Dateline: New York

Karine writes:

At last, pictures! I’m sure readers have been wondering how Zora’s looking these days. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a digital camera on the trip and neither did Tamara, but I did just get some analog pictures developed. Today’s set of snaps try to capture some aspects of Zora’s new post-surgical reality.

For Zora, feeling comfortable is all about finding just the right reclining angle. It’s uncomfortable to lie down too flat, but she also has to try to appease her aching back. (It’s a little unclear what the various sources of all the back pain are, but at the very least her back is hurting from two weeks of tension and holding herself at fixed
angles.) Also, the little area between the main incision and the two lung-tube scars is particularly sore and tender.

Washing her hair is also murder on Zora’s back. She’s not allowed to raise her arms up too far, so she has to bend like Quasimodo to clean her hair. Ouch.

Life right now is governed by the clock. How long until the next round of pain-management pills? Zora knows it as soon as the Vicodin and Advil (for inflammation) are wearing off. She has to get up in the middle of the night to refuel.

But I only know these things from observing Zora. She doesn’t complain. And by looking at her, you really wouldn’t have any sense of what’s going on. She looks wonderful, just like her old self as you can see, and it’s only when she moves around gingerly that you remember she’s been shat on by the universe. All the pain and the achiness, the exhaustion and tension, and especially the blindness: these are interior phenomena, invisible to the observer.

It’s so hard to represent or convey pain.

A few other details didn’t really show up too well in these low res pictures, unfortunately. Zora’s also sporting a double-barrel PICC line these days, which she uses to inject herself with the antibiotics every morning. The long tubes dangle out of her right arm, long enough that she can use her right hand to do the injecting. Most of the time she keeps them covered up by a sock. Sadly, she had to sacrifice one her favorite stripy socks for this purpose, before a gross of blah mesh socks arrived from the medical supply place. And then there’s the antibiotic ointment she has to put in her blind eye. It’s a lot.

Back at work today, I was talking with one of my rabbi pals about my experiences this weekend, and said how much I wished I could have stayed out there longer. He nodded, and said, “When we give, we also get.” (Then he passed the scotch.) I got a lot from having the chance to watch Zora show her remarkable fortitude.

And finally, a dispatch from the Graceful Exit department here at Blog Plaza. My fault: We had no sooner driven away on Sunday when Zora called: “Say, do you guys actually know where you’re going?”

Apparently in the frenzy of packing I left our map with the directions back to SF on the top of the car. Smooth. Zora found it blowing around in the middle of the street when she went for a walk, complete with “DIRECTIONS TO JIM’S APARTMENT” written on it in my handwriting.

Not my fault: Then ten minutes later Zora called again to say she had also found inside the house Tamara’s notes with the vital directions to the apartment T. was staying in that night.

Not my fault also: Later that night, when we finally made it back to SF, I had a delicious dinner of meatloaf and mashed potatoes and fresh hummus with Hugh and Rachel and Jim R.

Then Rachel kindly volunteered to drive me to the airport so I could catch my flight back to NYC and en route SOME GIGANTIC ASSHOLE hit us with his pick-up truck. He was trying to cross several lanes of traffic to make it to an exit ramp, and he sideswiped Rachel’s poor lil’ VW Golf—and then sped away. It was only thanks to Rachel’s masterful driving that we didn’t hit a guard rail or other cars. So we pulled off at the next exit, inspected the damage (body work), and laughed a lot. I borrowed some money from Rachel to pay for a cab and left her to tentatively drive back home, hazards flashing.

Rachel wrote me later to say, “When I got home, Jim and Hugh made me a stiff martini, and then we all consoled ourselves by fondling the washer/dryer.” [ed note: Hugh and Rachel just bought that washer/dryer set, their very first, for their new home—it gives them great joy. Ed’s other note: I miss my old washer and dryer. Sniff.]

Wherever you are, Pick-Up Truck Dickwad, thanks a lot.


[In the comments below, Zora states: “For the record, those little red dots are not my nipples—those are the little holes where lung-drainage tubes were set up during surgery.” Thanks for clearing that up. Because after a few drinks, with the lights down low, well... it all get so confusing.]