Negative Pressure
April 16, 2026
Heading in to “the City” as Manhattan is often called by long-time Bay Ridge denizens, I ran into Samuel, who greeted me enthusiastically. He’s one of those constantly energetic people that make me a little tired just to think about. I had been up battling with my mind for most of the night and felt like a zombie, but he was undeterred. “What’s up?”! he said loudly even though I was right next to him.
I actually like Samuel – he has told me many stories about how he was working in corporate IT for a business that sent him to big finance companies to set up their systems and then they were hired by Safe Horizon, a non-profit. “I had to promise not to tell where these buildings were because they were Safe Houses for battered women,” he said and then went on, “I saw that they had these classes and stuff, to help the women get their lives back, and I said, ‘you know, I could teach them computer skills so they could get a job,’ so I volunteered.”
“I’m going have spine surgery again,” I told him. I didn’t have to explain the again because the old timers in the neighborhood watched me fight my way through the last two. Getting through spine surgery and the whole recovery completely on your own is a real struggle. “You’re going to be out of work for a while,” he said, “but you can work from home some.” “Once I’m off the pain meds,” I say laughing at the idea of trying to work on opioids. “They’ll have to give you some strong stuff for that,” he says. “They give you a pain pump in the hospital,” I say, remembering the shock of a nurse who arrived in the morning and said “you haven’t pressed the button in 12 hours!” I don’t like feeling fuzzy and I have had enough pain in my life that I have learned to get through it.
“They’ll send you home with Oxycontin or something,” he says. “I never used street drugs like that so they really knock me out I usually just take a piece of one.” “You have to be careful with those,” he says. “I had a friend, never used drugs at all, but he got injured and they just prescribed more and more of those until he was a junkie.” “They don’t do that as much anymore, because of the lawsuits.” “I tried to help him,” he said, “but he wasn’t ready.”
I thought about Kate, about the unscrupulous doctor who prescribed her a full bottle of opioids despite her long history of psych hospitalizations and suicide attempts. I wanted to go after him legally, but I didn’t have standing because we weren’t legally married – getting married would have made her lose her Medicaid because of my income. Her mother would have had to be involved, but she was coming to the end of her breast cancer battle in a nursing home in Maine.
I got jerked back to the present when he suddenly said, extra loudly, “fuck trump!” and I realized that he had been talking about the president’s jesus bullshit. “I shouldn’t say that so loudly,” he said. “They might be waiting at the end of the tunnel for us.” I shrug. “They know who I am and where to find me,” I tell him. “That No Kings thing was huge,” he said, “all over the country.” “The world,” I say. “We knew we couldn’t get all those people down from Central Park without having people waiting for hours, so we took two avenues instead of just one.” “You shut all that down for hours,” he said. “I was in charge of the back at 7th Ave and Central Park South,” I said. “It was great watching people just streaming from the east – they were still coming an hour after the march left. The back didn’t get to the end until 5pm.”
We were approaching Union Square, so I rummaged in my bag, and found an extra Fuck Trump button which I handed him as I left. “I love this!” he exclaimed as I made my way toward Mt Sinai.
Up on the 5th fl., Dr C. , the ear specialist, leaned his lanky body against the cabinet while he looked at my records. “It’s been a couple of years,” he said. I didn’t bother telling him I stopped coming because he could never see a problem even though I had this sensation of fluid, sometimes just a little and sometimes full-on sloshing. But now I knew he would be able to see the problem, so I told him to look at the MRI of my neck, which also captured my ear.
“It’s a good thing you had this MRI,” he said, “because there’s the fluid, behind your ear in the mastoid.” He looked in my ear and told me, “Your ear drum is retracted, there’s negative pressure pulling it inward.” Pulling out a large tuning fork, he started it vibrating, and we were both surprised when I heard it in my right ear. He tried again and it was even louder in my right ear. Fluid conducts sound, so I should’ve been hearing it on the left. “I’m going to schedule you for a hearing test,” he said, and I thought to myself that another appointment is the last thing I fucking need.
“This is going to taste bitter,” he said spraying something cold in both nostrils before inserting a camera. “The problem is the Eustachian tube on this side,” he said. “Eaustachean tube dysfunction causes fluid from your nose to flow towards your ear.” “There are a few things we can do about this,” he said, and I braced myself. “Let’s stick with the simplest thing,” I said. “I have too much to deal with for this surgery.” He thought about that. “Start with Flonase,” he said. “Reducing inflammation might help. If not, do you remember Budesonide rinses from your sinus surgery?” The other doctor in his office did the surgery, a balloon sinuplasty, where they inflate a small balloon inside your nose to open up the sinuses and you literally hear the small bones cracking like eggshells.
“When’s the surgery?” he inquired. “May 19th, I have to be back on my feet for June, Pride is our biggest fundraising month.” “I’m surprised by that.” “Parties,” I explain “and I often have to show up and speak. Plus, that’s when corporate donations tend to be.” “So they can say they did something?” “Yeah, and these days a lot of them won’t even do that because of Trump’s DEI crap.”
Walking out of his office I had the strangest feeling, like my eyebrows were numb from the inside. Not just my eyebrows, but my forehead and the front of my brain. I was already exhausted and then with a numb brain, it took me a moment to remember what to do when the elevator doors opened. Luckily, I got my wish for a slow day in terms of clients, so I didn’t have to think too fast.
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