Kingdom of the Sick 4

KINGDOM OF THE SICK 4

Ten years ago my friend Mark had surgery for testicular cancer. He was 25 at the time and was working as a dancer at the Limelight. He danced as usual the night before his operation, then, afterward, picked someone up. Later, at six in the morning, he walked to St. Vincent's Hospital.

"I hadn't slept at all," he told me, "and it felt like I was in a long tunnel, with the fluorescent lights and white walls and everything. When they put me under, I thought I was dreaming."

My own surgery was just as dramatic. One symptom of my illness was a gross enlargement of my spleenmore than four times its normal size. My red-blood-cell count was extremely low and did not improve significantly after two weeks of treatment. My doctor decided that removing my spleen might help the count. Because of my condition, the procedure was risky, but it went well.

Things got interesting when I was moved to intensive care. I was up much of the night sweating, and at four my nurse came in to change my sheets. He was a gay, foreign man who talked to me as he worked.

"I have a lover," he said, "but I am leaving him for someone who is much better-looking." When I expressed surprise, he laughed, then told me that he had an apartment in Chelsea that cost only $1000 a month. I had no idea how to answer. Taking a cue from his light tone, I remarked that I had a rent-controlled apartment in the East Village for about half that.

"That is very cheap," he said. "There must be many people outside who are waiting for you to die."

He asked how I felt upon learning that I have leukemia. I told him I was shocked at first, but that I was trying to accept my condition and deal with it as best I could.

"I see," he said. "Then you are still in denial."

The next morning he took me from my bed to a chair a few feet away, washed and shaved me. When he was finished, he left me alone for nearly two hours. I was still damp and began shaking uncontrollably. I rang the buzzer repeatedly, and after nearly a dozen attempts, an attendant came to say that my nurse would be with me shortly. Forty-five minutes later, he finally arrived and discovered that my blood pressure had dropped alarmingly.

The attending physician came with what I think was a shot of Demerol. My shaking soon stopped, and my blood pressure returned to normal. This was one of the most unsettling incidents of my hospital stay.