Congrats, it’s an ulcer

SHERWOOD KIRALY

It’s our dog Booker’s job to see that I get some air in the evening,

and the other night we were returning from our stroll down to the end

of Alta Laguna Boulevard when we saw flashing lights out in front of

our house. As we got closer we saw a squad car, an ambulance and a

fire engine pulled up to the curb.

I mentally riffled through my catastrophe Rolodex, but most of the

scenarios required me to be inside the house, cooking. There was no

visible smoke or flame, no noise. I met Patti Jo standing in our

driveway, and she said Katie was OK, inside.

It was then I found that the emergency help was all going next

door, and had been called in by our neighbor Stephen Marcus, who was

having chest pains.

This is just about everyone’s least-favorite phrase. Back when I

edited a syndicated Q&A; health column I could always whip up a good

facsimile of most of the conditions people wrote in about, and chest

pains were among my most vivid sympathy symptoms. Standing in the

driveway with Patti Jo and listening to the paramedic, I got them

again.

They were not, however, in the same league as the pains Stephen

was having.

The paramedic had already asked him how intense these were on a 1

to 10 scale, and he had answered, “8 or 9.” (He later told me this

was down considerably from the original, onset intensity, a pain he

thought of as “seismic.”)

Wife Elaine, and daughters Rachel and Emily, had been at

Disneyland and were now on their way home, so at the paramedic’s

suggestion we went inside to see if Stephen had anything he wanted us

to tell them. Stephen said later it was comforting to see familiar

faces among the strangers, and he waved to us as he was wheeled out.

We found out after an hour or so that Stephen, who used to suffer

from a mild ulcer, was now suffering from a perforated one.

The quick response from the paramedics and the South Coast Medical

personnel had him patched and home in eight days, instructed to eat

“low-residual” food -- another phrase to give one pause. Better than

“chest pains,” though.

So the night of the flashing lights is past, and low-residual diet

or no, Stephen is relieved. He is a psychologist, and alive to the

distinctions the mind makes among stimuli. He is well aware that he’s

met with perhaps the only set of circumstances in which a perforated

ulcer can be called good news.

We’re all grateful, and very impressed with the emergency presence

here in town. It’s reassuring to know how responsive these folks are,

especially inasmuch as I’ve now got this fiery thing going on in my

stomach, up here at the top.