Back. Back. I am back. I have returned myself after 4½ months. Not exactly a vacation, unless you figure a hospital room overlooking the Hudson is Travel + Leisure’s equivalent of tennis camp.
Like Chelsea Clinton‘s wedding plans, no details were released so outsiders made up stories. One reason for the secrecy? Even I didn’t know why I was there.
Last February I had a cold. After freezing in rainy cold LA for the Oscars, I flew home. Felt weak. I figured it’s sort of a flu. Didn’t eat for two months. Lost 10 pounds. My lawyer, Barry Slotnick, and my legal health-care provider, Judge Judy, said I looked terrible. Only both were more descriptive.
I felt nothing. No symptoms. No pain. Just no energy. My face was ashen. Healthy always and fearing medical practitioners, I had no primary-care physician. Barbara Walters sent hers over for a house call since friends threatened a medical intervention. He prescribed an ambulance to New York-Presbyterian. Instead, Reggie, my driver of 30 years, drove me there, and this doc met me curbside with a wheelchair, wheeled me through a private entrance — and that’s almost all I recall.
I became feverish. Nurses and my housekeeper, Nazalene, washed and changed me each minute. Three pints of blood were administered. I was wheeled through tests and machines. A team was summoned. Barring the token gentile Dr. Turner, I doubt there exists a non-Jewish M.D. I remember Feingold, Moskowitz . . . anyhow, more guys than at Johns Hopkins had their hands in me, up me. The hospital’s excellent. The team kept me alive. But they fingered areas I never knew I had. My private parts hadn’t had this much attention since my wedding night.
With my vital signs showing less life than the White House, they hustled me into emergency surgery. However, nobody knew exactly what the problem was. There was nothing malformed or misplaced. But I was out. Boy, was I out. Since she has a brother, husband, aunt, five children and grandkids, Judge Judy knew she had people to take care of her if need be. I however, she knew had nothing, nobody. With a document legalized years ago, she made all decisions. Everyone’s seen her on TV — orangutans in Africa’s bush watch the program — but seeing this face issuing directives around antiseptic surgical corridors was new. One medic asked, “Have you any papers?” My friend instantly dove into her alligator handbag and produced our signed documents.
These surgeons moved organs around inside me and discovered a ruptured appendix, which poisoned my whole system. Discovered serious anemia. Discovered heart valves needed TLC. Discovered more things they could adjust than Himself ever put inside my body. During forever in ICU, I discovered never will I be free of these practitioners. My 5-foot-4 became their new passport to longer Wednesday-afternoon golf.
I came home with day nurses, night nurses, a salad of meds surpassing whatever Lindsay Lohan might’ve once taken, plus a big, tall gismo feeding me six weeks of antibiotics. Plus more tests and doctor appointments. Plus a physical therapist because I could no longer walk. Trust me, I was not ready for prime time. Today, I now walk. Not run. Walk.
Hospital personnel told me the team “saved your life.” Also, “You were the sickest person here.” Also, “Any of your three prime conditions nearly did you in.” Seems another day and I’d have been interviewing Walter Cronkite.
I’m grateful for the crates of letters, cards, calls from the world including the mayor, archbishop, Council Speaker Quinn, inquiries from the Gov., wine, prayers, inquiries, orchids, Champagne, chocolates, hundreds of flower arrangements, cookies, soups, cakes, goodies from Judith Ripka, deli, homemade fudge, chickens, fish, pasta, hot dogs from Yankees president Randy Levine and the missus Mindy, dermatologist Fred Fenig‘s crate of Ensure, dinners and shopping bags from Elaine’s, Felidia’s, Shelly’s Trattoria, Patsy’s, Fresco, Villa Mosconi, Le Cirque, Dial a Dinner, Michelle’s Kitchen catering service, Montebello, Petaluma, Primola and Primola’s sister restaurant Canaletto, Sel et Poivre on Lexington and Hello Pasta, a place I didn’t know before. I was grateful. Trust me, Long Island Jewish’s hospital menu has to beat New York-Presbyterian’s . . .
My assistant, Molly, kept a daily list of everyone who checked in. So, with elevatormen lugging up hourly packages, can it be remotely possible that anyone I’d considered close did not phone, write, try to visit when I came home or send even a note?
And can it be that, despite my fragility, could I actually maybe even be remotely aware of those dear innocent souls who did not check in?
You bet your ass.