NYC blog

Greetings everyone from Bryant Park in NYC,

Here is Merwin again and it appears that I have been successful in getting started on Bernice's blog from the exotic location of our little studio apartment that overlooks the verdant lawn and trees of Bryant park. I have been sleeping over here since Tuesday the day after Bernice was admitted to Mt Sinai hospital. I know that everyone is anxious to hear the latest on Bernice's condition. Harvey has been posting a daily email to immediate family and I excerpt the following from today:
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Bernice/Baba/Mom has pulled up out of the valley she has been in for the last few days. She has more energy today, can breathe more effectively, her foot and leg swelling is down and most importantly she stated: "I'm looking forward to getting back to my Shakespeare work!" I take this last comment as an important indicator of a significantly improved state of mind and attitude.

On the more concrete level her white blood cell count (WBC) continues to drop, her kidneys continue to remove her excess water, and her pain is being managed. The challenge now is to coordinate all the caregivers so we end up with a discharge strategy and plan once she gets back home. That is starting to gel, but has not been fully implemented yet.

As many of you may know, doctors tend to work in their spheres and it takes a conductor to bring them all together. We shall see how the music plays out.
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I can add a couple of additional medical observation. To reduce her WBC she was given a strong shot of her regular and this drove the value down from almost 190 to 185 but also reduced her hemoglobin to a low enough level to make her anemic. This is all a delicate balancing act and will take some medical artistry to align and balance things. To bring her hemoglobin back up she was getting a transfusion as I left her tonight. Teams of doctors consult with each other and coordinate their efforts under Bernice's hematologist Dr. Mascarenhas (a superb doctor and a favorite of ours). There is a pain management team, a pulmonary team, and the physical therapy people. Having Harvey around is a big help in many ways. he doesn't at all push the fact but his being an MD/PhD from Yale is noticed and (I feel) probably is improving the attention and care.

Harvey has been staying with long-time friends who have an apartment within a 20 minute walk to the hospital who have a spare bedroom with its own bath. They are both doctors working in some other NY hospital. Interestingly, Harvey ran into two of his former residents now on staff at Mt Sinai.

It takes me about 30-40 minutes to travel by subway from our 40th street apartment to the 100th street location of the hospital. One indication of how Bernice's spirits have been lifted in the last three days is that she asked me if I had brought her metrocard to the city with me. Why? She wants to get to the apartment when she is released. I told her that I would treat her to a cab ride. I have been making two trips a day to the hospital with welcome little nap after a lunch at the apartment.

That is it folks!
love to all,
Merwin