Zap! Pow! Bam!

It was a few minutes before midnight, the night after Halloween and I had been napping in front of the TV. I rose with the intention of performing my evening pill ritual, took one step and ZAP! POW! SHAZZAM! the walls began to expand and contract as if they had been designed by Salvador Dali. I uttered a scream in a ripe falsetto Renata Tebaldi would have envied and felt a sudden hot jolt in my chest. I found myself sitting on the floor.

Well, it was better than lying flat on the floor with a tickling sensation and wings sprouting. I didn’t want it to end that way as I had opera tickets for the next night. I knew exactly what had happened. Three weeks earlier, I had been given a pacemaker/defibrillator, a medical marvel about the size of a tin of throat lozenges. It was sewn into my chest a couple of inches above my cheatin’ heart.

My recovery had been uneventful, with many ofmy recent symptoms obliterated. Of course, I knew the defibrillator had the potential to shock me should an irregular heartbeat develop—but my most recent EKG had been reallygood, and I had been feeling as frisky as a lad of 45 again. But no one told me that the defib’s shock would feel like one dealt by "Ol Sparky" on Death Row.

Come to think of it, doctors seldom go out of their way to warn you about possible side effects. Over the years, I had been the victim of all kinds of rashes, and embarrassing digestive troubles. Luckily I’ve never had to take a pill that would give me dreams of the opposite sex.

I phoned my surgeon’s answering service and while waiting for a call back thought about the medical journey that led to my getting knocked on my tush. I rarely discuss my health (or lack thereof) outside my immediate circle because the mere recitation of the ailments that have made their home with me would depress anyone but the CEO of an HMO. I have more serious illnesses than Tootie’s doll had in Meet Me In Saint Louis.

I’ve been living with my heart condition since 1988. Mostly it’s been as if my heart and I had an agreement. I would take care of it, and it would not be a source of angst to me. However, last spring, my EKGs began to bother my cardiologist.

My internist/cardiologist is a superb doctor, grandfatherly and a little staid. Therefore, I enjoy teasing him by acting campy and dropping my beads in his examination room. Recently, as he began to perform the most intimate part of a physical that a fellow can undergo, I announced, "You know, I always get dinner first, if we’re going to do THAT!"

Fortunately, he has a sense of humor.

I was sent to NYU for tests and I decided to bring the staff to heel with humor. I tried. I worked my lucky boxer-covered butt off trying. Most of the nurses and doctors DID seem to enjoy the fun. My proudest moment was having the nurse and orderly wheeling me to the OR hear me say, with a sweet smile and a meek voice, "Oh, please hurry, I can feel the baby’s dear little head coming out!"

Years earlier, when hospitalized for a heart attack, my case history was taken by a young doctor who, I thought, was Israeli. He asked me about my drinking and, miscreant that I am, I replied, "Oh yes, since I was a child...Scotch was mother’s milk to me." It turned out the doctor was from Egypt and didn’t know much about liquor. He concluded I was a drunk. No, just a guy with a sense of humor.

This time I was wheeled into the workplace of another handsome, bearded young man who was about to give me an echocardiogram. The guy, seeing me in my bathrobe and pajamas, said, "Okay, strip to your underpants and hop on the table." With great indignation I replied, "Sir, I’ve never been so insulted in my life. I don’t even know your name!" The young technician looked panicky until I uttered, "just kidding."

As the test ended and I turned to leave, the technician handed me a strongly worded evangelical pamphlet. It told me all the ways I was earning a place in Hell. He was funny without even trying.

NYU Medical Center is a large, Hiltonesque complex. Checking in for my stress test, I flirted shamelessly with the nice young clerk. The young man was friendly and sympathetic, if uninterested in getting to know me a bit better. I realized that the young person was actually transexual—Viva Diversity!

On this visit I was not given the traditional treadmill test. I got a new-fangled stress test where you are injected with a potion to dilate all your blood vessels. Then, electrodes tell the doctors what they need to learn.

So, I was strapped onto a gurney wearing very little south of my belly button. Everything was swell except for a side effect to the potion. All of my blood vessels were dilated. Every single one. It was like getting a shot of Viagra. All of a sudden I was as impassioned as a youth. Worse, lots of cute young doctors buzzed around and I was afraid I’d be horribly embarrassed. The senior doctor came by and I whispered my plight to him.

He just grinned and said, "Enjoy yourself!" So I did. Later, when a nurse came by to give me an antidote, I said, "Oh please, give me five more minutes."

My next procedure, administered in early August, was an angiogram, I had quarreled with a Miss Ratchett nurse before the test began, as I wanted to keep my "lucky" boxers on and she wouldn’t let me.

As a direct result of shedding the lucky shorts, the results of the test were not very good. Bypass surgery was considered but ultimately rejected in favor of the pacemaker. When I reported for that surgical procedure, I insisted on keeping those lucky undershorts firmly around my middle—and the procedure went really well.

The telephone rang. It was one of the docs who had participated in the pacemaker procedure. He asked to see me the next day, and when I went in, I covered my fear and nervousness with a half hour of gay stand-up. The doctor and his delightful nurse laughed and checked me out—nothing was seriously amiss. They reprogrammed the defibrillator and sent me back into my world. I’d be at the opera as planned.

All hospitals are stressful—we’re in pain, in a state of undress, and, if you’re like me, frightened out of our minds. Just as in every other aspect of our lives, being gay can make a strange situation stranger. However, we are survivors. If you must be hospitalized, try to be strong, don’t let anyone take advantage of you, and, above all, use your great gay sense of humor to protect yourself from those who would be hostile—and even more so to win over the staff to make sure they will go out of their way to treat you well. And don’t forget your lucky boxers.

P.S. As the publishing year draws to a close, I’d like to say how pleased I am to be writing this column. I wish all of you wonderful holidays, and look forward to returning in February.