New York City gossip hounds may have noticed a gaping hole in the city’s coverage of the proud and powerful for the past four months. That’s because Cindy Adams, the last of the great name columnists, has been down for the count. Today, in her comeback column, she explains what was up:
Surgeons moved organs around inside me and discovered a ruptured appendix, which poisoned my whole system. Discovered serious anemia. Discovered heart valves needed TLC. Discovered more things they could adjust than Himself ever put inside my body. During forever in ICU, I discovered never will I be free of these practitioners. My 5-foot-4 became their new passport to longer Wednesday-afternoon golf. I came home with day nurses, night nurses, a salad of meds surpassing whatever Lindsay Lohan might’ve once taken, plus a big, tall gismo feeding me six weeks of antibiotics. Plus more tests and doctor appointments. Plus a physical therapist because I could no longer walk. Trust me, I was not ready for prime time. Today, I now walk. Not run. Walk.
Sounds bad, right? According to Cindy, doctors at New York Presbyterian told her: “You were the sickest person here.” And: “Any of your three prime conditions nearly did you in.” Cindy maintained her trademark perspective the whole time: “Seems another day and I’d have been interviewing Walter Cronkite,” she cracked. (For what it’s worth, Intel Chris’s appendix ruptured years ago and poisoned all his innards, and it was just about as awful as she described.)
Hilariously, since Cindy has no close family members, the person she appointed to make medical decisions for her was … Judge Judy. Her best friend. (Her other best friend, Barbara Walters, supplied her personal doctor at the beginning of the affair, because Cindy doesn’t have her own.) Anyway, lest you think that a brush with death has changed our gal, here’s how she closed today’s column:
My assistant, Molly, kept a daily list of everyone who [called, visited, or sent gifts]. So, with elevatormen lugging up hourly packages, can it be remotely possible that anyone I’d considered close did not phone, write, try to visit when I came home or send even a note?
And can it be that, despite my fragility, could I actually maybe even be remotely aware of those dear innocent souls who did not check in?
Oh Cindy, welcome back!
