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(Not my) President's Day

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I often work through holidays, but today I decided to go to Rise and Resist’s flip off Trump action first. I gathered with the other marshals at 12:30pm, pulling our neon vests over our winter gear. A request went out for people who felt comfortable blocking 5th Ave. so I volunteered and we went and hung around near the corner trying to look inconspicuous until the protest gained enough people. Then, with traffic stopped for the walk light, we stepped into the street and organized ourselves into a line, holding hands all the way across fifth ave. The closest bus was confused, and instead of turning, it got uncomfortably close to us before the police turned it east on 57th st. Behind us, the crowd was having a rowdy time, yelling Fuck Trump and dancing to the drums. There was a time when blocking a street would have brought threats of arrest pretty quickly, but the few officers who were there seemed content to direct traffic away from us. Eventually a large woman in a navy jacke...
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Day After Valentine's

H. is worried about my attempts to repair that pipe that froze and burst in my basement. "You're not allowed to die," she writes, "because if you die then I'd really be all alone and you and my mom are the only people in this world who understand me." I reassure her that's it's not dangerous, I am just trying to cap a 1/2 inch pipe that used to be connected to the basement sink. It's giving me some trouble because the edges are too rough for the rubber gasket to seal properly so I tried smoothing them with a wire brush, but the jagged part is too big for that, so tomorrow I am going to try a deburring tool. "You need to live forever," she says. I keep my response light, but in my head I"m doing the math. I'm ten years older than her and have more than my share of health issues, but she has serious heart disease. More than that, what's really bothering me about this is that I'm not always sure I want to be alive. At...
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Oral History

At this week's Rise and Resist meeting, a member proposed doing an oral history project with his youth arts organization. With multiple members lost in the past several years, the idea of preserving these stories in compelling. During the discussion, Naomi pointed out that the ACT UP oral history project had been used in court against activists. I had been listening quietly, but at that point I raised my hand. "I was one of the activists whose oral history interview was used by the prosecution," I said, and gave a brief summary of what was a much larger story. On March 16th, 2003, a 23 year old American activist named Rachel Corrie was in Rafah, in the Gaza strip. At that time, there were international observers from a variety of countries in Gaza using their presumed privilege to try to protect Palestinians. Several of my friends had spent time doing that. 'On this day, Rachel Corrie, in a high visibility vest, was trying to prevent the demolition of a Palesti...
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Rescue

Yesterday, my Very Sick client was really struggling. Since he had been picked up by an ambulance at his apartment, he was at Bronxcare, the nearest hospital. Like many hospitals in the Bronx, Bronxcare is short on resources. Unlike NYU, where there is one social worker for every floor, when you call the social work office there you get a recording that instructs you to leave a message which will be returned in 24-48 hours. Staffing shortages mean long waits for pain and diarrhea meds, or to be cleaned up after an episode of fecal incontinence. Overworked staff mean less patience for our client's challenging behaviors, and a tendency to respond to him with anger, which only makes his behavior worse. It also means that attending to details like his skin gets overlooked. "I'm white like a ghost," he said, referring to his very dry skin. We have known each other for a long time and I know what will make him laugh. "So am I," I say and he starts crackin...
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Rupture

Getting ready for my infusion this morning, I had just found two matching socks when an email alert flashed on my phone. It was from Kyle, my newish neighbor, the one who introduced himself to me for the first time by saying “I know we look like a hetero couple, but we’re both bisexual.” Now he was writing to tell me that in today’s warmer, thawing weather a pipe burst in my basement, sending water into theirs. I didn’t think they could get in to shut off the water so I threw on my shoes and took off for Bay Ridge, trying to shut up the inner voice that was saying, “you’re never going to be able to move back home.” I had barely left when I got a message from H. “She’s gone and I want to kill myself because I walked out of the room to do something.” On the phone, I told her “That’s common. People often wait for someone to leave before they die.” “I wanted to be there, holding her hand.” “You were there, you got yourself and E there,” I told her. “Her last word was E’s n...
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It never rains but pours

H’s mother is dying. She has been on oxygen for a long time because she damaged her lungs by smoking, just like my mother. After her last hospitalization, she was discharged on high concentration oxygen and she fell through a crack – really a canyon in the system. Nobody followed up to adjust the oxygen, and sustained use of that high a concentration caused carbon dioxide to build up in her blood and it wasn’t until she began having periods of altered mental status and wound up back in the hospital that they realized what was happening. By then enough damage had been done that she could not recover. H. has been getting increasingly frantic as her mother became less able to answer the phone. “Who am I going to text at 3am?” she kept asking. Monday afternoon, I was on hold with social security and could not answer when she called, so she texted me. “It’s time for hospice,” and a crying emoji. “Her body is just done at this point.” She desperately started searching for ...
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After midnight

In a dark mood, I went to bed early. Figured I’d sleep it off or at least get some sleep before my double header of hematology and rheumatology tomorrow. I didn’t realize my phone ringer was off, I’ve been leaving it on in case of hospital calls, but I must have turned it off for the Rise and Resist meeting. At five past midnight, I woke up suddenly for no particular reason. The cats were all snoozing quietly in their spots, the heater was humming along softly, making a hopeless effort to keep up with the night’s bitter cold. It felt like I had been awakened by an invisible disturbance in the energy. Confused, I reached for my phone and saw a missed call from my Very Sick client. I called him back and found him distressed. “I want to go home, I’m tired,” he said, with no understanding that his life literally depends on the heart and blood pressure medications flowing into his veins. I tried to explain, “your heart needs the medicine.” “They already gave it to me,” he said,...
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