The Unwinding of the Miracle - Julie Yip-Williams Page 0,46
advance. I’d simply jump off the train in whatever new city, having just read the chapter on that city in my trusty guidebook, and look for a youth hostel using whatever map I could get my hands on. One warm summer night, with many more weeks to go in my travels, I was lying on a train platform, with my beloved purple backpack as a pillow, somewhere in the South of France, waiting for the next train that would take me to Rome. I was surrounded by a handful of other backpackers, yet entirely alone. I will never forget as I looked up at the starlit sky thinking that I had no idea where I would be sleeping the next night or the night after that or the night after that. And while there was a tinge of fear at the thought, I felt an overwhelming excitement for what lay ahead. There was a certain carefree joy in the not knowing, a freedom in not having to be anywhere or with anyone, in the promise of limitless possibilities. And then I felt an overwhelming sense of peace that chased away whatever trepidation I had, for I knew that everything would be okay, that I would find my way.
I felt that same way as I lay on the hoisted gurney, looking down at Josh as he walked beside me—yes, down at my six-foot-three Josh for a change. I had no idea what would happen the next day or the day after that or the day after that. In that moment, bizarrely, I was smiling with anticipation, excitement, and peace, off to the next adventure in my life. I bombarded the EMTs with questions, about where they came from, about whether they would turn on the sirens for me, about the most harrowing rescue they’d ever done.
As the ambulance raced onto the 10 freeway, heading west, toward the ocean, my eyes opened, and I began to wake from my nightmare and move from its darkness toward the light. And so began what I call the golden and magical part of my story of diagnosis.
18
A Love Story
The drive across Los Angeles was speedy, the freeways fortunately and bizarrely free of late-afternoon traffic. Within twenty-five minutes, I could smell the ocean and was staring up at the crystal-clear blue sky (another rarity for Los Angeles). The EMTs pushed me through the most beautiful hospital I had ever seen, brand spanking new, with wide and glistening hallways that seemed to go on forever, past orderlies, nurses, and doctors who smiled kindly at me, everything and everyone bathed in a soft golden light.
I expected to stop at a desk to satisfy some bureaucratic paperwork requirement, but no, the EMTs pushed me right into my own private room with a view of the Santa Monica Mountains and overlooking a quiet green courtyard (where my children would often play in the days to come), a flat-screen TV, real wood detailing, and three nurses clad in dark blue waiting to fuss over me. I had risen out of hospital hell and into hospital heaven.
The small army of nurses weighed me, changed my gown, started a new IV, drew blood, and got me a basin over which I hung my head as I begged for antinausea meds. Within half an hour of my arrival, Josh, who had driven there separately, walked through the door. And within twenty minutes of that, shortly after 5:00 P.M., my colorectal surgeon, Dr. D.C., with his chief resident, Dr. O., standing by his side—both of them commanding, confident, and oh so reassuring in their crisp white coats—was telling us exactly what was going to happen. A gastroenterologist would go in that night at 8:30 to insert a stent to create an opening in my obstructed colon so that the waste trapped inside could flow out—an important step in preparing me for surgery to improve visibility and prevent postsurgical infection. If the gastroenterologist could not place the stent, then Dr. D.C. and his team would be standing by to operate immediately. If the stent worked, then I would spend the next day and a half going to the bathroom so my bowels could be cleared, to be followed by surgery. As I listened and watched Dr. D.C. draw a picture of a colon on the white sheet on my bed, I thought, Now this is how medicine is supposed to be practiced: dedicated surgeons immediately present and prepared to operate late into the night to