About

They say that the truest test to one’s character is how he or she reacts in the face of adversity. Adversity is no easy thing and all of us get tested in life, many times over. We all face different challenges, defining our humanity at each and every step. I believe the best way to get to know me is by understanding my most dire test and how I survived to battle back from the brink and thrive against all odds.

June 25, 2020……I had been bedridden at home, for months, unable to see a doctor or go to a hospital because strict Covid rules kept us all housebound. The laws did not allow me to see a doctor even as I lay dying while whole body filled with bile. I was jaundiced from head-to-toe as my legs and arms swelled and my skin broke and oozed. I urinated blood and had it in my stool as well. I couldn’t even get out of bed or walk to the bathroom, without assistance.

June 26, 2020, my wife called an ambulance. Two female EMTs dutifully arrived and attempted to help but I weighed over 300 pounds. Try as they might, my weight proved too much and I couldn’t carry enough of my own bodyweight. Five firemen arrived to get me out of bed and pull me onto the stretcher, off to the ambulance and on my way to the hospital. I was finally going to get the help I needed. Being near death is what it took for medical providers to break general protocol.

My wife held my hand as we raced through the streets. On he way, a poor bicyclist got hit by a car and suffered an injury. My ambulance stopped to help. My wife tried to keep me in good spirits as we waited and I was glad the EMTs could save someone else’s life but, “hey, I’m dying here.” The voice of the ego. I very much wanted the same chance to live as the bicyclist who’d just been saved.

I remember getting admitted to the hospital on Staten Island and that’s pretty much it. My next clear recollection was opening my eyes briefly to discover I’d been sent to New York Presbyterian Columbia University in upper Manhattan. Wires and tubes spidered around me hooked to machines and IV stands. A week had passed as I laid in a coma. I fell back out of consciousness.

A couple of days later I opened my blurry eyes as a doctor stood over me. I believe he tried to explain that my mental awareness was at only 10%, but it was hard to tell because my mental awareness was only at 10%. He explained that I needed a new liver or I would be dead within a week – pretty harsh words to hear when you slip out of a coma. Yet, I didn’t have much strength to care or process the odds against finding one. One week, little did I know that the process usually takes months, or longer. Livers require a perfect match from someone who recently passed away and was on a donor list. It’s not like you can just go out to “Livers R Us” or pick one up online.

All my years of hard drinking now came home to roost. I’d abused my body for decades and it was now fighting back. G-d, I had so many regrets in this moment and swore on everything holy to turn my life around should the good Lord give me another shot. The odds were against me, I mean really against me. In order to get a successful transplant a liver transplant you need a Meld Score near 40 – to have a perfect match. Time was not on my side.

In the meanwhile, doctors punched holes on each side of my stomach with tubes draining the toxins from my body. I had so much yellow coming out of the tubes it would fill up buckets and they had to keep changing them throughout the day and night. I had a giant hose coming out of each side of my waist draining fluid and bile. I also lost all control of my bowels due to my condition and the medicines the doctors prescribed to keep me alive. They did that to keep pneumonia out of my liver, they said. If one thing wasn’t going to kill me, it seemed virtually certain that something else might.

Doctor Brand would come into my room daily and I’d anxiously ask, with fingers crossed, if I made the liver transplant list, only to be disappointed time and again. I would then pray seeking a miracle. To be perfectly honest. I was really out of it so I don’t remember a lot of things going on around me. Doctors had me detoxing in many different ways, fighting to keep me alive.

Then, on July 21st, my miracle occurred. Doctors came in and announced they had a perfect match. I wasn’t completely sure if I had been imagining thing, as I jumped in jubilation. Well, inside my head, at least, since I was still bed-ridden and totally incapacitated.

I struggled to reach the phone and call my wife who rushed over to spend the entire 3-1/2 hours of visiting time together. A last minute snafu kept me from getting the liver on July 22nd but by the grace of G-d, I survived a 14 hour transplant surgery on July 23rd. My low platelet count complicated things and things were touch and go during the procedure. I lost a lot of blood during the operation and the doctors had to perform numerous transfusions. However, they saved my life, one I know felt compelled to redeem.

I woke up in the ICU three days later thinking I was out of the woods, only to be told that my body began rejecting the liver. This roller coaster ride was hell, but I imagine even worse for my poor wife who suffered by my side as I mostly slept through the depressing news. Doctors placed me on a ventilator and administered immunosuppressants. I woke one week later, choking on fluid in my body and stomach as my body entered into an epic biological civil war. Doctors vacuumed my stomach, mouth and throat just so I could breathe, then placed me in a sterile, glass-enclosed room within the ICU.

Three days later both of my lungs collapsed, and doctors placed me back on the ventilator again. Upon awakening from the ventilator once again, I had no clue what day it was. Time had become meaningless. I solely focused on survival. Doctors came in to hit me with even more startling news. The liver I’d been given had been infected with COVID-19. Doctors then began COVID protocol, administering plasma, steroids and resmedivir.
Back to the ventilator yet again for several more days as I developed an intense fever. I recall vivid was hallucinations as death tapped me on the shoulder. Much like a dream-state, though, I’d be hard-pressed to give you many details. I just recall needing to fight. To fight my way back to my wife. She put an iPhone on my chest playing my favorite Frank Sinatra songs, while she softly talked in my ear guiding my soul back to my body to be by her side. I’d squeeze her hand, she later told me, during this intimate moments. Just she and me against the world.

I woke again, still in ICU, with my wrist strapped to the bedposts so that I wouldn’t remove the oxygen and feeding tubes keeping me alive. I remained there for about another month as nurses cleaned and bathed me twice daily, being careful not to pressure the 100+ stiches running down the center of my chest. Some nights, the pain was excruciating as they rolled me over. I had to fight with all my might not to scream or roll out of bed as the nurses tried their best. It took another three weeks before I could eat or drink solid food. We began with ice chips and I couldn’t eat more than a few at a time.
Small groups of medical interns would pass by and take notes, as I felt like some strange kind of extraterrestrial. They all had full body suits on from head-to toe including respirators and goggles. Only one could enter into my room at a time and had to wear a special suit just for the occasion. My wife, nonetheless, cared little about the risk and amazingly sat by my side throughout the entire ordeal – 3-1/2 hours, every single day.

I had my first sip of apple juice months after being rushed to the hospital. It tasted like Thanksgiving, Christmas and every other holiday all rolled into one. Then they got me off the respirator. She and I had a complicated relationship. Sure, she saved my life, but the tube running into my body was a constant source of sores and pain. Oddly enough, then came the hard work.

I took for granted that I’d be back to normal with ease. Not so fast. Body muscles atrophy much more quickly than you’d imagine. Physical therapists had to teach me how to talk again as they slowly gave me more juice each day. I had to rebuild my strength. I still couldn’t eat solid food, but the nutrients from the juice felt exhilarating. I still had a long road to hoe. If I had to relearn talksitesh patel caseing, imagine what walking was like. However, I treated it all as a great adventure. After all, I was lucky to be alive!

Resilience. I could have given up at any time. I know, had I not struggled to retain my life force that it would have ebbed from my body. I’ll never forget the day nurse Christian came into my room to let me know that I was finally making it back to the transplant floor. No more ICU for me. It was beautiful, with marble floors, comfortable rooms the friendly, care-taking nurses from heaven itself. I began to cry. As fate would have it, my room was just a few doors down from President Clinton’s dedicated hospital room where he has all his medical needs cared for.

I never thought I’d make it there. Is it a dream, a hallucination? No, it’s the first days of the rest of my life. I will never give up the fight, no matter the odds against me. I plan on fighting for redemption and a better life until my final breath. The Lion Within! It’s more than a motto, it’s a way of life.