Back To School....Again!

Well, sorry to all who still check this site from time to time for info and updates, but we got a little carried away with the move back up here and getting re-settled and teaching again. Not to mention the fact that I hadn't posted since, well, February of last term. So, here's a bit of what's been going on since then........

After the loss of Mac last February, I'm glad to say the rest of the semester led to happier days.....I had the chance to do Hector in a quite wonderful production of The History Boys here on campus, and Sonja had the luxury of a performance slot off, with the extra free time that that suggests. At the end of term, the Music and Theatre Dept.s mounted a fully staged production of Leonard Bernstein's Mass....it was pretty amazing, and I ended up singing in the Street Chorus, two solo lines and all. I can't remember the last time I've been that frightened on stage (singing professionally is one of those things that still terrifies me, no matter how often I do it), but it all worked out, huge undertaking that it was, and worked out better than anyone expected, I think. To quote Tony Shaloub's character in Galaxy Quest, "That was a hell of a thing....."

The summer for both of us was spent back in Philly, and was, in truth, pretty awful. As we were coming back here for our third and last year this fall, we couldn't collect unemployment, and in this economy, there just weren't any jobs out there; Sony ended up doing some dog walking for our friend Ellen again, and I worked for the Walnut St. Theatre doing telephone sales in their subscription office. And so we scraped by as best we could, and couldn't wait to get back to Ithaca.

The one good thing to come out of the summer months, is that we discovered that probably for a decade or more, Sonja has suffered from severe obstructive sleep apnea. So for all that time, she hasn't been getting s good, restful night's sleep, and it's hard to underestimate the long term effects that's had on her over all physicality (though what role the condition played in her crisis of two years ago is impossible to say) . Happily, it's a condition easily addressed with a simple breathing apparatus worn while sleeping and she's responded beautifully to it! She felt better the very next day. Up to the point of finding all this out, her A. Fib. had been getting worse (in terms of controlling it on a daily basis), and we were faced with having a pacemaker put in to help her heart cope with the stress. That has now all been put on hold while she improves from addressing the sleep apnea, and we're hopeful that this year we'll be able to make some real progress toward better overall health. Great, great news!!!

And now we've been back here since middle of August, in the same apt. we had last year on Slaterville Rd. All's gone well so far; finished a strong production of The Servant Of Two Masters a couple of weeks ago, and are already back in rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet (that's right, she's doing the Nurse again and I'm reprising Friar Laurence). Great to get back to the classroom, too.....we both have good classes this fall, sharp kids, bright and curious. And perhaps most importantly everyone's healthy so far....Sonja, me, Spenser and Bea Lillie!!! Hope you and yours are having a wonderful fall season, and that nothing but good things comes your way!! Will try to update this more frequently in the future, and in the meantime, love to you all from all of us!!!

-- Paul

Goodbye To The Macallan......

It seems somehow that this winter and it's storms and sub zero temperatures will never end....or maybe it's just that both Sonja and I have been struggling with winter colds of late (hers turning into Bronchitis on the way to getting better, mine more recent and apparently still undecided as to what mayhem it might cause). Or more likely, it's just the obvious.....

On January 25th, we finally had to euthanize our beloved companion of more than 10 years, Mac, and it is in truth still difficult to talk about. As he first adopted us in 1999,in Montgomery, finding Sonja in a parking lot and never looking back, we never really were sure of his actual age. It must have been close to 16 or 17 from what we could tell, and certainly in the last month of his life his systems seemed to all be slowly failing him. We knew his time was coming, though there is never really any genuine preparing for the loss. He was the heart of our little "pack". He will be forever missed and remembered. Macky.....R.I.P.

Happy Solkwanzchanachuhmas!!!

Here's hoping you all have a happy and healthy Holiday Season!!! Just kick off your shoes and put your feet up near this photo, and you'll feel....well....a little pixilated maybe, but that's about it. Go hug somebody instead.....And per several requests, as we moved again this past summer into new digs here in Ithaca, I've included our mailing address here for cards and such.

Paul and Sonja
1517 1/2 Slaterville Rd.
Ithaca, NY 14850

All of our love and best wishes to all of our friends, across the country and in Europe!! Merry Christmas!!!!!

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Christmas Break.......

Well, for all of you (or both of you) who are still checking in on the blog periodically, just a quick note to let you know that we're both good and doing well!!

We are just about done with this semester, finishing up papers and grading as we speak. Both productions that Sonja and I participated in this fall were great fun to be a part of and very successful....Sonja assaying Lady Bracknell in The Importance Of Being Earnest, and chewing the pedagogical scenery as Holofernes in Loves Labour's Lost.....while I reprised The Rev. Canon Chasuble and Lord Boyet, respectively, in those same plays. It's been a good year so far, and I think we're both looking forward to this 5 week (albeit unpaid) break now. We'll be staying in Ithaca, and doing some house and dog sitting for a friend. And a big chunk of this time will be spent getting ready for our next projects at Cornell....Sonja playing a large role in a new script, an adaptation of a book called The Body Project, while I work on Hector in The History Boys.

And thanks to all who passed along their concern about our little guy, Mac, who had been under the weather (at somewhere between 15 and god, there isn't much weather he manages to get above these days). He has rallied yet again, we're thrilled to say, and Bea Lillie and Spenser are fine as well. All fur children healthy and accounted for!!

So hope this finds you all happy and well!! More before Christmas no doubt, and in the meantime, stay healthy and happy, and stay in touch!!!

Happy Re-Birth Day!!!!

Well, the semester moves along apace, but that's not really what this entry is all about.......

On Wednesday, October 3rd, it will be exactly one year since Sonja nearly died, not once but twice, at the Cayuga Medical Center here in Ithaca, NY. As such, October 3rd has been determined by the appropriate authorities (alright, me, her husband Paul) to be Sonja's Official Day Of Rebirth For The Remainder Of Her Days. Here ye, here ye, so decided!!

I doubt this is going to let any of us off the hook for her actual birthday, which conveniently enough is only nine days earlier on the 25th. But all things considered, when one has survived a series of events like this (see all previous entries), it takes on a new meaning I think to be able to declare that this one particular day is the one that needs to be celebrated. This one day is when the fight began, when survival became the only point, and when the future became something to be wrested back one day at a time.

So raise a glass sometime today, smile like you mean it at someone you love, and celebrate Sonja.....brand spanking new at the age of 1!!


P.S. -- Special thanks to the great Joe Decker for the use of the photo above...

School's In......

How did this happen??? Summer's over for us, and we're happily ensconced back up in Ithaca, in new digs that are a vast improvement over last year!! New address and a land line phone number are listed below. We're both in good health, and start teaching again this week. We've been in rehearsals for Importance Of Being Earnest for a couple of weeks now (Chasuble again for me, and Sonja as an unusually charming Lady Bracknell)....having a very good time!!

Hope everyone's summer was good and your happy and well. All our best to all of you, and more to come soon!!



-- Paul and Sonja
1517 1/2 Slaterville Road
Ithaca, NY 14850

607.277.2803

paulhebron@gmail.com
bertzen@gmail.com

Me and Robert Davi......

Yes, it's my birthday....virtual cake soon to be followed by the real thing!!

Sonja sends much love to everyone from Martha's Vineyard, and by mid July will be visiting her Mum in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Hope for the best. Then back here to Philadelphia for a brief stint before we return to the twisting of young minds in Ithaca.

Hope this finds you all happy and well, have a wonderful 4th of July, and love from us both!!!

-- Paul

School's Out!!

Well, we've finally finished the second semester at Cornell.....grades are in and classes and productions are done!! We were both fortunate in the calibre of students we worked with this spring in our respective classes, and we both survived a fairly awful production of As You Like It to close out our work on stage.

This past weekend we boarded Spenser the Cat with our dear friends Carolyn and Judy, threw the pups in the car and drove out to Martha's Vineyard to work at the brilliant dance colony run by old pal Wendy Taucher. It's only office work we're doing ("Hey there, Monkey Boy, fold those flyers faster!!!"). Those of you who've suffered the near shattering sight of me dancing on stage know why it would be obvious my that my only association with a dance studio would be licking stamps. I'm here through the 25th, then back to Ithaca to get us out of that apartment, before returning with all of the animals to Philly for the summer. Sonja will remain working for Wendy here in MV through to the latter part of July, taking Yoga each morning, and generally breathing in the salt air. Her health continues to be good....her cardiologist recently took her off of one of her medications entirely, and reduced two others. It's still a balancing act with her meds, but she seems to be handling them quite well, knock on wood.

And again thanks to all who continue to watch this space, as it were, for news and updates. I've been working on getting Sony to contribute more often (one more posting would automatically double her output); I've suggested that she take the time at some point to describe some of her "adventures" when she was still sun-downing and living with her drug induced dementia. Some of the stories of her views from "the inside" of that experience are (happily, now) pretty entertaining. We'll see.

More to come as the summer progresses!! Wishing you all cool winds, cold drinks, and good friends!! Love from us both!!!

-- Paul

Almost Spring!!

Apologies to all for having faded from these pages for several weeks. It turns out to be a very busy time under this program, teaching, in rehearsals, mentoring, and so on. It's also been difficult just finding sufficient time to avoid doing all the things that need to get done for the bigger picture....like TAXES!! Ahhh, there, that's out now....breathe, just breathe....

The good news to share is that we have been offered another season here at Cornell, and have decided to accept the offer. In addition to our usual teaching responsibilities, Sonja will be performing as Lady Bracknell in Ernest, and I will be doing Hector (the Griffiths role) in The History Boys, with casting for the rest of their season (Loves Labours Lost, 2 new plays, and Leonard Bernstein's Mass) to be decided later. That will start again 2nd week of August or thereabouts, and we spent much of the past couple of weeks securing digs for next year (housing goes fast here in Ithaca....with two universities the housing stock is largely insufficient for the demand, and so prices are awful and even the shabbiest of places are rented by mid spring), which we're very happy with....we found a larger space for less money with acres of backyard romping space for Bea Lillie (Mac doesn't do much romping anymore, I'm afraid, but he's hanging in there), an available 10 month lease, and the Holy Grail of apt. hunting, a washer/dryer!! Yippee!!!

We finish up this year by the first week of May, and as we had to pay our 10th month on this lease, will use the time to travel to Martha's Vineyard for a couple of weeks to work for our dear friend Wendy and visit with her, then put this household into storage for the summer and return to Philly by end of the month, beginning of June. No idea what the summer will look like at this point; some combination of unemployment, temp work and maybe something under the table (like dogwalking again) if we can find it. Cross that bridge when we get to it.

Otherwise all goes well here. We are currently struggling through the trenches of a (at this stage of things anyway) largely uninspired As You Like It, Sony doing Corin, the Old Shepard-ESS!!, and me in the guise of good old Duke Senior, again. The truth is that as we move further toward performance and out of rehearsal, what becomes increasingly apparent is just how indestructible this play really is, especially at this time of year...hard to do really well, but hard to completely screw it up. We'll end up somewhere in the middle I guess, and that's fine.

Sonja's health is good and holds steady. As mentioned in earlier posts, she is likely to be in A Fib. for the rest of her life, and that can be handled medicinally. Her strength improves in increments, but it does continue to improve...she's teaching again and in rehearsal and mentoring, a full schedule. She will probably always have to find ways to integrate naps into her schedule from now on, but hey, how bad is that really?! It's wonderful to see her working again, and the students adore her (a perspective I'm not unfamiliar with myself).

Thanks to all who've enquired after us on this ongoing journey....and thanks to all who've continued to use this blog as a way to stay in touch!! We'll update again sometime soon; meanwhile, stay well, take care, and as always, love from us both!!

-- Paul

P.S. -- A special thought goes out to all of the current MFA students at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, left in Limbo at this point while ASF and UA struggle over the future of that program. If your unfamiliar with this particular debacle and would like to know more, I've listed a couple of sites below for more information.

www.asfmfa.blogspot.com
www.ipetitiions.com/petitiion/asfmfa/

Clear!!! Ok, well, maybe if we try it this way...Clear!!!

So, what has been going on since the last substantive update??

We are both back at work now teaching, and that has been a great pleasure and much needed focus for our energies coming out of the holidays and recuperation. Sonja continues her physical therapy, and we've created a new network here of physicians and cardiologists to continue to track her condition.

Along those lines, roughly two weeks ago her new cardiologist, Dr. Mauser, attempted a procedure called a cardioversion. This is an out patient procedure in which the patient, Sonja, is sedated, and an attempt is made to gently shock (oxymoron fully intended) her heart back into a regular rhythm.

One of the lasting results of her hospitalization is that her heart is still in atrial fibrillation, albeit a very regular and now medicinally controlled form of a. fib... this is not a medically dangerous circumstance per se, but it does require the continued use of certain powerful drugs that can potentially have dangerous side effects. So, with Sonja now finally strong enough to attempt the procedure, we went into the local medical center and Dr. Mauser gave it a shot.

If that last sentence sounds a bit cavalier, it's because we all knew going into it that the chances for success weren't great. After a period of three to six months, the body begins to assume that the a. fib. is in fact the "normal" condition, and it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the regular heartbeat, if in fact the rhythm is able to be changed at all.

In Sonja's case, she was sedated, and an attempt was made; her heart was shocked (they don't use the paddles, by the way, except in emergency circumstances...I was going to use a photo of said paddles to lead this posting, but realized with some waning shred of good taste that someone might see it and assume the worst or wrong scenario...so a smiling picture of Sonja with Mac instead, albeit from a few years ago), but the first attempt didn't take. After a short interval, a second attempt was made, and this one worked, at least while she was there in the hospital.

Over the next few days she felt no major change, until the fourth day when she felt significantly better. The good news is that improvement seems to have held, though later testing has shown that the second attempt did not; her heart is back in it's "regular" a. fib. As it is not a life threatening situation, the plan now is to continue to monitor her meds and her heart, and through exercise and nutrition continue to help her to grow stronger. She is fine with that, and while still not 100%, she is fully functioning in her life again and, I might add, loving every minute of it.

That is not to say that the transition back to "the Real World" has been easy. Just as after a major surgery the patient is often confronted by depression, anger, and guilt, so coming back to work again and returning to society at large has been difficult. Under crisis such as we experienced, one's mind (and I would argue, spirit) only allows you to face so much and only when your physically able to confront it. So there have been some hard times as we both, in our own ways and on paths dictated by separate experiences, struggled with the randomness and irrationality of feelings buried for a latter time. The process is difficult even as you know it is healing. We have dealt with it as best we could, talked it through when that might help, and I think in some ways maybe even grown from it. There's no choice in this kind of thing; it's what happened to you, and now it's about turning and looking at it, like it or not. It's part of the package.

And so, continuing under the category of More Information Than You Ever Needed To Know, next on the medical horizon are specialized trips to the dentist and a colonoscopy (for both of us...I'm overdue as well), as well as the monthly to tri-monthly monitoring checkups. We are entering a busier time here at the university as well. I close this weekend in a relatively successful production of the Passion Of Dracula (the students have done splendidly, and that is, after all, the point of it all in this given context). Sonja goes into a staged reading of a new play by a student here, guest directed by Richard Hamburger, and then the following week we go into rehearsals for As You Like It....Sonja as Corin, the Shepherd(-ess), and I as, once again, dear old Duke Senior (you have to feel for a guy trying to run a country who's only name amounts to "Duke, you know, the older one"). We have yet to hear anything from the Powers That Be here about next year, and know only that we are likely to be back in Philadelphia for the summer. And given the pretty much continual levels of snowfall here this winter, that's sounding pretty good right now.

Hope this finds you all in great good health and joyous frame of mind. We think of you all often, and send much love your collective way from us both!!! More to come in the next couple of weeks.....

-- Paul

P. S. -- And as a special note to all of you who were kind enough to send financial help our way when we needed it most, I hope to soon have, finally, good news on the Medicaid Front. And please know, all of you, that while our process of thank you note sending may have had the wheels fall off here, you are and will be in our hearts for, well, the rest of our lives. Thank you, all of you, and again, love from us both!!

More To Come.....

Yeah, well, things got a little hectic around here, and I haven't had time to post until this week....but I've started to feel a little guilty about not posting anything, so......

More to come later this week.

-- Paul

Back To School........

Just a quick update for those of you still checking the blog for Sonja's continued progress.....everything moves apace, and she starts teaching again this Monday. It's the same Intro to Acting class that all of the RPTA's (resident professional teaching associates) here at Cornell are asked to teach, a mix of undergraduates from varied backgrounds and mostly non-majors (we had more engineering students last semester than prospective actors). I began work on Passion of Dracula this past Monday (the redoubtable Dr. Seward), and pick up my first class this Tuesday.

Hope everyone had a peaceful and joyous holiday season. Ours was quiet and quite lovely here in Ithaca; snow, good books and netflix. I think we're both looking forward to moving into the next phase now, going back to work and picking up our lives again back in the world. I'll continue to post periodically here with news on Sonja's health and recuperation (I've tried to convince her that she should be the one posting these notes, but so far she hasn't been grabbed by the whole "blogging thing". She is, however, making noise about using good old fashioned snail mail in the near future).

Anyway, our love to you all, have a Wonderful Martin Luther King Day, and good health!!

-- Paul


P.S. -- I've included a link to the text of the I Have A Dream Speech.....a little something to remind us all of genuine integrity and courage in this season of hyperbole and political Hucksterism.

usinfo.state.gov/infousa/government/overview/38.html

Red Nose This......

Happy Holidays,
Just Enough Snowfall,
and a Brilliant New Year to All!

Wishing Everyone Good Health and Peace!!!

Love From Us Both!!!!!

-- Paul and Sonja

She's Alive!!!!......She's Alive!!!!

Hello Everyone, Sonja here.

I was released from the hospital two weeks ago today and I couldn't be happier to be home. What an experience! I hope none of you go through anything close. Being on the other side of it, I must say I have never felt better. How strange is that? They still have no idea of what caused my organs to fail...or what made me blow up to resemble the Michelin Tire Man.....or what made them so sure I would need a liver transplant...etc. The upshot of the entire experience is that all of my organs are back on line and functioning at 100% capacity. The irregular heartbeat is still there, but the cardiologist is talking about "shocking" me back into a regular heartbeat. They do it all the time. Sounds a bit daunting but you are knocked out for the procedure, so what the hell.

I am on lots of meds, using a walker but I'm getting noticably stronger daily. And very very happy to be here. I go back to teaching at Cornell the middle of January. By then I hope to be snow-shoeing through town.

From what I'm told, I was "sundowning" quite a bit during this illness. I know that in my head I was many places other than my hospital room. Initially, I was convinced I was making a movie, playing a Dutch girl (??!?!don't ask), then I was convinced I was going on Oprah and my entire situation was being made into a sitcom (so in true actor fashion my delusions were about looking for work) then I was convinced they kept changing my room on me, and oh, yes, the headless cats running around. Thank God for Paul keeping track of this stuff. Speaking of Paul, let me go on record and say that I have the most wonderful husband in the world. He never left my side. There is no way I could have gotten through this experience without his love and support. Then and now.

Let me also go on record and say that neither of us could have weathered any of this without our friends and family. I was humble and grateful and oh so thankful for all of you and for your comfort, your prayers and good wishes, and your support at every turn. There are no words that can say what I feel.



Merry Christmas to all of you. And a Happy New Year. I hope to see you all this coming year.

Love, peace & good health,

Sonja

-- Paul and Sonja
959 Dryden Rd., #D
Ithaca, NY 14850
334-669-8657

What's Left Unsaid.......(Updated 12/8)..........................................

So.............seven days home now, and the dust is finally settling a bit.

We've had home care periodically over these last days, nurses to continue monitoring Sonja's blood work and a physical therapist to help her become more mobile (and as my high school football coach would have said, "....agile and hostile!!!") and to regain her strength more fully. She is getting stronger every day. Her use of the walker now is minimal (no longer used at all in the apt.), and her appetite, though still visited by strange cravings, has largely returned. And last Tuesday we began a new relationship with an internist/GP here in Ithaca. That was a long afternoon, but all went very well as we transitioned to local care here, and we both liked our new doctor very much (a young woman originally from Prague with the stunning first name of Lucia). And next week we see a local cardiologist to begin the monitoring of her now medicinally controlled atrial fibrillation.

It has been wonderful to be back, as you can imagine. It has taken awhile to really feel that we were back again. I think we both were so fully immersed in the world of Hospital, and everything that subculture represents, that it has taken a few days to de-compress and let go of those environments. But some of it all, some of the images and impressions, remain more strongly present than I might have guessed, and so, with your indulgence, I'll relate a few last experiences that shaped our day to day experiences there.

The most obvious begins with a simple question. Why do so many hospitals and medical centers in this country find themselves located directly across the street from major cemeteries?? Maybe it's me and my sense of the morbid but I know on more than one occasion I've been struck by this odd convergence of the hopeful and the past hope. You don't have to be a huge fan of the macabre to feel a little weirdness staring out the window of your hospital room, only to be faced by acres of tombstones lining up across the street.

Mt. Hope Cemetery (irony perhaps fully intended) rolls on for hill after hill the full length of Elmwood St., along the entire street front of Strong Memorial, and probably for some distance beyond. Staring from any window, you try to think of it just as some kind of huge park or greenspace, but sooner or later your confronted by it's real function, and depending on your particular circumstances, you end up looking at the sky a lot. Which is maybe not a bad thing. The truth is if your stuck there long enough, the weirdness fades into the background, and you come to embrace the view, to embrace the metaphorical certainty that your not across the street yet. And then, as with many aspects of long hospital stays, it becomes strangely reassuring.

And speaking of the view......there was one very, very long afternoon about two weeks into our arrival, when I had just finished a long interview with a nurse practitioner from the Liver Transplant Team, and things in general were looking pretty bleak. The rooms in the ICU have all recently been renovated, so there are small alcoves in each room with chairs and a wall couch by the window. I was sitting there alone, with Sonja unconscious in her bed, staring blankly out the window at the square of huge brick buildings that opened out across from ours. Suddenly into that open corridor of air the largest red-tail hawk you've ever seen floated into view. Drifting on the wind from the direction of the cemetery (ok, another plus), it rode the currents first higher, and then back down to eye level slowly, achingly slow, across my field of vision and into (bear with me here) the sunset. He was close enough to see his pin feathers, the spread of the feathers in his tail. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, and regardless of one's perspectives on faith, signs and meaning, was truly uplifting at a time when I desperately needed something to help me keep going. And it did.

And speaking of the Liver Transplant Team......I'm sorry, I know these guys do truly astonishing work, but I couldn't help but come to think of all of them as Ghouls. While I was desperately hoping and praying that her liver would recover, these folks were obligated to get me familiar with the protocols and procedures for being listed on the roll for a donated liver. It was their job. But trust me, there's a world of difference between a doctor who observes and treats the whole person (such as our lead doc, David Kauffman, the head of surgical ICU), and a surgeon. I won't say they were insensitive to what I was going through....well, actually, yeah, I will say that, especially that asshole who forced me to go over all the paperwork the day of the red-tailed hawk. So there. That's all I have to say about liver transplants and surgeons (thank god).

And the endless hallways.......There was a hallway on the eight floor, the ICU/PCU floor, that curved away into the end of the building, where the far less used utility elevators were. It had large windows on three sides, and was a favorite place for the families of patients to wander into for calls on their cells or to just get away. Unremarkable except for the one, largest window, facing the longest and prettiest view of Mt. Hope (it was fall foliage after all), I spent a fair amount of time here talking on the phone to our many friends and Sonja's Mom and brother David.

After awhile, I began to notice that, looked at from a few feet away and at an angle, this window showed a series of smudges, small rectangles really, at varying heights across the length of the window. Didn't think much of it at the time, but then I noticed that the other windows didn't have the same smudges, and then I started to wonder why. The mystery was solved a few days later, when turning the corner I saw an obviously stressed caretaker on her cell phone standing by said window, and as I turned to give her some privacy, she ever so slowly leaned forward, until her forehead was touching the glass. She just stood there, listening, not saying anything on her end of the conversation, lost in her own thoughts. Later, under closer examination of the window, it was clear that pain, care and sorrow had struck everyone from approximately 5'3' to 6'4'. And those were just the ones who'd found some comfort in leaning.

And then there was the last week and a half spent in a "regular room" on another floor in the hospital, in our case the fifth. We were in 5.1400, the neurological unit, so most of the other patients were recovering from or dealing with strokes, epilepsy, and other brain related disorders. More than that, we were in the "real" hospital now, where each nurse has 5-6 patients every shift, which often seem like 7-8 given the demands of specific, individual patients. Like Mr. Luskey, a deaf patient recovering from some kind of neurological problem (happily, each patient's privacy is surprisingly well protected), who in his frustrated inability to communicate would yell, moan and occasionally throw things to make his point about today's menu or TV choices. And halfway through that last week a young mentally retarded woman was admitted, who was terrified of this new environment. Whenever her mother wasn't present (which ended up being to be most of the time), she would howl and moan in general fear and anxiety.

The nurses would do what they could to comfort her, and Mr. L. for that matter, but all the rooms are arranged in a circle that faces the center nurse's station, and so the cries were unavoidable, door shut or not. And after awhile, given the pressures of the job, most of the nurses would assume that veneer of professionalism to get past the straightforward pain of listening to this kind of unhappiness for a 12 hour shift, and seem, finally, to not hear the bedlam ringing through the hall. It was a little like that terrible opening scene in the film version of Amadeus, when Salieri is in the asylum surrounded by the chaos of the insane and the discarded. It is the panoply of sound that you remember from the scene. And these similar emotional triggers are just not, perhaps naively, what one expects to encounter in a modern hospital.

(Although, just as a side bar, I suppose I think of Amadeus and Salieri in this context because for awhile there while Sonja was still in the ICU and deep in her drug driven delirium, she was convinced that F. Murray Abraham was a patient in the room next door. In truth the guy next to us did have a darker, sort of swarthy Fmurray thing going on, but as they were both completely bedridden I to this day have no idea how she got any kind of a look at him to jump start such a fantasy, or why Fmurray in the first place. She of course has no memory of this at all. Another mystery).

Lastly, and happily, I was continually struck by, overwhelmed by, the simple day to day kindness of strangers. I've spoken before in these pages about the thunderous blessings provided by our many friends and family. But it needs to be mentioned as well how many people took the time to just say something kind, or personal, or caring. The guys at the Finger Lakes Coffee emporium in the lobby from whom I got my morning Ginger Oolong, and came to refer to me as Mr. Tea, pouring the cup without asking. The cashier Beth in the (shudder) Cafeteria who always took the time to chat. The best of the nurses, some of whom have a capacity for caring and service that far outstrips their already formidable range of knowledge and skill.

And most strikingly, all the "unseen" staff, the men and women, mostly African American, that stock the closets and bring the food trays and empty the trash. There is a class structure in an organization as large as a major hospital, if only economic, and yet many of these folks were the kindest and most sincere people we met. Saying good morning or even just hello as they worked became for me I suppose a way of reaching out for connection, and though sometimes surprised, they were unfailingly kind and genuinely caring. There is nothing condescending in this, at least for me. They taught me a great deal, and I won't forget any of them.

And so there you are. We're back now. All organs are intact, and she's getting stronger as we speak (she just arose from our funky, low-rise couch all by herself!). The next posting on this sight will hopefully be from the Wonder Patient herself, so stay tuned.



And thanks for everything.......

-- Paul

HOME!!!!!

Just wanted to let everyone know the great news. Sonja was discharged this morning from the hospital in Rochester, and we are both now back again in Ithaca!!!

Fifty seven days. Exactly eight weeks by the calender.

.......Home.

She's doing fine, and I'll write more in the next day or two about the last week and our last days (and nights) at Strong Memorial. In the meantime......Thanks to all for everything, and love from us both!!!!

-- Paul

Forty Eight Days.....And Here To Give Thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving!!! Wishing nothing but Joy and Good Digestion to one and all!!!!

Well, nothing but good news here from Rochester. After 48 days on the eighth floor here at Strong Memorial......first in the ICU, then in the PCU (progressive care unit), then back to the ICU, and then finally again to the PCU......Sonja was released last night down to a regular room on the fifth floor, general population, to complete her rehab. Yippee, I say, Yippee!!

She gets stronger every day. The current hurdles are these. She has contracted a bladder infection of some kind, probably due to having a Foley Catheter in her bladder for this entire seven weeks, and that has to be dealt with (it's a matter of pinning down the specific bacteria/infection involved, and then using the right kind of antibiotic in balance with her recovering liver and kidneys. And while we're on the subject, allow me to suggest the next time you hear someone ask their doctor for antibiotics because they think they have the flu, a cold, etc., that you take up a large piece of wood and smack them up the side of the head with it. I've seen these drugs save Sonja's life two or three times, and they need to be used at the right time in the right way or they become useless. Useless. Trust me, that's not what you want).

We also need to control her heart rate better; she's still in a. fib., and spiking with her increased levels of activity. Both the atrial fibrillation and her "tachy" heart rate can be controlled with medication.....it's about balancing the right meds once she is stronger, her legs are doing their own work, and we can get a truer picture of her overall heart function.

And most importantly, she needs to continue getting stronger. She's made remarkable progress over the past few days. She stood for the first time just this Monday, and now is up and already walking with assistance (soon she'll have her walker in a white knuckle grip, stalking the lonely halls like some sleek beast of prey, hunting that Patient Care Technician who wakes her each night to check her vitals. That's right, it's time for a little pin-prickin' payback!!!). The goals are the obvious ones; getting her legs and arms strong enough again so that she can comfortably care for herself and get around on her own.

And then with a little bit of luck, in the next week or two we'll finally hear the two sweetest words in the English language....."Your discharged!". What comes after that depends on how quickly she gets her strength back. It may mean a brief stay in a transitional rehab facility back in Ithaca, or maybe straight home with me and rehab continued on an outpatient basis. We'll just have to wait and see.

Whichever way it goes is fine with me right now. Today we're going to have a little turkey here in room 5.1623, watch the parade, and celebrate the day for what it represents more than it ever has to us.........giving thanks.

-- Paul

My Life As A Dog.....

So..........Things have improved markedly this week. When we last left Sonja, she was struggling with breathing, her lungs filed with excess fluid, and the fear was that she might have contracted pneumonia.

Happily, that turned out not to be the case.

Her blood pressure remained strong enough for them to continue to give her a strong diuretic called lasik, and it has done the trick. The swelling is down all over her body, and as just one of the benefits, she's can now commit to working on her physical therapy, especially toward regaining the strength in her legs.

The other noticeable benefit of reducing the swelling throughout her system is that she's more alert, more voluble and talkative. The effects of her "sundowning" have lessened, and she seems more focused in her occasional delirium, if that makes any sense; it seems to be more about her attempts to come to terms with short term memory loss and the stress of the ICU than anything else.

So it's been a good week, a very good week. Though indicative of this whole experience, I sit here now typing this while she naps, Friday night about 9pm, and her temperature has been heading up toward fever for the past hour and a half. It is probably nothing. But all we can do is sit here and "keep an eye on it", as her nurse just said. All we can do......

......And here it is on Sat. afternoon, and happily her low grade fever has calmed down and she's fine again. We've worked the exercises for her legs once already today, she's sat up at the edge of the bed and "dangled" (their term for this process) her legs over, and she's gotten into the Stryker chair for a couple of hours. Her strength is slowly returning, and she's starting to eat again (I've pretty much given up on the hospital's food, and have been making daily trips to Wegmans for supplies). All very good news!!! More to come later this week.....Once you've dangled, can walking be far behind!!!????



And now, from the Surreal Files: Thursday morning Sonja had to be wheeled down to Radiology to have a new PICC IV line put it. It's a specialized kind of arterial line (I believe) that goes in through the upper arm or chest and is threaded through the artery toward the heart. Anyway, the one that had been sited for Sonja last week had pulled loose, and so a new one was needed. The special PICC nurse tried to do it at bedside Tues. night, but couldn't locate the vein well enough to feel comfortable with the procedure, so it was decided that they would do it in Radiology, where they have sophisticated imaging equipment to make it a much simpler, safer affair.

At any rate, it took Radiology two days to make it happen, and finally our whole little troupe, Sonja and I and her nurse du jour, Tammy, with the help of two hulking transportation techs, wheeled down to the basement and into the staging room. Thereupon the nurse assigned from Radiology, Emily, picked up her clipboard and, after some preliminaries, began asking the fully conscious Sonja a pretty typical battery of questons about her medical history. Allergies? Ever smoke? For how long? Etc., etc. So this goes on for some time, and I realize that with her memory gaps from medication and delirium, she's only answering about half of the questions correctly. So I decide to wait for Emily to conclude her questions, and then I'll find the right moment to get her the info without embarrassing Sonja or seeming to correct her in front of everyone (two doctors are by now part of the mix). Which it what happens.

And then I'm ushered outside while they do their medical magic, and I'm sent to the "waiting room". This consists of a long, and I mean really long, thin fluorescent-lit corridor, with about sixty identical waiting room chairs lined up, all along one wall of this corridor. So I sit there, facing the dry wall across from me, and do what any sane person does....I abjure the two year old magazines, whip out a paperback (cheap, escapist science fiction), and try to assert some degree of The Normal by diving into the book. After a short while, a tiny, wizened old woman is herself ushered to a chair near me and told to wait for her own procedure to begin.

She's fascinating in a Twin Peaks kind of way. Not a "little person", but very small, with long blonde-gray hair and eye glasses thick enough to make you hope that somebody else drove her to the hospital this morning. And then you realize that that is part of the reason she fascinates; something about her makes you believe that she's been in charge of her own life, by god, since before you were born. There is a strength and a power about her that is palpable, that fills this already small space with no effort at all. She's wearing dark red heavy wool slacks with sensible flats, and a heavy green and gray checked barn coat, collar turned up now more against the fear of being here than the cold outside. While I sit and sneak glances her way, a child is led down the corridor by a nurse in scrubs and her parents, a little tow-headed blonde girl clutching a stuffed dog. She is calm and obedient while her parents make small talk with the nurse, who mentions as they pass me that it's been years since they last saw this same little girl.

Distracted, I try to read again, and am just starting to regain my place in the book when through closed doors that same child, one has to assume by proximity and the voices involved, starts to scream. I mean she's howling with the kind of wrenching despair that only a child can reach down for when they're really, really scared, and these idiotic adults don't seem to get it, for Christ's sake, and why did she ever trust these losers in the first place!! Collectively we're supposed to ignore this kind of thing, in this kind of environment, and I try, reflexively, I try..,..but the kid keeps screaming, over the obvious efforts of everyone in that room to quiet her, and finally you have to just put the book down pay attention to it.

And then I turn, and Little Woman is staring at me, and for one horrible moment I feel like whatever the kid is going through is somehow my fault. That I've just been judged. And I sort of half smile and try to share some kind of "moment" with Little Woman, you know, the way we all do when something terrible has just happened but your not really responsible and damned happy that it hasn't happened to either of you!! She acknowledges nothing, and instead with an empty expression that could mean anything turns away from me again, faces forward, and then the screaming finally stops. It occurs to me that she might have hoped I was an entrant to the Fun House, like she and the child, and was disappointed that my glance didn't share her own fears of what might await her and her own testing later that day. Moments later another nurse materializes and asks Little Woman to follow her (happily, given my frame of mind by that point, in a genuinely kind and gentle way). She rises with an unthinking dignity, and I'm alone again.

And then the absurdity of the earlier scene back in Radiology strikes home. There we were, surrounded by literally millions and millions of dollars worth of equipment, while Nurse Emily dutifully recorded the responses of a someone who's memory of late hasn't been the greatest and Nurse Tammy just smilingly nodded and I looked on wondering when to jump in to make sure none of these people hurt each other.

And this was a good day.......



More to come.

-- Paul

Better News.....

Just wanted to get a quick posting online this morning to say that Sonja is doing better; we seem to have avoided the issue of pneumonia, her lungs are functioning better, and she's gotten a lot of fluid off with the help of the diuretics. All very good news. More to come soon.

-- Paul

And One More Update....Veteran's Day!!

The U.S.S. Indiana


And finally, a brief nod to Veteran's Day.

I was driving out of the parking garage this afternoon to take a short walk (beautiful, fall day here in Rochester) and have some lunch. The little retired gentleman in the ticket booth was moving fairly slowly, and I noticed that he was wearing one of those baseball caps with the logo of a Navy ship on the front, in this case the U.S.S. Indiana.

So more to make conversation than anything else, I complimented him on his hat.

(Truth is, I was confusing the Indiana with the U.S.S Indianapolis, the ship sunk by the Japanese after she had delivered the A-Bomb, and in which only 317 survived of a crew of 1196 for a variety of terrible reasons). He beamed, and told me how proud he had been to serve on the Indiana.

"She was a fine ship, a great ship!!"

"You mean you actually served on her?"

"Absolutely!! Seventeen years old!! Lied to get in at that age. Proudest years of my life. You know, she was the second ship to sail into Tokyo Bay at the end of the war!! I'll tell you what, when we sailed in that day, the Japanese knew the real meaning of Pearl Harbor!!"

No politics. No cynicism. No obvious statements about the waste of war. I just thanked him. I'd like to say that in some small way I'd made his day, by noticing his hat and chatting with him about it. The truth is that in no small way, by seeing how he was lit up by the still vivid memories of some of his proudest days, he'd made mine.

All the best to everyone, more to come and love from us both!!

-- Paul