Nassau University Medical Center - What an Experience!

Tuesday afternoon, my sister-in-law waited patiently for the phone call informing her of the time of her surgery on Wednesday.   The call came through about 4:30PM and before the information could be shared, the call was disconnected.  We should have realized then and there that this was an omen of the disheveled experience that awaited us.   She called back and after getting several busy signals, she was finally able to get through to a live person only to be told she didn’t need to be at the Ambulatory Surgical Unit until 12N. 

Nothing to eat or drink after 12midnight and therefore absolutely no coffee in the morning!   Not what she wanted to hear.    We rented a movie on TV in an effort to stay awake as late as possible in order to sleep as late as possible in order to make the morning seem a bit shorter and less painful.    We rent a movie entitled something like Finding a Friend for the End of the World.  I thought it was a comedy and I remembered hearing somewhere along the line that it was pretty good.  Well I was wrong, very wrong.  This was an incredibly bad choice for the “night before surgery”.    At the end of the movie, this guy and girl who have finally found each other are laying in bed together speaking of their true love when the dreaded massive meteor smashes into earth and disintegrates them.   We’re left with this lovely sentiment as we try to fall off to sleep.

Eventually morning arrives and I go out to fill up the car with gas and get a bagel and coffee so Ellen doesn’t have to smell the coffee or see me eat.   I don’t want to be fasting – I’m prone to low blood sugar symptoms which would be of no help to Ellen.    I want to be in tip top shape as I know it might be a long day.    I had no idea!

We wait for the clock to reach 11:25 and then leave for this major Medical Center that is basically only a few blocks away.   I park in the lot next to the hospital for convenience’s sake and figure they’ll stamp my parking stub in the Ambulatory Surgery Unit.   It only makes sense that they would provide free parking for surgical patients.   Well, once again I was wrong.  It costs $3 for the first hour and $2 for the next hour.   No, I’m told, they don’t stamp your ticket – the hospital has nothing to do with the parking lot – and they do not have any parking lots that they operate.     

We locate the Ambulatory Surgical Unit on the second floor, A Building.   We see a rather messy, little room crowded with desks thrown in a disorganized fashion around the tiny space.   Standing and sitting amidst the desks are several individuals dressed in blue scrub suits.  One tall, thin woman sitting at a computer at one of the desks gives one last suck and then pulls the tootsie roll pop out of her mouth as she turns around to look over her shoulder to see who standing in the doorway.    I think to myself this can’t be the office for a Major Medical Center’s Ambulatory Surgery Unit.   We must be at the wrong place - it honestly looks like some sort of storage room in a factory.   Finally another lady in a blue suit who is wearing a laminated card that identifies her as an RN acknowledges us and tells us that her name is Madeline.   She asks us why we are there and when we tell her that Ellen is having surgery and was told to be here at 12noon she tells Ellen to take the seat next to her desk and starts asking her some basic questions.  When she realizes that I am still standing there she says that I can take a seat out in the hallway.  I say I’d rather stay with Ellen and she asks Ellen if that is OK and after Ellen says yes, I’m allowed to stand by her side.   An underling in a blue suit comes along with the rolling Blood Pressure machine and thermometer and after the vital signs are documented and the basic data is collected Ellen is taken in the back to have blood drawn and to put on the hospital gown.   In a matter of minutes, by about 12:15 PM, Ellen is back out in the hallway with me and the waiting game begins.   Oh I forgot to mention, Madeline, the RN, had bad news and good news.  First, she informed us that Ellen’s surgery wasn’t scheduled until 2PM and that it “routine procedure” to have patients arrive 2 hours ahead of time –meaning we had close to a two hour wait.   Then  Ms. Madeline, RN,  gives us the good news that probably Ellen won’t have to wait until 2PM to go into the OR  since the patient scheduled for the time spot before Ellen was taken into surgery earlier than anticipated.   Apparently this patient’s surgical procedure was expected to be lengthy and for that reason was brought into surgery early.   

Just around that time, we are pleasantly surprised to see Ellen’s sister and brother-in-law walking towards us.   They had decided to make the 3 hour trip from upstate New York to see Ellen before she went into surgery and to be there with us.    We sit and wait until 1PM and then I decide to move the car from the costly non-hospital-affiliated parking lot to look for a free spot somewhere in the vicinity surrounding the Medical Center.   I know that Ellen is in good hands with her sister and brother-in-law at her side and I kiss Ellen and tell her I hope she will have been called into surgery by the time I get back upstairs.     I go to the car but decide that I will leave well enough alone since the maximum fee for parking all day is $8 and I already owe $5.

When I get back from my excursion to the parking lot and off the elevators on the second floor, Ellen’s sister greets me with this news, i.e., five minutes after I left, Ellen was called to a place known as the Holding Room.    We are all relieved that that the anxiety of this waiting time is over.  Finally, Ellen can get this surgery over and done with.       Oh my where we ever wrong this time!  ...to be continued

October 19, 1940 - The simple facts

Seventy-two years ago today, on Saturday morning, October 19, 1940 at ten o’clock in the morning Rita Mary (Agnes) O’Donnell married Charles Anthony Fries at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church, Putnam Avenue near Ralph Avenue in Brooklyn, NY.

The Reception followed the ceremony and was held from Noon to 5:30PM in the Solarium at the Hotel Granada (phone # Sterling 3-2000) on Ashland Place and Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn, NY.   Victor Molho was the Maitre D’hôtel at the time.

I have enclosed a copy of the menu choices but I do not know what the final choice was although I think it might have been the Chicken a la King on Toast ($1.25 per entree) or the Roast Vermont Turkey ($1.75 per person).   I wonder if my Dad happens to remember.  There are not too many people around today who would remember what was served that day.

I have also attached a copy of the seating map that was used in the Solarium that day. 

My mother was excited that there was a little bit of snow that particular Oct. 19^th. She saw this as a sign of good things to come.  

My mother also wrote out her questions for the caterer on the back of a Hotel Granada envelope.

At the time of her marriage my mother lived at her family apartment at 1017 Putnam Avenue, Brooklyn, NY.  Her phone # was JE 3-5929. 

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad

Why in God's name do I stay in this Church?

This photo is a picture of one of the Good Guys!

A friend who follows my Blog expressed concern regarding my current relationship with the Roman Catholic Church.  It has helped me to examine more closely my current feelings regarding my church.  I guess the fact that I still refer to the RC church as “my” church is the first clue to my feelings.  I was born into this church and was baptized at St. Michael the Archangel on Jerome Street in Brooklyn, NY over 65 years ago and I hope to die as a member of this church.   My connections to the Catholic Church are deep and complex and, like anything this cavernous are not easily understood or explained.    

As I have expressed in some previous blogs, I had a number of significantly negative experiences when I was switched from PS 76 to St. Michael’s Elementary School in the 5^th grade.      I was a bright and inquisitive little girl and I remember my first 5 years in public school as happy and relaxed.   When I started in Sister Christiana’s 5^th grade class at St. Michael’s, this all changed dramatically.   The treatment I received that year was destructive and downright disrespectful and damaging.    By the time I graduated from 8^th grade I had suffered some rather harmful experiences which left profound emotional scars that never completely healed.  I am still trying to heal the broken child within me.      Catholic High School wasn’t the best choice for me either.     I have always needed to seek and find the truth but this inquisitive searching was limited and not truly accepted in an all girl’s Catholic Academy in the late 50’s – early 60’s.   

This brings me to one aspect of my mixed feelings about the Catholic Church.     I am still a seeker after truth and this type of open seeking of truth is still frowned upon by the Vatican and the Church Hierarchy.    For example, recently, the Leadership Conference of Woman Religious (LCWR with a membership 57,000 women religious) were reprimanded by the Pope and the Conference of Christian Document (previously these were the guys who ran the Inquisition) for expressing their truth as they have prayerfully come to discern it.     I believe this Vatican reprimand is wrong.   “Blind obedience” when our God-given brain is telling us otherwise is a slap in the face of God.   This makes me very angry with my church.   But the Pope and the Hierarchy in Rome are not the church.  We are the Church.   So I stay.

I am also furious about how the sexual abuse of minors by ordained Catholic priests has been handled by the hierarchy both in Rome and in the US.   Sexual abuse of a minor is a major criminal offense and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law even if- and especially if - the criminal offender is wearing a Roman Collar.   For the life of me I cannot understand why a priest is not persecuted and punished for something that the average Joe on the Street would have the book thrown at him.    No one has ever been able to answer this question for me.   I can’t understand it and I don’t accept it.   Nonetheless, I have known and still know some very saintly men who have dedicated their lives to the service of Christ.     I respect these men not because they wear a Roman collar because they are truly filled with the Spirit of God.    I witness their example and appreciate their willingness to lead lives of sanctity in spite of all the turmoil going on around them in the church today.

There are many wonderful, good people in our church.   Churches, families and people- even church-going people- are certainly far from perfect.   But I believe that a lot of the human beings I meet at my church are trying to do God’s will; they seem to want to do their best to love God and love their neighbor.   So for the most part, I get support and encouragement from them on my own life journey.  What more can I expect?

But mostly I stay in “my” church because I believe that Christ, Himself, is present in the Eucharist and I need this nourishment in order to survive. But then again, Christ, is present universally and as my Baltimore Catechism stated and I memorized verbatim, " God is Everywhere".

Simply Do The Next Loving Thing

I went to Scripture Study last night in my church hall.  I am certainly not a Holy Roller and my level of knowledge regarding scripture is rock bottom.  But I go to this scripture group because this is my current connection to my church.  I go because the other people in the group are loving and supportive and they seem to be in the same boat as me.  They, too, do not present as Holy Rollers and scripture scholars (although probably more knowledgeable than me).  We all seem to be searching for truth and love and it is nice to be doing it together.  In this group, I never feel judged or disrespected and I am hopeful that I am accepting and non-judgmental as well.     

I arrived early and when I expressed to one of the other participants that my faith was at an all time low and my disagreement with Vatican teaching/dogmas were at an all time high, he shared his own feelings about such things with me.  What he said was comforting and reassuring.    Dogma is not what is important.   Even, all-too-human failings-in the hierarchy is not what is important.   Oh, please don’t get me wrong, we still need to be prophetic voices and work with the Spirit to renew the face of the earth by uncovering and confronting evil, greed and corruption.  Nonetheless, the Spirit of God, which is the Spirit of Love, is still present in each of us and we can continue to share this Spirit as best we can in our everyday life regardless of all the current and past problems and concerns that exist in our church structure and bureaucracy.    So instead of being completed discouraged, I came away from our scripture group with a “Ray” of hope.    I have a renewed commitment to remember (over and over again) the advice I was given years ago (and then again last night) which is:

“to simply do the next loving thing”.

 I must remind myself of this little, but powerful fact.  If I do this I will fill up with the Spirit of God, which is now and forever the Spirit of Love.   And, I expend my energy on loving rather than on all the negative things going on around me.