"We are not exactly sure Mr. Palmieri", was the answer I got from the Dr's. as to what caused this trauma. "We think that you tore your colon at some point and it healed by itself. Unfortunately, because of anything that may have come out into your system, you had a large amount of infected fluid inside, that we had to remove." It was explained that they did an exploratory laparotomy, with an intestinal wash.
Thus the 9 inch opening that was now on my stomach. I had a 103 fever when admitted, so the infection explained that. I was hooked up to no less that 6 IV's, with separate sites because the meds could not mix. The worst thing for me was an NG tube going from my nostril into my throat down into my stomach. It hurt, was choking me, and of course prevented me from eating or drinking anything for 12 days. So because of that I had a feeding tube inserted in the artery under my arm going into my chest.
I told them to not tell me anything anymore, and just let me try to psyche myself up to get better.
I had no clue I had sepsis, until literally 2 weeks AFTER I came home when my home nurse told me. She said, "I really admire how you have come along because of your positive attitude", and that she thought she was going to be pulling a sheet over my face when she first met me. I asked her why, and she explained that she had never treated such a large open wound and have someone who had sepsis actually survive all of this. I am glad I didn't know, as I would have been freaking out and not gotten any better. My friend later told me that he knew that I looked septic but didn't say anything, and just let them treat it with the antibiotic drips.
Just when I thought this nightmare couldn't get any worse, at some point, a surgeon came into my room (6 of them, everyday sometimes 2 or 3 times daily) and said "We will hook you up to a wound vac, that you will have for about 5 or 6 weeks after you leave." It took 3 of them to hold me down and 2 shots of morphine to accomplish this task. They put sterile sponges inside of my incision, attached a suction hose to them, and then taped them all down with an enormous square of "surgical skin" which was a medical term for clear shelf liner. This hose was then attached to a suction machine which I can only describe as some kind of compressor, with a container clipped on to it for blood. It killed me every day when they had to take it off and change the sponges and put on a new hose.
Once this hose was attached, and I don't mean tube I mean hose, they told me that walking, and breathing exercises would help heal me. Please understand that I REALLY REALLY can tolerate pain. Walking with this kind of pain seemed barbaric. Be clear though, that I wore the nurses out, because I walked so much. I needed to get well, get home and get back to my life.
Getting home became the goal. I missed my apartment and Luna like mad.
As I lay on the stretcher, waiting on surgeons, I needed to make some calls. My entire family is in NJ, and I needed to let them know. I knew that I would get voice mails because by this time it was around 1AM here, so it would be 4AM in Jersey. I called my mom, brother and sister, as well as my best friends in California, and left messages that I loved them, and that I was in Cedars. It was scary, as I didn't know if I would ever hear their voices, or see them again. I then texted my friend who has power of attorney and knows exactly what I want done in case of emergency. She was at Cedars in less than 20 minutes, which was a miracle in itself, since she lives like 30 minutes away.
I was visibly shaken, and she just held my hand as they began prepping me for surgery. I kept saying to her, "I don't want to die, I'm just not ready yet." She kept saying back to me, "You aren't going to die, you are a really strong man. You will make it through." It was all veryscary, very dramatic and almost not real. But it was real. Really real.
"Breathe deep Mr. Palmieri, take nice deep breaths," said the anesthesiologist as he put a plastic mask over my face. "I'm going to give you an IV that will calm you down," he said, as I was literally shaking so violently that I was almost falling from the stretcher. I got sleepy and the next thing I remember was waking up. The surgery was over, and in my head, it was all done and I was well.
"Do I have a colostomy?', were the first words out of my mouth to the familiar surgeon. There were 5 others, who would become a constant part of my life for the next 3 weeks. "No you don't," he responded. I was very happy and although not crying I felt tears literally dripping down the sides of my face. There was a very strange look on his face, and the faces of the other surgeons, nurses, and the half dozen other medical personnel. As I began to wake up more, I was taken to a room, where my friend and 2 other friends, a married couple, were already waiting. They were very scared, and the wife came over and kissed me on the forehead. She had been crying. The husband came over and did the same. They are my family out here, and they seemed so upset, I knew something else was coming my way. I saw all three of my friends talking to Dr's. and surgeons, and my family started texting and calling by this time. It all became a cyclone of emotion for me, and then the pain started. Bad....I mean BIG BAD.
The wife of my married friends, came over to me and tried to explain that I didn't have cancer, and didn't have a colostomy, and then rubbed her hand over my forehead and said, "They did not close you up, just in case it is decided they must go back in to surgery."
WTF??? All I could think of in my head was that I was getting punked. How the hell can they not "close someone up"?
Well it's possible I now know, and very painful. Panic set in again, and they asked everyone to leave the room. Two pain management Drs. came in with a robot. Yes a robot. It had two arms and a TV screen. They said, "We are going to get you out of pain but we will need your cooperation". When Drs. say cooperation, what they mean is, it will hurt a lot more before it gets better. They went around what I now was to understand a gaping, open wound on my belly, and stared at the TV screen while they held a camera to my stomach. When they found some nerve or artery that they wanted they positioned the robot arms on either side of me. I literally had a robot type machine hovering over me, while one Dr. held my hand and said "Just breathe and squeeze my hand. It will hurt a lot for 15 seconds then you will feel relief." Loud clicking sounds began, I was now squeezing his hand while the other Dr. guided the robot arms as they moved in closer. For about 15-20 seconds I thought I would black out from the pain of more than 10 needles (I think 5 on each side) went into my belly. They both just kept chanting to me, "Numbing you, numbing you, numbing you." I became numb, and oddly enough, didn't feel my torso anymore.
I was taken back to my room, where none of my friends seemed happy. All of them seemed like they were in a daze, and tried very hard to not frighten me anymore than I already was. One female friend held my hand, and the other just kept kissing my forehead. My male friend was as white as a ghost but kept trying to smile while saying "Buddy, everything is gonna work out."
I asked, "Am I really not closed up?", and my friend that was kissing my forehead said, "Yes, they didn't close you up, and it may be best in the long run."
I panicked, but was given a shot very quickly to calm me down. I drifted to sleep, and was dreaming of a Greek myth that I remember reading in high school. The one about a guy who angered the Gods, and was chained to a mountain or a cliff. As his punishment, an eagle would come and eat his liver out of his body, daily, for the rest of eternity. Prometheus....Prometheus was his name.
Laying on my couch in some pain, trying to ignore it. I took Luna for a walk, and decided to come back to my apartment and just go right back to sleep on the couch. The pain was getting worse and worse. I went into the bathroom, and I noticed my stomach was starting to swell. I laid back down, and just took deep breaths.
Finally, when the pain was too much, I tried to get off of the couch and walk around. I couldn't. The pain was so intense that I couldn't even put my foot on the floor to get up. I started to panic, because a million thoughts were running through my head. My hugest concern was what to do with Luna if I were to go to the hospital. Her regular babysitter was in France, and the babysitter that just brought her back to me had already left for Great Bear for a week with her boyfriend.
I let myself fall to the floor from the couch and literally crawled to my laptop to see if anyone close by was on Facebook. My neighbor, (who has now become a good friend) was on messenger. I knew her a little, and admired how well she treated her two dogs. I typed something like, "It's Jimmy and I am very sick, can you please come and watch Luna, as I have to call 911?"
She answered in a minute or two and said, "Of course, I'll be right there." She came over, and realized more than I , as she was on the outside looking in, that I didn't have time to wait for an ambulance. She took Luna to her house and ran back to take me to Cedars.
Every bump in the street felt like a knife into my gut. She was trying her best , but the pain was so bad I was almost blacking out. We got to the emergency entrance and from what I recall, she just yelled, "Help , he needs help."
It took 4 people to get me out of the car as I couldn't move my legs or torso. I am a really tough guy when it comes to pain, but I never felt anything like this. They tried to get me on a stretcher once they wheeled me inside, but I couldn't get up from the wheelchair. The gave me a shot of morphine which did nothing. (morphine has zero effect on me) I asked for toradol, which is like a beefed up aspirin. They said no in case surgery was needed. SURGERY? What was happening?
This very nice black dude, introduced himself to me as a surgeon and said that he was sending me for a CT scan. I went down to x-ray via stretcher at this point, screaming at every turn that they made and bump in the floor that they hit. Luckily the "scan man" was a friend of mine, so he was extremely gentle and cautious.
I was taken back upstairs, and in about 25 minutes, the surgeon came back and said, "Dude this is the real deal.....I am calling in the entire GI surgical team." I literally was stunned and was speechless. The next things he said to me, I will never forget, were some of the scariest things that I have ever had to hear.
"Mr. Palmieri, I need to tell you a few things." I nodded my head as if to say OK.
"Number one, and please know I must tell you these things, is that there is a 30% chance you may not come out of this surgery alive."
WTF???? Is there anything else that could be worse I was thinking to myself.
"Number two, there is an extremely high chance that you will have a colostomy if you do survive."
This was getting worse, because most who know me, know that a colostomy is a huge fear of mine since I saw my uncle suffer with one for many years. I had always said to myself and anyone else that knew him, that I would rather be dead than have to deal with one. Now I was actually facing both.
"Number three, we need your advance directive and your power of attorney papers just in case....."
I, through excruciating pain was thinking to myself that this was really happening. In my fear, and I guess my gay brain, I kept thinking of Mia Farrow screaming as she was being raped by Satan in Rosemarie's Baby, "This is no dream, this is really happening!" I know...weird, but true.
I started to cry, and he said, "Mr. Palmieri, I am going to take good care of you, and I am not going to let you die." His words , meant as comfort just instilled more fear. I said to him "Promise me," he said, "I promise", I then said "swear to me", he said, "I can't...but I will pray loudly for you.." I said "Please ask your God to watch out for me". He asked me "Who is your God?". I responded, "I don't know, I just don't know anymore."
So many of you send me messages daily on what actually happened to me. I am not playing mysterious or even shy, it just is too draining to repeat over and over again. I really appreciate the concern more than you can ever know, so I decided I will blog it, in a few parts. If I try to write it all at once, I'll get into a spin and get upset.
I want to say upfront, that I do not know what the lesson to be learned was. I've always loved life, and have always appreciated every day of it, so it didn't make me appreciate my life any more. I have always and do treat people very well. It won't make me kinder. It seems to be a bit of a cruel joke, but it happened and that's that.
From the beginning. I was in San Francisco with a friend. We were having a great time, just doing what we felt like, whenever we felt like it. No schedule, no itinerary. A few meetings but nothing enough to ruin the time. We were just enjoying the beauty of staying at Fisherman's Wharf, the water, the people, the stores, and of course the amazing seafood.
We were having coffee one day in the Castro at the Country Club. For those of you who don't know of it, it is a sober hangout. It is used for meetings, socializing, hanging out and also has a cool coffee bar in it.
I got a cramping feeling in my stomach and told my friend to get the coffees and meet me outside on the outdoor patio. The cramping was intense and it was making me sweat a lot. The air was cool so I thought it best to be out there.
After a while it stopped and we went to leave and go to dinner at a french place we passed by and liked. The Country Club is an old Victorian house that was donated. It has about 16 steps to get to the sidewalk. My friend went ahead of me, thinking all was OK. She walked a few doors down, not knowing that I literally fell down the stairs from pain and was caught by this guy at the bottom. I didn't get hurt, but knew something was wrong. I am big at ignoring pain, so I did. All through dinner, then all through late night drinks and snacks.
I did tell her the next day that I was tired and was gonna stay in my room all day, and to pick me up for dinner. She was fine with that and did her own thing. I laid down all day, fighting off cramping, and believing I ate too much seafood and probably was having some kind of reaction.
She came back later and got me, and we went to dinner, but kept it slow and close to the hotel. The cramping was there but less. I laughed through dinner and just couldn't wait till the next day to get back to Weho.
If you know me, that is a true sign that something is wrong, because I love San Francisco. I NEVER want to leave when I visit there.
The next day which was a Saturday, we flew back home, taking our time and she drops me off at my apartment. The babysitter brought Luna home, and I laid on the couch cuddling with her. Something was wrong, but I just ignored it, because I assumed I would be OK now that I was in my own apartment.
As part of its "One City One Pride" calendar of events, on Sunday May 22, Harvey Milks actual birthday, the city of West Hollywood held a screening of the Academy Award winning Gus Van Sant film MILK. It was held in the West Hollywood city council chambers.
West Hollywood Mayor Lauren Meister
There was to be the film itself followed by a "panel" discussion, followed by a small reception. I arrived just as the film was starting. I have seen it probably 10 times, but haven't seen it in a year. Keeping in mind that Harvey Milk is arguably the most famous gay icon/politician/activist ever, he deserves the respect of me once again watching the story of what he lived and died for.
legendary gay male icon/activist/politician Harvey Milk
He was a simple man, living a simple, if not boring life in NYC until his fortieth year. Making a change and moving to San Francisco, having an "out" gay relationship in an GLBT hostile world, calling for gay rights and acceptance, he became one of the most revered men in the GLBT movement, if not actually creating a full on movement. He opened a small neighborhood camera shop in the Castro, and eventually became known as the Mayor of Castro Street, This wasn't an easy task, as he wasn't welcome with open arms by any stretch.
Milk was a showman. He had a special ability to mobilize, create and have gay men and lesbians join together for a common cause. He wanted nothing more than equality and nothing less. He was a performer. He had a talent for getting press, and after several failed attempts at becoming an elected official, he was finally elected to a seat as a city Supervisor, as an openly gay man in San Francisco. His dramatic antics, and P.T. Barnum-like personality won him many supporters, but also detractors. His life was threatened many times by mail and ominous, anonymous letters with gruesome drawings of how his genitals would be hacked from his body. He never went to the police, as he told his then partner, the police probably sent them.
As in many political marriages, his true love left because of the stress of public life. He never fell out of love with Milk, nor Milk with him. Milks next partner hung himself in their apartment for the same reasoning, more or less. Of course there were underlying mental and substance abuse problems, but as many know, gay men are prone to suicide at an alarmingly higher rate then our hetero counterparts. Lack of acceptance and familial support and lack of laws protecting our jobs, housing etc. add to the pressures of life that heteros simply do not endure. Continually being called faggot, queer, pervert and sick, and being made to believe by foes such as Anita Bryant and John Briggs through ballot initiatives, that we are unworthy , creates fertile grounds for substance abuse and mental instability.
Milk fought these political behemoth's fearlessly. He "collected" throwaways, like Cleve Jones (founder of the names project) and others who had no direction or anywhere to go. I know Cleve. I have interviewed him several times. He is a strong proud gay man, and has become part of our amazing history.
Milk's story doesn't end on a happy note. He had premonitions of being assassinated, and on November 27th 1978, he and his friend Mayor Moscone, a straight ally were shot and killed by resigned supervisor Dan White. His arrest and trial were cause for outrage, as his lawyers claimed his diet of junk food, later to be coined "the twinkie defense" got him only 5 years for manslaughter for these clearly premeditated murders. After the trial and decision by jurors, more than 3000 people charged through the Castro to city hall, breaking doors, trampling police cars, and demanding justice. They became known as The White Night Riots. NO ONE WAS ARRESTED.
More than 30,000 supporters and mourners walked through the Castro to city hall to show respect for the fallen hero. He was and is a legend. If not for him there would not be us. He started a movement that to this day exists, still fighting the religious right, the homophobes, the uninformed. He always said "You gotta give 'em hope." He did just that.
The panel was moderated by veteran lesbian journalist Karen Ocamb. She was the right person for the job. She was there. She covered all of this. If not for her, I would have left. The rest of the panel was made up of lesbians. I found it so inappropriate and so careless to have an entirely lesbian panel. NOT A SINGLE GAY MALE WAS ON THE PANEL.
no gay men
How can this be? DON'T ASK ME.....And don't try to say that we have a lack of qualified men that could have given insight as to what it is like to be a gay male activist in this country. It was offensive to say the least. The sadder part was that the panel did not seem to be acutely aware of Milk. When Karen asked questions, one panelist looked at her as though she had no clue what to say, and Karen literally said, "There will be hard questions."
Moderator, legendary lesbian journalist Karen Ocamb telling a panelist "There will be hard questions."
It was said that one panelist never heard of him till she moved to West Hollywood, one answer to a relative question was "ditto" referring to another panelists answers. I do not know how I held my head from exploding. What I do know is that if this were about a lesbian activist, we would have searched high and low for lesbian panelists, or there would have been a backlash, the likes of which we have not seen since....well since Pride took away the Trans party.
lesbian only panelists
Our Mayor Lauren Meister asked why we didn't have a bigger turnout. One guess Madame Mayor is that THERE WERE NO GAY MEN INCLUDED IN THE DISCUSSION. I am not interested in excuses that there weren't any to find. I HAVE BEEN IN THIS MOVEMENT FOR NEARLY 30 YEARS. MY PHONE DIDN'T RING. Don't like my attitude? It's that attitude that has accomplished making meth/recovery/homelessness all forefront priorities. There is a little group known as Stonewall with several accomplished gay male activists to choose from. There are non profits that have activists employed and available for the asking. This was not thought out, not well done, and not outreached.
Towards the end, a lesbian from the audience started talking about Bernie and Hillary. Karen, the moderator tried to curtail it, only to hear screams of misogyny, misogyny, then and now. REALLY? We are chanting misogyny at a tribute to Harvey Milk? My heart was broken and I left. I had waited weeks for this, even posting it on Face Book. I wish I stayed home and watched MILK on pay per view. I think I might have felt more in tune to what Milk's message was.
My call to action is for the city, the city council members, staff and boards to start creating a list of available activists that are appropriate for a panel. I propose listing men and women, categorizing them and calling upon them as needed. NO PANEL IS BETTER THAN A BAD PANEL.
I am just grateful for Karen Ocamb, or I would have left way before the panel was over.
