Brain Trust

An introduction to our Substack

Methodist Hospital Park Slope, 2016, 3am or thereabouts

BRAIN TRUST By Andrew Stephens

In 2010, I spectacularly collapsed on the D train platform at 7th Avenue and 53rd Street. It was the week before Thanksgiving and I was on my way home to Brooklyn after an afternoon meal with friends. In 2016 I, again, collapsed. This time twice: once in the bathroom at Freddy’s in South Slope and then again, minutes later, over a mostly-full pilsner in the booth I was occupying with friends. Seven dollars I will never get back. 

What I’ve now come to understand – by way of a medical resident working the overnight shift at Methodist Hospital – is that, in very rare instances, my blood pressure can drop suddenly and dramatically. So much so that if I am standing, I quickly find the floor. In both 2010 and 2016, the floor was an unforgiving concrete coated with what smelled like urine-based epoxy.

There aren't any warning signs for this mild condition except that it is stress related. Unfortunately, I am not excellent at understanding my body’s stress signals. The surest remedy, I guess, is simply never to stand upright if I am stressed. I like the idea, I practice the idea some days. But it’s not sustainable. I like to dance and I like to walk and my butt hurts if I sit for too long. Plus, good stress is a propulsive energy that, in theory, I’d like to harness. And so, I carry my stress around on two feet waiting for the next moment when I’ll wake in a stunned daze as concerned faces float above me with expressions of alarm.

In 2010, when the first incident occurred, I was traveling home with my good friend and roommate at the time, Andy. As a friend would do, he picked me up, wiped me off, and helped me onto the downtown train to Sunset Park. On the ride home, I vehemently refused medical help. Andy insisted. So, begrudgingly, I found myself in Maimonides Medical Center’s (2.5 Star Google Review) drab, overstuffed emergency room. 

As is standard in every emergency room I’ve ever been in, all the beds were taken. The hall was filled with the moans and groans of the afflicted. People holding bandages on cut fingers, over poked eyes. A pregnant woman gently massaging her large stomach. A small boy with a small plastic toy occupied himself while his father tried to catch the eye of a nurse, any nurse; all of whom were experts in the art of non-engagement. And so it went that we spent several hours under buzzy fluorescents, finally taking our leave with a diagnosis of a possible concussion and the advice to rest and hydrate.

In 2016, when the second (and third) incident occurred I, again, vehemently refused medical help. By this time, Andy had moved to Detroit and was not physically around to insist. Instead, I found myself in the care of Amrita, who, while great in a crisis, was visibly shaken. It did not help that I failed to mention the previous incident of 2010. It did not help that I stubbornly insisted, partially out of embarrassment, that I was fine to go home. It did not help that I, a compulsively responsible person, needed to transport my piano home from the bar after a performance that had taken place earlier in the evening. For me, a medical situation could wait. Even better, a medical situation could be ignored.  

The taxi ride home with Amrita, our friend Jeff, and a two-ton electric piano not meant for transporting, was heavy with concern. Not sure how to handle my obstinate determination to evade medical attention, Amrita called Andy. After relaying the incident, Amrita passed the phone my way.

“Hi, love, how are you?” Andy gently spoke in his friendly, midwestern way. “I hear that you fell.”

“Hey. I’m fine.” I mumbled.

“I know that you don’t want to go to the hospital, and I understand, but just imagine how disappointed your mother would be with Amrita if something is really wrong, God-forbid.”

He had done it to me again. This was the same motivational factor, the same reason, that had convinced me in 2010 to seek medical attention. Back then, I was stuck with a $500 medical bill for extra-strength Tylenol that was hard to pay. I had Tylenol upstairs in my apartment. I had water too. Some sleep, some pain reliever, hydration, I would be fine in the morning.

“But, what if?” Amrita gently asked.

I’m stubborn, for sure, but not usually when it unduly burdens someone else. I did not want to burden Amrita with my potential death; one brought on by internal bleeding in the brain. We unloaded the piano into my apartment and left for the hospital.

The Methodist Hospital (3.0 Star Google Review) emergency room in Park Slope was also out of beds and out of room. Gurneys lined up in the hallway. The smell of takeout food, disinfectant, and dirty skin permeated the stale air. A gunshot victim writhed in the open. Other patients joined me in the waiting room designed for those accompanying patients. Amrita and I sat for hours. We left in the early morning, me with an overpriced extra-strength Tylenol, Amrita with the knowledge that she had done a responsible thing. The bill was for $700. This time I refused to pay.

In 2010, Andy was my emergency contact when I fell. In 2016, Andy was this person again, only in a different way. He was not physically there, but, from a distance, he persuaded my sorry ass to get to the hospital. He recounted the incident from 2010 so that we could find answers with the doctor. He checked in several times over the long night, and days later. We were no longer roommates living in the same city by this point. We did not even speak all that often. But emergencies have a way of erasing space and time. 

Amrita was my emergency contact that day, too, of course. She listened to the doctor, helped fill out forms, and stayed by my side in a painfully stiff pleather chair. She has been an emergency contact many times, as have so have many other people in my life. I, like most of us, have had many emergencies: fashion emergencies, plumbing emergencies, financial emergencies, soup dumpling emergencies.

So, why do I recount these two related, but minor, incidents? One, because it’s our newsletter and I’ve mostly outgrown the need to justify myself to others – even to myself sometimes – and would like to warn the reader that I may, from time to time, write something for the simple pleasure of it. And two, more seriously, because there is something so sweet about the compounding nature of close relationships. I’ve known Andy since college and Amrita since I moved to New York. They’ve now known each other for years. Like Captain Planet, it was their combined powers that helped me that night, from near and from afar. My emergency contacts (notice the pluralization).

The title of this Substack, of course, refers to the close person one writes down on medical forms. The singular person to be contacted should things go awry. But read differently, the title also refers to the serious way that we all need to be connected to one another. The way humans need to be in contact, sometimes emergently, with the people and the things that we love. 

I see this newsletter as an exploration into the fundamental relationships and contact points that make a life; relationships with others, with ourselves, with change, art, family, the physical body, the earth, even endings and death. The connections that are often listed below romantic entanglements and genetic relations, filed under vague categories like “hobbies” or “interests.”

I have strong relationships with my friends and family. My concussion stories are evidence. I also have strong relationships with music, the turning of the seasons, laughter, ennui. Starting now, on a weekly basis, I hope to form a strong relationship with you, too, reader. 

See you next Tuesday (not an insult, just a fact)! Oh, and, between now and then, if you find yourself in an emergency, I highly recommend that you contact Andy and Amrita (5.0 Star Andrew Review).

- Andrew

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Editor’s note:

Yes, this is a collaborative Substack. Yes, the medical events above are entirely true (except I believe Andrew may have lowballed the hospital’s Tylenol cost, which to this day remains unpaid). To get things rolling on this weekly dispatch, we have chosen to reflect separately on our title.

Next week, I’m at bat, taking swings at the dating advice I’ve received. In the meantime, I invite you to get lost in this week’s mix, below.

- Amrita

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The weekly playlist from our radio show Assisted Living, every Sunday 6-8 est on EM-Radio.com

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