My Story 51

We frantically looked for someplace to move to. Some money was still coming in, mostly from students whom I continued to teach. I was also the Jewish chaplain for a local nursing home. Sadly, the nursing home changed owners, and over the course of two years, the position disappeared. Sima got a part time job as a receptionist in a dental office. She held that for two years. Everything seemed to be fine there until one day, two years later, the dentist called, telling Sima not to come in anymore, as he had "documentation" that she was stealing toothbrushes and dental floss (!!!). Of course, there was no truth to this. We can only speculate what was behind her firing. We at first looked for an apartment in Island Park and nearby areas. Things were either prohibitively expensive, or total dumps. We realized that this was no solution. Several of my kids were looking out for rentals for us in Far Rockaway (the southeastern corner of New York City). Once a fashionable Summer resort area, it had, since the late 1960s, deteriorated into a semi-slum, but showed signs of a beginning recovery. We looked at many hole-in-the-wall basement apartments, which brought back to us our ill-fated year in Monsey. On top of that, everyone I knew who had ever lived in Far Rockaway had horror stories of landlords from Hell. A few days before our month was up in Island Park, one of my daughters-in-law saw an online ad for a small, reasonably priced (by New York standards) apartment. Within ten minutes of the ad having been placed, she went and told the landlord that her in-laws would probably want it, and would be by the next morning. It was tiny by comparison with the house we were leaving, but since we were now "just the two of us", it would be adequate. This turned out to be a major blessing. First, the landlord, who put on a tough image, was, and is, one of the most generous and kind people I have ever met. Now, eleven years later, he is constantly showering us with gifts; sometimes even cash. Prices for rentals have gone up considerably in the area, but he has never raised the rent. Secondly, the entire area was hit half a year later by Superstorm Sandy. Island Park sustained the worst damage, taking a direct hit. Long Beach was without drinking water for weeks. The basement apartments we had looked at were totally underwater. Many homes are still uninhabitable. There were fatalities in Island Park. Far Rockaway was also badly hit. Many houses were severely damaged. The flood came exactly up to the beginning of the lawn of the house we now live in, no further. We were safe, and our possessions were miraculously intact. Our old synagogue had been hit badly, only a month after a flood caused by a burst water pipe on the eve of the High Holidays had caused extensive damage. (Services were held at Fr Tutone's church). I have been told that some speculated that this was Divine Retribution for the way I had been treated. We now had an apartment. We could see the hand of G-d in the midst of all this disaster.We were being protected. Still, I felt frustrated that I was, essentially useless. I offered to teach Torah online. Many expressed interest, but only one couple, who were considering conversion, actually followed through. Although they expressed gratitude to me, I am grateful to them, as this gave me a sense of doing some good in the world. The challenges, however, were still not over. The following year, 2013, family and friends raised money to enable Sima and me to make the Rosh HaShana pilgrimage to Uman. Sima had been there twice before, but never for Rosh HaShana, when some 80,000 people come from all over the world; mostly from Israel. Sima went a week early, helping one of our kids and his wife take care of their children. I was scheduled to leave a few days later, needing to do a program at the nursing home. The day she left, I woke up with a fever, a rash on my right leg, and difficulty breathing. I told her to go anyway, and I would see a doctor. The doctor called 911, and put me in the hospital. The local hospital was really bad. I had three doctors taking care of me, none of whom could speak a decent English. One was Russian, one Indian, and one Pakistani. I expected hostilities to break out at any moment. The Indian, and especially the Pakistani were really nasty as well. I was misdiagnosed several times. I was to spend Rosh HaShana in the hospital. For Shabbat and the two days of Rosh HaShana, two of my daughters and their husbands very generously took turns staying with me, so that I would not be alone. After two weeks, although the fever was gone, the rash, which had badly blistered, was still there. But the insurance had run out, and I was sent home. I saw my primary care physician, who took one look, and told me the leg needed to be amputated. One of my daughters-in-law urged me to go to a much better hospital, where her cousin was the chief of surgery. He ordered his wound specialist to see me immediately. The wound specialist said that he was too busy. The surgeon told him that if he didn't see me, he was out of a job. He suddenly changed his mind. (For once "protekzia" was working FOR me!) One of my sons drove me to the hospital, as I was mentally, emotionally, and spiritually preparing myself for the amputation. The specialist met me at the door, took a look at my leg, and told me that I had been grossly misdiagnosed, and needed nothing more than special stockings. The nightmare was over, except for a mysterious, severe joint pain, which had begun my second day in the hospital, and showed no signs of easing. Just getting in and out of bed gave me excruciating pain.I could only walk a few feet, and that only with a walker. No one knew what it was from, or how to treat it. Pain killers were next to useless. Later, it was later discovered that this was a side effect of one of the antibiotics I had been given. In some people, it attacked muscle. Several people had died. In fact, I was lucky to be alive. I was essentially bedridden for the next six months. Ironically, this proved to be a great blessing. More on that next time.