The Unwinding of the Miracle - Julie Yip-Williams Page 0,45

my identity. “Mrs. Yip-Williams, our records indicate that the name associated with your social security number is Ly Thanh Diep…our records indicate that your address is 911 West College Street, Los Angeles, CA…our records indicate that your phone number is (213) 250–0580.” My name had at one point indeed been Ly Thanh Diep, and my address and phone number thirty-three years ago had been exactly as the man said. Thirty-three years ago I had received my eye surgeries at UCLA, the surgeries that would give me sight. That was the only possible reason why this man was reciting this ancient information about me. And yet somehow, realizing that I was going back to the place where I had received my first surgery ever, which had in a certain respect saved my life, after all these years made me feel like I was coming full circle, like there was a certain comforting rightness about what had happened and what was about to happen, like the nudge of God’s hand.

Josh was on the phone with the insurance company at 5:00 A.M. local time the next day, trying valiantly to push the bureaucracy along. With the start of regular business hours and the return of a full staff, my insurance company moved much more quickly. By late morning, we received word that UCLA had financially cleared me for the transfer—a further hurdle crossed. However, there was to be yet another.

There were no available beds at UCLA and there likely wouldn’t be a bed until Wednesday or Thursday, we were told. I was horrified—Wednesday or Thursday? I felt certain with the worsening pain in my gut that I would be dead by then. We briefly considered ripping the IVs out of my arm so that Josh could drive me to the ER at UCLA—that would surely get us a bed. Reason prevailed, however, as that strategy held a certain amount of medical risk and uncertainty, not to mention uncontrolled pain and nausea. In desperation, Josh called Dr. Y. on his cellphone and begged him for help. Dr. Y. made a few phone calls and informed us that there were in fact twenty-eight people ahead of me in line for a bed at UCLA Ronald Reagan, and that he could do nothing about moving me up in that line, in spite of my desperate physical condition. However, UCLA Santa Monica—a branch of the main facility—had a “favorable” bed situation; Dr. Y. himself did not operate at Santa Monica, but he would get me to the best surgeon at Santa Monica. My financial clearance would be good for either UCLA facility, so there would be no further delay in that regard. Josh and I were desperate—yes, whatever; we need to get out of here!

I could feel myself closer to death with every minute that I remained at Garfield Medical Center; at this point, we were just holding on to the hope offered to us by this faceless surgeon whom we had never met (and indeed would never meet) and about whom we knew nothing (other than the limited information discoverable through Google).

An hour later, as I was shuffling down the dreary hallway with Josh by my side in an effort to escape the claustrophobia of my room, someone came to tell me that the ambulance was on its way. Within minutes two EMTs were wheeling a gurney into my room, and I happily and very awkwardly climbed aboard. They fastened a belt around my middle; I was careful to hold the strap away from my distended stomach, to prevent compounding the pain and discomfort. They hoisted the gurney up and pushed me down the hallway, onto the elevator, and out the double doors into a waiting ambulance. I’d never been on a gurney or in an ambulance. Perhaps it was adrenaline pumping through my veins at finally getting out of that place, but I felt a bit of euphoria lying on that gurney, seeing the world from a completely new and exciting perspective.

During the summer before I started law school in 1999, I spent five weeks studying Spanish in Seville and then another five weeks backpacking alone through much of Europe. I was a little nervous about traveling alone—most people would be—but then add to that my visual limitations, and I was more than a little nervous. It was one of those things I had to do to prove to the world (but mostly to myself) that I could. I never booked accommodations in