Hallucinations

Somehow, lying on my back, I imagined getting up on my feet to go to the kitchen and imagination turned into reality. But trying to return to my bedroom,y somehow, I walked into an adjacent kitchen, a flipover of mine on the same 3rd Floor, (which, of course, doesn’t exist in reality). Trying to return to my apartment I then found myself in a room overlooking a 3-story art gallery. Down on the 2nd Floor I saw a sale of art works was taking place, and I saw that a receipt being written on a large brown paper had on it the name Tokiko, my wife, and the work was undoubtedly her handwoven picture from my apartment, I shouted and banged on the wall to get the attention of the clerk but no noise was heard. Then, I saw another package with a note on it also had her name, and I realized all the works being sold came from the walls of my apartment. When somehow I managed to return to my bedroom I saw women shuffling through my clothes, including those I was recently wearing and my bedroom was a

Goodwill Store. A door appeared now then on an empty wall of the bedroom and I walked in to find the gallery again but no one heard me (like silent movie characters). Trying over and over, I finally got the attention of a gallerist and was able to tell him that all those works of art from my apartment are already legally willed. He then replied that he understands, etc. Now, the reply came in a novel way of texting. He writes on a large brown paper, maybe 3’ x 4’ which he presses on the glass wall separating the gallery from me and a light cellophane-like plastic sheet with his text flying in the air and stuck on an empty  wall to allow me to read and it flies away back to him. [I shall call it <CelloTexting>.]  trying to get back to my kitchen I ended up in the room corresponding to my main room on the other side which was a lounge with a small alcove with a stage where a rehearsal was taking place. I sat on a bench in the dark side room adjacent to the stage and watched the rehearsal first, watching with great interest the woman scene designer working on the stage, and then the performance itself, for which   I was given a first row seat, almost on the stage. I beckoned the director to move my seat a bit away from the stage and he complied promptly but by means of . At some point I managed to be back in the lounge, but none of the people there, all of them actors resting, could hear me or even see me, though I needed a help getting out of the theater to the lounge. I just sat in the lounge idly and finally two people appeared on the fire escape outside the large glass wall, peeking in. They disappeared, having climbed up higher, and when they returned I recognized the woman as Liz Mackie with a man I didn’t recognize. As they peered, I shouted and waved and I was not heard but seen and Liz came in with the apartment’s super and immediately she called an ambulance and took me to Weill- Cornell. She said then it was the 9th Floor where she found me but she later told me she and the super found me in my bedroom. The hallucination continued in the hospital. I was seeing elaborate drawings that filled the wall on my room, like 9 or perhaps 12 square grids depicting Nativity scenes in narrative sequence, others on the floor and ceiling, and also those sheets no one else saw.  Finally after three days or so the drawings and the cellophane sheets disappeared. 

The Great Fall 12/26/19

    Right now Monday 6 January 2020 I am at the Upper East Side Rehabilitation Center after five days at the Cornell/Presbyterian Hospital.

     The day after Christmas, 12/26, after I chatted with a friend on the phone, I lay on my bed for a nap at 4:00, woke up at 7:00 and went to the bathroom. There as I got up from the toilet I lost my balance and fell on the floor. Fortunately I was still conscious and I was not totally immobilized. So far so good.

     But I could not locate my iPhone. I had returned an alert device because it was too elaborate and had not ordered a simple button as yet to replace it, and I was careful to have the iPhone next to me. With no access to it I could not call 911, nor any friend nor any neighbor and the door knob was  too high to reach to allow me out in the hallway.

   So, I decided to try crawl back to my bedside. I was on the floor supine and could not turn around to face down. I used my shoulders and legs to inch along  the tight space to reach the bedside but didtn‘t find my IPhone there. This took all night. Frantically, i went around all the possible places in the apartment for three days and three nights without water, nor food nor sleep until presumably I collapsed.

     Liz Mackie with whom I was chatting before the nap knew of my recent weakening of balance, and, having failed to reach me by phone, came all the way from Brighton Beach at the southern tip of Brooklyn, and found me on the floor unconscious (actually hallucinating wildly), and called an ambulance to Weill/Cornell. She found my iPhone at the bottom of the washbasin sink where it slid down from its rim where evidently I had it resting instead of down to the floor. So, there was no chance my seeing it, not to speak of grabbing it, from my position 3 ft. off the floor.

     Five days at the hospital I regained my strength except for the muscular pain that stabs me when I move the body. Now at the Rehab I will receive Physical Therapy. I am on the two-week stay-in program. Except for the lower back pain, I am well, sleeping well though in short spurts of an hour or two and I am eating well, too. 

Happy end, almost.

I am grateful, too, that so many friends helped me with many errands of all sorts and looking after Vif my cat.

Kaori Kitao 🐂 01/06/20