SOL Tuesday: Donating (a delicate subject)

I came to the Bronx today to donate the unused catheters left over from two years ago, after Jack came home from rehab. (If you don’t care for potty talk, you can skip this one.)

            The rehab place had left his Foley catheter in place; apparently, they didn’t know how to teach an old person to catheterize himself. Jack hated needing me to help him in dealing with the Foley, which was also not a very easy process. So Jack went to a urologist, who showed him how to do it himself; we bought a box of catheters, Jack had the Foley removed, and after a couple of weeks, he was back to normal with his “toileting.”

            Jack would have thrown away the half a box remaining, but I can’t do that. Why not call the urologist and see whether I could give him the leftovers, which he could give to a patient, since these things are expensive. But after Jack died, I learned that the urologist was no longer at Roosevelt (now Mt. Sinai West) Hospital. (Like Jack’s cardiologists and hand doctor, there’s been an exodus of doctors from Roosevelt.)

            Finally I found the urologist online at his new hospital, in the Bronx. Yes, I could bring the catheters to his office. But by public transportation it took about an hour and a half to get there. The  Google map was not that helpful, either; this hospital is much more accessible by car than walking (from the bus), few sidewalks, obstacles Google doesn’t know about.

            However, mission accomplished in five minutes. And I love coming to neighborhoods in this city I have never been to. This one (Morris Park) has two- and three-story buildings with ground-floor storefronts and apartments above. Shops with Spanish and a few Arabic signs; a West Indian restaurant; phone stores; discount stores. And the elevated “subway” follows for a short distance the Boston Road, aka the Boston Post Road, aka the King’s Highway, aka Route 1 (which has run from Boston to New York since the 17th century).