No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Two weeks ago my upstairs neighbor knocked on my door and asked me to call an ambulance.  He looked awful, was having trouble breathing and in my professional medical opinion he needed emergency help.

I called 911 and they started asking questions.  I answered some and got his input on the others.  When they asked how long he had been in distress he said about six hours, since his roommate shoved him, but he didn't want his roommate arrested.  Well, next thing you know the police were there and then the ambulance arrived.  He was admitted to the hospital with six broken ribs and a fractured sternum. 

To paraphrase Ron White, "you have the right to remain silent, unfortunately his roommate didn't have the ability."  This tends to happen when you've been drinking Black Velvet all night long.  They took the roommate away for a mandatory twelve hour lockup and guess who he blamed?  Me.  The alcohol and his violent behavior had nothing to do his being arrested in his mind.  I would call 911 again in the same circumstances.

I'm the type of person that if you indicate you need help, I'll move heaven and earth to get there and help you.  Time of day, any illness that doesn't prevent me from driving, nor distance will stop me and I have friends who will testify to that.  I can even be persuaded to fly, which I won't do for me, but I will do for my friends or family.

Lucinda Rosenfeld (supposed advice columnist) is not that type of person.  Her response if you ever have the misfortune to need her help and you aren't a blood relative or swapping bodily fluids, is that you deserve whatever happens and that there is no need for a friend to pick you up at the hospital at 4 am in the morning after deserting you at the bar and the police have found you unconscious on the sidewalk after someone slipped you a mickey.  She has absolutely no compassion and has no business giving advice, even if it is not to read her column if you don't like her attitude.

I've had the unfortunate experience of being "mickeyed". My roommate took me to a local bar, had one drink and left.  It was happy hour so I ordered another one and went to the bathroom.  I do not remember leaving the bathroom, the bar, or any other part of that night though I seem to function pretty well in blackout mode.  I caught the 5:20 pm bus home, washed and folded four loads of laundry, cooked dinner for my roommates and their dates and critiqued one of their sexual encounters.  In person.  I was also sick behind a plant in the bedroom.  I woke up in the morning very disoriented, shaky and disturbed that I couldn't recall anything except entering the bathroom.  Not everyone is that lucky.

Several years ago I had what I thought was a friend.  It was right after I my accident and after the doctor did some research he called in a pain prescription that there was a good chance I wasn't allergic to.  I raced to the Kaiser pharmacy only to find that they had closed ten minutes early.  I was beside myself with pain.  I was crying on the phone that I couldn't take the pain anymore.  I got home, took Shai out to do her business and started to cook dinner.  I had the television on and was icing my knee when there was a knock at the door.  I limped over and there were two policemen.  They came into my house, turned off the television and stove, cuffed me, put me in the back of a patrol car in front of my neighbors and took me to the mental wing of the hospital. I was absolutely livid, almost shaking with anger but I knew that if I displayed even one adverse emotion I would be stuck there the whole time.  It took me three hours to convince the doctors to let me out, it's normally a mandatory 72 hour stay. 

My so-called friend had called the police and reported that I was going to kill myself without ever calling me again to see if I had been able to find an alternative to the missing pain medication.  I had.  I remembered I had a Valium somewhere and I found it in an unpacked box.  While most people know it as an anti-anxiety medication, it also works on pain.  Besides, I've had kidney stones which hurt a lot more and didn't try to kill myself though I did want someone to put me out of my misery.  Which the nurse did when she gave me a shot of Demerol.

Soon after I met this woman she had her knee replaced.  I showed up at the hospital, which was nowhere near my home, to keep her company.  I visited her in her home while she was recovering and was willing to help her out no matter what she needed.  When I looked like I needed help, instead of helping me herself, her response was to send the cops, give me a record that would prevent me from obtaining either life insurance or any type of job that required a thorough background check and have me incur a medical expense that I couldn't afford.  Nice "friend", wasn't she?  We haven't spoken since that day.

Ms. Rosenfeld also doesn't have the vaguest notion of what being a good friend is, even one of the editors was disturbed by her response.  Ms. Rosenfeld seems to be the type of person that if a criminal broke into your home and raped you, she would wonder whether or not you were wearing flannel pajamas and curlers to bed and that if you had, the criminal wouldn't have had the urge to rape you.  She is not an advice columnist, she's a female Limbaugh and should find, or be forced, to find another line of work.  Perhaps NAMBLA needs a spokesperson, she seems to be able to rationalize anything.

BBB