mention a fire hazard. And with no water to sustain the life of the branches, they quickly dried up and left pine needles all over my rug.

Not only that, but in order to purchase the branches and pine roping, one has to visit a Christmas tree lot. Kind of defeats the purpose. And, of course, while there, I spotted a sad-looking tree that no one would ever take home---this time, not even me, as I had already built the frame. Poor little tree.

Since I’ve come out about my Christmas tree problem, I find that there are more and more people like myself. I’ve discovered that I’m not the only Charlie Brown Christmas Tree-Buyer in the world. And, like any other support group, once we start opening up, we all feel better about it.

Today I Googled “anthropomorphism”---the delegation of human feelings to animals, plants and non-living objects. Apparently, there have been studies done on just this subject. Some genius scientist was able to get a grant to study idiots like me who give human emotions to Christmas trees.

The result? Well, basically they discovered that people like me have empathy for other beings. We recog- nize that other living creatures might feel pain. And, according to this study, that’s a good thing. We're compassionate people.

Of course, the study was pretty broad. It covered animals, plants, rocks---pretty much anything. Just sort of lumped it all together.

But do I feel the same way about cut flowers? Or broccoli? No. But, for some reason, the Christmas tree gets me every time.

Although, I will admit that at the wrong time of the month, I could probably ascribe human emotions to a pot holder.

However, this week is definitely the worst of all. I’m forced to see the piles of the dead lying at the side of the curb. Unloved. Used-up. And dropped on the side of the road. At least an abandoned animal has a chance. It can fend for itself for a bit and hopefully find someone nice who will take it in. Who’s going to take in a dried up old tree?

No one but the mulch guys.

They come by once every few days to pick up the dead and toss them into the back of a truck---like those medieval guys with the wooden carts picking up bodies after The Plague.

So today, I went out with my camera and walked around Manhattan taking pictures of old trees. This has become my project for the next few days. I’m like Matthew Brady---only my battlefields are the curbs of Manhattan and my daguerreotypes are digital.

In this way, I’m able to distance myself from the dead. Like a reporter in a war zone. Today one of my fellow Charlie Brown Christmas Tree friends marveled at my ability to get out there and document the situation on the ground.

“Do you ever get used to it?” he asked.

I took a reporter’s thoughtful pause, felt a lump in the back of my throat and softly replied, “No. You never do.”