Rohan and Mary Ghansam, a couple for 10 years and married for the past six, worked in the once-resplendent Concord Hotel in the Catskills together. For eight years, they were also caretakers at a Jewish bungalow colony together. And this June, they had open-heart surgery. Together.
Rohan Ghansam sorts through the medications that he and his wife, Mary, right, take. “We're barely breaking even,” he said.
Paul Taggart for The New York Times
“Let me tell you, after open-heart surgery together, that’s it,” Ms. Ghansam, 53, said one autumn evening. “I never heard of a husband and wife having open-heart surgery together. Who does that? I asked the doctor, ‘Can we get a two-for-one deal?’ ” She paused, waiting for the laugh. “Of course, he said no.”
The trouble began in late spring, when Ms. Ghansam began having chest pains. She had to have a cardiac catheterization, but complications required her to be placed under sedation for a week.
Two weeks after she was sent home, Mr. Ghansam, also 53, went in for a checkup and failed a stress test. He was told to go to Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, N.Y., about 60 miles south of where they lived on Kiamesha Lake. It was the same hospital where Ms. Ghansam had received her cardiac catheterization. The memory of the experience proved too much for her to handle, and she began having chest pains again. Both husband and wife were admitted for bypass surgery.
“When I called my mother and said I was having a triple bypass,” Ms. Ghansam recalled, “she said, ‘You are going to be fine.’ I said, ‘Ma, you ain’t heard it all. Rohan is having a quadruple!’ She said, ‘Mary, you got to be kidding!’ ”
Ms. Ghansam had hers first. Afterward, though weak and still sedated, she said she asked about her husband “a thousand times” after his procedure the next day. They could not stay in the same room because their shared surname meant their medications might have been confused. But as soon as he was out of surgery, she dragged herself to his room next door to visit.
“Oh, we were the talk of the hospital,” Ms. Ghansam said.
But reality set in soon after their release. The incision in Ms. Ghansam’s chest was taking forever to heal, and Mr. Ghansam needed stents in seven of his arteries. Then there was their home on Kiamesha Lake. They had lived there free in exchange for managing the property, which included enough land for chickens and ducks and a garden full of peppers and tomatoes.
“I came home on June 5, he came home June 6, and on the 8th, the landlord said that we had to move,” Ms. Ghansam said.
“I told him, ‘We can’t lift five pounds between us.’ ” she said. “ ‘How are we going to move?’ ”
The landlord gave them two months, during which time they found a cramped one-bedroom in a rundown section of Monticello, about 95 miles northwest of New York City, with the help of a $600 grant from Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. It was not what they were used to, and they were not accustomed to the new expenses they were saddled with.
Ms. Ghansam said the couple did not know how much utilities like electricity and gas cost “because we didn’t pay them.”
Though they receive food stamps and are on Medicaid, and Mr. Ghansam collects $680 a month in workers’ compensation, they live without a steady income because they are not well enough to return to work. They might never be. Their best hope is early Social Security; their applications are pending.
“All this time we lived up here we never needed the government — until we got sick,” Mr. Ghansam said. “We’re barely breaking even.”
“We can’t even go out and eat fast food,” Ms. Ghansam said.
She paused.
“It’s not good for us anyway,” she concluded with a laugh. “One thing is for sure. We lived through this because we had each other.” [rc]
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
November 21, 2009
USA: Two Heart Surgeries Strain a Couple’s Finances, but Not Their Bond
.
NEW YORK, NY / The New York Times / November 21, 2009
By Jennifer Mascia, Montinello, N.Y.
Rohan and Mary Ghansam, a couple for 10 years and married for the past six, worked in the once-resplendent Concord Hotel in the Catskills together. For eight years, they were also caretakers at a Jewish bungalow colony together. And this June, they had open-heart surgery. Together.
Rohan Ghansam sorts through the medications that he and his wife, Mary, right, take. “We're barely breaking even,” he said.
Paul Taggart for The New York Times
“Let me tell you, after open-heart surgery together, that’s it,” Ms. Ghansam, 53, said one autumn evening. “I never heard of a husband and wife having open-heart surgery together. Who does that? I asked the doctor, ‘Can we get a two-for-one deal?’ ” She paused, waiting for the laugh. “Of course, he said no.”
The trouble began in late spring, when Ms. Ghansam began having chest pains. She had to have a cardiac catheterization, but complications required her to be placed under sedation for a week.
Two weeks after she was sent home, Mr. Ghansam, also 53, went in for a checkup and failed a stress test. He was told to go to Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, N.Y., about 60 miles south of where they lived on Kiamesha Lake. It was the same hospital where Ms. Ghansam had received her cardiac catheterization. The memory of the experience proved too much for her to handle, and she began having chest pains again. Both husband and wife were admitted for bypass surgery.
“When I called my mother and said I was having a triple bypass,” Ms. Ghansam recalled, “she said, ‘You are going to be fine.’ I said, ‘Ma, you ain’t heard it all. Rohan is having a quadruple!’ She said, ‘Mary, you got to be kidding!’ ”
Ms. Ghansam had hers first. Afterward, though weak and still sedated, she said she asked about her husband “a thousand times” after his procedure the next day. They could not stay in the same room because their shared surname meant their medications might have been confused. But as soon as he was out of surgery, she dragged herself to his room next door to visit.
“Oh, we were the talk of the hospital,” Ms. Ghansam said.
But reality set in soon after their release. The incision in Ms. Ghansam’s chest was taking forever to heal, and Mr. Ghansam needed stents in seven of his arteries. Then there was their home on Kiamesha Lake. They had lived there free in exchange for managing the property, which included enough land for chickens and ducks and a garden full of peppers and tomatoes.
“I came home on June 5, he came home June 6, and on the 8th, the landlord said that we had to move,” Ms. Ghansam said.
“I told him, ‘We can’t lift five pounds between us.’ ” she said. “ ‘How are we going to move?’ ”
The landlord gave them two months, during which time they found a cramped one-bedroom in a rundown section of Monticello, about 95 miles northwest of New York City, with the help of a $600 grant from Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. It was not what they were used to, and they were not accustomed to the new expenses they were saddled with.
Ms. Ghansam said the couple did not know how much utilities like electricity and gas cost “because we didn’t pay them.”
Though they receive food stamps and are on Medicaid, and Mr. Ghansam collects $680 a month in workers’ compensation, they live without a steady income because they are not well enough to return to work. They might never be. Their best hope is early Social Security; their applications are pending.
“All this time we lived up here we never needed the government — until we got sick,” Mr. Ghansam said. “We’re barely breaking even.”
“We can’t even go out and eat fast food,” Ms. Ghansam said.
She paused.
“It’s not good for us anyway,” she concluded with a laugh. “One thing is for sure. We lived through this because we had each other.” [rc]
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Rohan and Mary Ghansam, a couple for 10 years and married for the past six, worked in the once-resplendent Concord Hotel in the Catskills together. For eight years, they were also caretakers at a Jewish bungalow colony together. And this June, they had open-heart surgery. Together.
Rohan Ghansam sorts through the medications that he and his wife, Mary, right, take. “We're barely breaking even,” he said.
Paul Taggart for The New York Times
“Let me tell you, after open-heart surgery together, that’s it,” Ms. Ghansam, 53, said one autumn evening. “I never heard of a husband and wife having open-heart surgery together. Who does that? I asked the doctor, ‘Can we get a two-for-one deal?’ ” She paused, waiting for the laugh. “Of course, he said no.”
The trouble began in late spring, when Ms. Ghansam began having chest pains. She had to have a cardiac catheterization, but complications required her to be placed under sedation for a week.
Two weeks after she was sent home, Mr. Ghansam, also 53, went in for a checkup and failed a stress test. He was told to go to Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, N.Y., about 60 miles south of where they lived on Kiamesha Lake. It was the same hospital where Ms. Ghansam had received her cardiac catheterization. The memory of the experience proved too much for her to handle, and she began having chest pains again. Both husband and wife were admitted for bypass surgery.
“When I called my mother and said I was having a triple bypass,” Ms. Ghansam recalled, “she said, ‘You are going to be fine.’ I said, ‘Ma, you ain’t heard it all. Rohan is having a quadruple!’ She said, ‘Mary, you got to be kidding!’ ”
Ms. Ghansam had hers first. Afterward, though weak and still sedated, she said she asked about her husband “a thousand times” after his procedure the next day. They could not stay in the same room because their shared surname meant their medications might have been confused. But as soon as he was out of surgery, she dragged herself to his room next door to visit.
“Oh, we were the talk of the hospital,” Ms. Ghansam said.
But reality set in soon after their release. The incision in Ms. Ghansam’s chest was taking forever to heal, and Mr. Ghansam needed stents in seven of his arteries. Then there was their home on Kiamesha Lake. They had lived there free in exchange for managing the property, which included enough land for chickens and ducks and a garden full of peppers and tomatoes.
“I came home on June 5, he came home June 6, and on the 8th, the landlord said that we had to move,” Ms. Ghansam said.
“I told him, ‘We can’t lift five pounds between us.’ ” she said. “ ‘How are we going to move?’ ”
The landlord gave them two months, during which time they found a cramped one-bedroom in a rundown section of Monticello, about 95 miles northwest of New York City, with the help of a $600 grant from Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. It was not what they were used to, and they were not accustomed to the new expenses they were saddled with.
Ms. Ghansam said the couple did not know how much utilities like electricity and gas cost “because we didn’t pay them.”
Though they receive food stamps and are on Medicaid, and Mr. Ghansam collects $680 a month in workers’ compensation, they live without a steady income because they are not well enough to return to work. They might never be. Their best hope is early Social Security; their applications are pending.
“All this time we lived up here we never needed the government — until we got sick,” Mr. Ghansam said. “We’re barely breaking even.”
“We can’t even go out and eat fast food,” Ms. Ghansam said.
She paused.
“It’s not good for us anyway,” she concluded with a laugh. “One thing is for sure. We lived through this because we had each other.” [rc]
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
