NYC

On October 8^th we said goodbye to Abby and flew to New York City for another week’s holiday. From JFK airport we took a shuttle bus to Grand Central Station. Later we discovered our hotel was only a few minutes’ walk from the station but on that first day we got lost. It was unusually hot for October, we were lugging all of our bags and we were in an unfamiliar city. We turned around in circles looking for the street that would take us to our hotel. I was crying inside and ready to donate my heavy suitcase and my laptop to the homeless. Finally a New Yorker took pity on us, told us the street we were looking for had been renamed recently which is why we couldn’t find it. At the hotel I showered and changed. I didn’t dare lie on the bed because I knew I would be asleep in minutes. Instead I agreed to an evening walk around Times Square and 5^th Avenue. At 11pm I climbed into bed and buried myself in the soft pillows.

Four months earlier my visa card ran hot in an insane flurry of internet transactions. I had booked tours at Rockefeller Centre, the Statue of Liberty, NBC centre, the United Nations and Ground Zero. Now I was exhausted before we even started. My sore throat continued to plague me so at 10pm on our second night in the Big Apple, Alex went to the Walgreens drug store in Times Square. He bought me a large bottle of throat spray and a box of strong cough drops. My tongue turned red from sucking on the drops morning, noon and night time for the next four days. On the plus side my ear had recovered and my appetite returned. My nose stopped bleeding as well. I figured I was getting better.

I bought special reserve tickets to the Statue of Liberty. That meant on October 10^th we would be two of only 240 people getting access to the crown, out of about 15-20,000 people who would visit the statue that day. Our tickets allowed us to climb the 354 winding steps inside the statue, approximately the height of a 27 story building, in a cramped enclosed area. The day we went was hot and cloudless with a temperature of about 28 degrees (82 Fahrenheit). It was about 15 degrees above normal for October in New York. Since the Statue is not air conditioned, the interior temperature can be 20 degrees higher than outside. The National Park Service recommends that crown visitors have “no significant physical or mental conditions that would impair their ability to complete the climb”. Since I didn’t know I had a “condition” that didn’t apply to me. As soon as we began the climb I knew I was in trouble. Platforms sat alongside several different levels of the spiral staircase as it ascended to the crown, so if necessary, you could step aside and have a rest. I used all of them. I was a little surprised my flushed face, my length of platform “recovery time” and my heavy breathing didn’t alert security that they were potentially at the risk of a lawsuit if they let me keep going, but it didn’t. Every time I looked upwards the crown stayed tauntingly out of reach. But eventually, lungs aching and soaking with sweat, I made it. It was worth it. From the observation deck looking out small square windows, there was a great view of New York harbour. But the area in the crown was small, hot and stuffy. You could barely stand up straight. The tall guard who prevented terrorists from using the crown as a gun emplacement was bent in half to keep from hitting his head. Alex got chatting with him while I spent fifteen minutes looking at a two-minute view trying to breathe normally again after the climb. (When I got back to New Zealand and found out how low my haemoglobin was, I was grateful I hadn’t had a heart attack during the ascent). From the statue we took the ferry to Ellis Island but I gave up on doing much of the immigration museum. I had used up all my energy for the day. Luckily Alex was quite happy to leave. Back at the hotel my lower back was hurting. Alex went out to Walgreens again and bought some ibuprofen to go with my other drugs. I apologised for all my ailments. I had always been a great traveller and usually had no time for people who complained while vacationing. I believed being a traveller was all about discovering the sights and sounds of a new place and no matter what personal issues you had they should always take a back seat to that moment of discovery. Giving in to my condition would be like giving in to the self-pity I hated. Climbing the statue had been hard but I made it. I just had to fight my way through.

Managing my various afflictions with drugs and learning how not to over exert myself, I was able to enjoy discovering New York. We used all the internet vouchers I had bought and ticked off a great list of sites and adventures from the heights of the Empire State Building to the sunken stage of Radio City Music Hall. I managed to get up and out of the hotel each day for another round of sightseeing and I slept soundly every night. Nothing was as strenuous as the steps to the crown and I was able to keep up with tour guides and dodge yellow taxi cabs while keeping a smile on my face. For me, Ground Zero was the highlight of the week. There were now two enormous beautiful fountains covering the bases of where the twin towers once stood. On the sides of the fountain walls were inscribed the names of those who died on that day. My impressions there would remain forever part of my conscience. The stories of people facing their last moments on earth ironically made me wonder “what would I do?”

On October 16^th Alex left me to return to San Francisco for a few days then fly home. I was at odds about his departure. I was looking forward to the rest of my trip but after only two weeks I really didn’t know if I could do it anymore. In Grand Central Station I sat down and surrounded myself with my baggage. I really wanted a cold drink but I was unable to move. When my train was called I dragged myself to the tracks. It was an hour and a half trip to my stop in Connecticut and I was grateful for every minute of rest. I was staying with my cousin for the next six days. After that I had a full-on schedule for the following five weeks. I had made plans to see about seven friends who lived on the East Coast from as far north as Maine to as far south as North Carolina. Driving straight this would be a distance of about 1330km (826 miles) but I was not driving straight. I was going to do closer to 3200 km (2000 miles). At my cousin’s house I continued to battle a sore throat. I swallowed ibuprofen several times a day and sprayed my throat with the numbing spray Alex had bought me in New York. But the pace was leisurely with no sightseeing or climbing stairs, no sweating or pulling heavy cases, and by the end of the week I felt much better.

After six days in Connecticut and two days at a friend’s house in Maryland, I drove to my brother Ben’s condo in Virginia. I was now eight-and-a-half hour’s drive from where I started. After feeling pretty well for eight days, my symptoms came back with a vengeance. The first night I slept at Ben’s place my throat was so raw it felt like a razor blade had sliced down the back of it. I could barely swallow and I couldn’t sleep. I popped three times the recommended dosage of ibuprofen and every couple of hours throughout the night I took more. I was in agony. Nocturnal nosebleeds pestered me again. I didn’t want to bleed on his pillows so I created paper nose plugs. I wound tissue tightly in a cork-screw design and placed one up each nostril. The design absorbed the blood like a tampon. I didn’t tell him. I was back to that motto about travellers putting their petty problems behind them. Besides what could he do? I wasn’t going to go to a doctor. It would cost a fortune and it would ruin my holiday. I would suck it up and self-medicate.

When I left Ben’s three days later, the sore throat had subsided enough that I was eating and drinking again.  With enough ibuprofen I was also sleeping so I wished him a cheery farewell and drove four hours to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. A high school friend was holding a small reunion in my honour. There were four of us women. We had known each other for more than thirty years. We had a great time the first evening with wine and food and lots of chat and laughter. The next morning they wanted to take a walk around the neighborhood to get some exercise before breakfast so I joined them. Dressed in exercise gear, my friends carried on a full conversation while power walking. I was a metre (three feet) behind the entire time. I couldn’t join in or even hear what they were talking about. My wheezing must have sounded suspiciously like I had been hiding a nicotine habit since high school. My heart was striking in my chest like thunder. I just hoped I would have enough breath to call out for an ambulance.

That was it. Enough was enough. There were no more excuses. It wasn’t too hot, I wasn’t carrying anything, I had a good night’s sleep, the walk was flat and there were no stairs to climb. It had taken four weeks of travel through six different US states for me to suddenly wake up. I had dismissed nose bleeds and sore throats, back pain and breathlessness but in that one walk, straining to keep up with my friends, I couldn’t ignore it any longer. There must be something seriously wrong with me. I needed a doctor. But in the USA I knew it would cost me a fortune just to find out it was going to cost me a fortune to get treated. I needed to go home to New Zealand. In the meantime I tried self-diagnosis again without the benefit of my laptop. My most consistent symptoms were fatigue and shortness of breath. But there was no coughing and my lungs didn’t hurt unless I was exercising so I decided the fatigue and shortness of breath were just symptoms of a bigger problem – that my heart was failing and I was at high risk of having a heart attack. I began to actually feel a bit of regret that I still had another five weeks left on my trip. I wanted to see the rest of my family and friends but I needed to go home.  I wasn’t going to be fixed with drug store remedies or by persuading myself I was feeling better. I needed medical care and soon. I didn’t know what to do. I looked at the schedule for the rest of my trip. I wasn’t even due to see my mother for another three weeks. I had to bury my fears and carry on.

On November 1^st I arrived at my sister’s house in Virginia. It was so good to see her. We reminisced about our childhoods, comparing notes on the good and the bad. Validating for each other that our memories were a true account of what actually went on in our house and the abuse we suffered at the hands of our older brother. We laughed and cried until two in the morning. The floodgates had opened and we spoke honestly and from the heart. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world and even when I went to bed and had to use the soon-to-be patented tissue nose plug system to stop me from leaving blood on her white pillow cases, I still wouldn’t have missed it. I had been honest with her about everything but that. I did not tell her I was having so many nose bleeds. But they were mostly light, always happened at night and were gone in the morning. So I was able to hide them. It was a big secret but I just had to hold out until I returned to New Zealand.