gettin' down here with the people

It was a typical Saturday night, but it turned out to be anything but typical.

I picked my son up around 5 o'clock, just after he finished his on-air shift at the radio station where he works. We had plans to go to a concert in Delaware, just over the Pennsylvania border. We had plenty of time, so we hopped on the subway and headed to a new restaurant we had heard about to grab dinner. Pretty typical so far.

After dinner, we jumped back on the westbound subway to get my car and make our way down to the show. I punched the address of the venue into the GPS on my phone and we were off. After crossing the state boundary, I carefully followed the mechanical-voiced instructions though uncharted rural Delaware thoroughfares until we arrived at our destination, which, in this case, was the Arden Gild Hall. Again, pretty typical.

It was our first time at Arden Gild, a rustic looking compound comprised of several utility buildings and a large main structure that, once inside, my son observed that it looked like a "hunting lodge for rich weirdos." The room was slowly filling up and the weather had just turned to a more seasonal clime for our area. Actually, the temperature was inching towards the higher numbers on the scale. We spotted a few members of both the warm-up act (Scantron) and the headliner (Low Cut Connie), both of whom we've seen numerous times before. As a matter of fact, the bands actually share a few members. My son and I chatted with James and Larry, the Connie boys' guitarist and drummer respectively, and then moved closer to the stage as the lights dimmed and the first band played the opening notes of their first song. Still, nothing out of the ordinary.

After a brief intermission, my son and I moved even closer to the stage. Scantron burst onto the stage with the same high-energy, high-octane bravura they displayed a week ago on the tiny stage at Kung Fu Necktie. Performing this time as a trio (with a supplemental keyboardist), the band ripped through a raucous playlist that included garage rockers and odes to James' Delaware roots. Scantron concluded their set and crew began setting up for Low Cut Connie's show-closing set. I talked with my son and a photographer friend of his. Soon our conversation was joined by a lovely couple we have met at many a Connie show, who just happen to be the parents of Low Cut Connie's charismatic frontman Adam Weiner. So far, so typical.

Suddenly, a strange feeling fuzzed up my head and my vision. Things started to get atypical.

As the stage crew adjusted mic stands, arranged guitar stands and placed the venerable "Shondra" (Adam's trusty, road-worn piano) in her usual spot at the front of the stage, my peripheral vision began to close in creating the effect of standing in a darkened tunnel. My head began to swim. I removed my denim jacket and tied it around my waist. I leaned toward my son and asked him if he could get me a bottle of water. He took several steps towards the bar at the back of the venue, but stopped to grab a folding chair for me. He could tell I was a little "off." He didn't have time to unfold the chair as I fell unconscious into his arms. Adam's father jumped from his chair and rushed to my aid, helping my son to lower me to the floor. I don't remember any of this. I only remember opening my eyes to see a dozen or so faces peering down on me from my prone position. My shirt was drenched in my own perspiration. Two women, crouched on either side of me, identified themselves as nurses. One grasped my wrist as she searched for a pulse, while the other started in with a barrage of questions — "What's your name?," "How old are you?" (My son later informed me that I got that one wrong.) The one that momentarily jolted me back to my senses was "Who's the president?" I remember scowling and cautioning my interrogator not to get me started.

My son and Adam's dad hoisted me into a folding chair. Someone placed a wet towel on my neck. I felt better, but only for a few minutes because I passed out a second time. Meanwhile, the venue's announcer was backstage, informing the band that "some guy with bright orange hair passed out in front of the stage." Adam interrupted his pre-show rituals to exclaim, "I know that guy." When I came around the second time, Adam was kneeling on the floor in front of me, grasping my sweaty palms in his hands. The rest of the band was at the edge of the stage, gazing down on me, along with nearly everyone else in place. I looked up to see my son on his cellphone.

"Who are you calling?," I asked.

"911.," he replied. He was calm and in control.

Soon, the crowd parted for two EMTs who helped me on to a gurney and wheeled me out to a waiting ambulance. As they shoved me backwards into the vehicle, my head reeled. My son announced, "I guess this is a good time to call Mom." He punched in my home phone number and slowly, coolly and calmly explained the situation to my wife, who was an hour away in Philadelphia. As I was whisked off to the hospital, with my son in the ambulance's passenger seat and my wife frantically dressing then speeding south on I-95, I could imagine the chatter among the people at the concert venue.

"I wonder what that guy was on?"

"Wow! I think that guy died!"

"I never saw anyone with that color hair before!"

Within minutes, I was in a small room in the emergency department of Christiana Care Hospital in Wilmington. An attentive team of technicians, nurses and doctors dutifully poked and prodded me. They asked me the same questions several times over. They took my blood pressure a million times and extracted many vials of blood from my left arm. A bag of some magic rejuvenating fluid was attached to my right arm via a tube and I began to feel much better. A short time later, my wife arrived at the emergency room, blotting tears from her eyes. She made me promise that I wouldn't die.

I would find out later that Adam and his pals dedicated the evening's performance to me. (Appreciated, but how embarrassing!) The next day, my Twitter feed lit up with well wishes and concern from a sampling of people I met at the show. (Appreciated, but how embarrassing!) My son stated that, while we can never show our faces at Arden Gild again, I better not pull that shit in September, when Low Cut Connie makes a return trip to Union Transfer in Philadelphia. "I go to Union Transfer a lot," he explained, "I want to be able to go there again." (How very embarrassing!)

I'm just happy that this didn't turn out to be Low Cut Connie's "Gimme Shelter."

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

the cold never bothered me anyway

Who ever imagined that a lingering cold would land me in the hospital? Certainly not me. But, here's how it happened.....

My family and I had just returned home from a fun, whirlwind vacation in Walt Disney World. We were four adults, traveling in my tiny Toyota RAV4 packed with our luggage and in each other's close company for nearly 32 hours of actual "car time," as we opted to drive from Philadelphia to central Florida (and back) instead of taking the more modern method of flight. But, still we had a great time. That is, until we realized that our little caravan had turned into a rolling Petri dish during our return trip. My son, who makes his living as an on-air host at a local radio station, was the first to exhibit the scratchy throat and stuffy nose symptoms of an oncoming cold. His girlfriend, ever the trooper, fought off a few sniffles and I could feel that feeling in the back of my throat as well. By the time we got home, my son had to miss a few more days of work and I began to display the full-blown effects of an early Autumn cold. I waged the battle with over-the-counter remedies that really don't work. 

For three consecutive nights before bed, I downed a shot of Walgreen's version of NyQuil, not event the real stuff, just a store-branded equivalent. It wasn't doing a thing for my illness, yet I still continued to take it. 

Every morning, I wake for work and shuffle to the bathroom, where as part of my regular ritual, I take a 10 mg tablet of Amlodipine (for high blood pressure) and a 10 mg tablet of Lipitor for... gosh, I'm not even sure. On Tuesday, however, at 6:30 am, I shuffled into the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet, unscrewed the lid of the Amlodipine bottle and, suddenly, this was my view...

I could see my peripheral vision closing in like so many movie special effects simulating someone looking thorough a pair of binoculars. I knew I was about to pass out. I was totally aware of the fact that I was about to pass out. The next thing I knew, I was lying on my side on the bathroom floor, my knees curled up towards my chin. I could feel the bathmat bunched up underneath my prone body. "Wow!," I proudly thought to myself, "I knew I was about to pass out and I had the wherewithal to sit down of the floor." I lay on the floor for a few more seconds before slowly righting myself, still offering self-congratulation for my clear thinking in a potential moment of crisis. However, when I glanced around, my Amlodipine pills were scattered all over the bathroom floor, the empty bottle laying on its side under the radiator. "Oh," I silently reconsidered, "I guess I wasn't such a quick thinker." I began to search for and gather up the pills that littered the floor until I opened my eyes to find myself flat on the floor once again. Except this time, my hand was cocked and (luckily) cradling my head. But I could feel that the back of my head was wet. I grabbed a wad of toilet paper and held it to the back of my head. I also spotted a smear of blood on the tile floor near the bath tub. I slowly got to my feet with the aid of the solid tub as a support. I shuffled back to the bedroom and gently shook my still-sleeping wife.

"Susan," I whispered. She stirred lazily. "I just passed out in the bathroom," and just to panic her even more, I added: "Twice."

I shambled over to my side of the bed and literally plopped forward, my face burying into my pillow.

Mrs. P, now fully jarred awake, asked, "Do you want to go to the hospital?" I replied with the standard answer, as approved to maintain my membership in good standing in the Indestructible Male Member of Society Club. I, of course, answered, "No." And, in case the membership committee was lurking nearby, monitoring my responses to such masculinity-threatening questions, I sealed my stance with "I'll be alright." What an idiot!

Three hours later — that's right, I laid there for three hours, drifting in and out of consciousness while my wife applied bags of ice and wet towels to the wound on the back of my head. Finally, she said, "Y'know this cut on your head could probably use a stitch or two. You should probably go to the hospital." Still not giving in, I conceded under the pretense of "I'll go... if it will make you happy." Not me. This was all just to pacify my wife. 

I managed to pull on some clothes and she drove to the hospital. I sat in the passenger's seat with a paper towel clamped to the bleeding laceration on my head. Mrs. P and I explained our presence to the reception nurse in the emergency room and I was immediately admitted. Suddenly, a swarm of attentive medical personnel descended upon me like seagulls on a stray french fry on the beach. I was poked and prodded, questioned and researched. The nurse who seemed to be running things, a burly guy who resembled "Newman" from Seinfeld, pointedly asked "When did this happen?" and, when given the answer, frowned and scolded "You should have come in at 6:30!" I could feel every accusing eye in the room accusing me even more.

It was decided that I would stay in the hospital for 24-hour observation. Before I was placed in an actual room, I was subjected to a barrage of tests — a CAT scan, an EKG and others with equally-cryptic sounding acronyms. I was hooked up to a heart monitor whose leads were affixed to my hirsute torso with extremely sticky leads. There seemed to be a serious concern about the accuracy of the readings and proposal of shaving some of my chest hair was brought up several times. In the end, the leads were adjusted and my chest was spared.

After all the tests were completed, a friendly young intern entered the curtained ER area. He told me he was there to close up my wound. He asked me to roll over on my left side and he positioned himself behind me, completely out of my line of vision. Taking this into consideration, he happily narrated the entire procedure to me, as he irrigated, cleaned and ultimately stapled the four-inch gash closed with what sounded like the stapler I have on my desk at work. He admired the eleven staples he inserted into my scalp, even removing and replacing two that he just "didn't like the looks of," I helplessly obliged as he readjusted his handiwork. At last count, Mrs. Pincus was only off by nine.

I was given ample time to rest and then I was transported by wheelchair to the room that would be my home for the next day. I was hooked up to an electronically-monitored IV that would be my constant companion for the next 24-hour period. Then began the parade of more hospital workers, each with a different task all ending with me. I had my blood pressure taken every few hours and four different people, each claiming to be from "the lab" took blood from my left arm at regular intervals. I believe they were actually using their plasma harvest to paint a room nearby.

Late on Wednesday afternoon, with all tests concluded and determinations made, I was released from my hospital ordeal. It was decided that my syncope episode (that's hospital lingo for "fainting") was caused by a viral illness, i.e. a cold — although I have received plenty of contrary assessments from friends and relatives with no medical background whatsoever. I also have what looks like a zipper running up the back of my head and I still get a little light-headed when I stand up too quickly or change the position of my head. Oh, and I suffered a mild concussion, so that self-diagnosis of "sleeping it off" was probably not a good idea. According to a sign placed outside of my hospital room, I have been labeled a "fall risk." So, there's a burden I must carry with me for the rest of my life. Kind of like "smart ass."

And, I still have that damn cold.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com