Fall 2016

Breasts

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by Carol Grant

 

As far back as I can remember my mother had a deep fear of cancer. She was convinced that any twinge or unusual symptom she experienced was an early sign of the dreaded disease. When I was eleven or twelve, I returned from school one day to find my mother in a distraught condition, crying and pacing to and fro in our kitchen. She was saying between sobs, “I know it is cancer and I’m going to die.” She had discovered a lump in her breast and was going to see a surgeon but, she lamented, “What is the use? I am going to die anyway.”

I recall being terrified and feeling helpless during the subsequent weeks awaiting her appointment and the biopsy results. Her surgeon must have been a loud and blustery individual because she quoted his surgical philosophy which was, “When in doubt, cut it out!” The images that statement produced made my terror and imagination go into overdrive. The days dragged interminably as we all awaited the biopsy results. When they were reported as benign, the whole family sighed in relief. However, from then on, my mother was on an educational campaign as her surgeon had encouraged her to tell  her friends and her daughter the importance of self breast examination and early reporting of any abnormality.  I was in the stage of early puberty and had not yet developed breasts or menstruated. My mother decided it was the ideal time for “the talk.” She must have been overwhelmed with all the information she was determined to share with me. She later told me that she had never been prepared by her mother or anyone about menstruation and that she thought she was dying when she first noticed blood between her legs. I surmise that may have been one of the sources for her cancer phobia. So I empathize with my mother’s determination and discomfort as she struggled through her lecture. Somehow in her hurry to get it done, she combined the information about self breast examination with a minimal explanation about menstruation, leaving out the location of that phenomenon. When she was done and leaving the room, she turned back to say: “If you see any blood, be sure to tell me right away.” I was left with the impression I was going to bleed from my nipples! All I could remember were her surgeon’s words, ”When in doubt…”  I was terrified with the prospect of growing up and becoming a woman.

Needless to say I took my mother’s message about breast exams very seriously and each night, I would prod and poke my budding nipples and small breast mounds. They felt bumpy and irregular. Were they “normal’ or should I ask my mother but then, she would drag me to her knife-happy surgeon!  Later, when I did mature and ended up with  small breasts, I wondered if all that prodding might have impeded their growth! At the same time that I was “blossoming”, my two older brothers delighted in teasing me, mainly about my physical appearance. Their favorite taunts included, “You’re as flat as a pancake!” or “You have two raisins on an ironing board!” Great help for an adolescent girl’s self esteem.

My mother’s preoccupation with self breast exams must have sunk into my subconscious, because in my career as a nurse and health educator I was diligent in teaching women the practice of SBE and the importance of early detection and investigation.  I even brought home the American Cancer Association’s rubber breast models with their hidden nodules and lumps for my two teen age daughters to explore and the testicle models for my adolescent son to probe and prod. I hope that I didn’t freak them out as their Nana had done to me despite her good intentions.

My mother’s conviction that she would die of cancer never came to pass. She lived a long and healthy life with only minor health issues and died at age 95 in April 2005.

I was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer one year later in April 2006.

I celebrated my Ten Year Survivor Anniversary of being Cancer-free this year.

 

 

Addendum:

Haiku

MRI CHAMBER COMPOSITIONS

It’s only a test-
Will the magic rays give me
glow-in-the-dark breasts?

Loud jackhammer sounds
searching for cancerous cells-
Am I lost or found?

Body as bullet
sliding into the chamber
RAT! TAT! TAT!-Got me!

Please don’t move! Don’t sneeze!
Is this how a coffin feels?
Breathe. I AM alive.

Claustrophobia
forty-five minutes to bear–
let me out of here!

Radiation Session:
Lying on belly
breasts hanging through peepholes-
Double attraction.

 

My essay “Breasts” was composed for the Health and Wellness assignment in the IRP study group “Guided Autobiography” in the Spring semester 2016. This group was superbly guided by Coordinator David Grogan who established a safe and confidential environment which allowed his students to disclose and share many intimate moments of their lives.

Harvest Home

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by Ron Russo

 

I met my partner Richard on Fire Island more than thirteen years ago. I feel blessed not only to have met such a wonderful person but to have done so at the ripe age of fifty one.

Yet as my mother would say if someone spoke too glowingly of good fortune,  “Be careful.  God gives with one hand and takes away with the other.”  And so some wonderful force of fate handed Richard to me, but he didn’t come alone – – he had a country house.

I do not like the country. I am scared there. It’s too quiet. There aren’t gourmet food markets. People dress poorly. Animals show up occasionally. Still, Richard was so terrific that a few months into our relationship I began to accompany him regularly to his place in the Finger Lakes. A five hour drive, and for what?  To end up in the country.

I made my way slowly. One of the first projects I took on was planting tomatoes and basil in the spring. The deer promptly ate my first crop down to the roots. For the first and only time in my life I wanted to own a gun.

I replanted a modest amount, fenced it in this time, and my garden took hold. That September we harvested the plants and I made pesto and tomato puree, both of  which we froze for use in the winter. Four or five containers, manageable.

Two years later Richard decided to sell the house. He wanted a place closer to the city, one that would be more easily accessible for his eighty-something father, who was now driving nine hours from Massachusetts each time he visited.

Ultimately Richard purchased a house only four hours away and less than five from Massachusetts. Many hours of travel were saved, but the house was at the dead-end of an isolated road.  It made the Finger Lakes place seem like Park Avenue. For the first time I felt a strain in our relationship. I wouldn’t have minded as much if the house were luxurious and had a pool. Instead it was a dump that needed every square inch renovated, with a murky pond and a dry stream thrown in.

Richard’s an architect and I knew that he’d eventually redo the place and make it wonderful.The problem was I didn’t think I’d live long enough to see that happen. But I set my mind to adapting and adapt I did, through a five year construction project.

We had lots more land in the new place, so I planted a larger garden. Tomatoes were abundant that year, and they ripened by the end of September before the first frost.  I spent a day skinning, chopping, and freezing them and felt very satisfied with the results.  We loved it when I’d make a simple marinara sauce, sometime in deep February, that was redolent of summer.

Unfortunately over-ambition kicked in. I suggested we plant more tomatoes the next summer. We did, but this time they didn’t all ripen at once. In the fourth week of September we needed to harvest everything that was left; surely there’d be a frost before we returned from vacation in three weeks. Complete pandemonium. We arrived back in the city looking like migrant farm workers with shopping bags full of basil and tomatoes in every shade of green, orange and red.

All this six days before a long trip to Italy. What to do?  If I were on my own, I’d have thrown away everything that wasn’t ripe and dealt with all that was. But “waste” and “throw away” are words that do not exist in the lexicon of my New England-bred partner.  “You would really throw away those good tomatoes! After all the work we put in growing them!” I must confess that all the work was done by Richard. I’d merely planted the little demons, then he’d taken over the watering, fertilizing, and weeding. But after all, I cooked them.

These tomatoes did not arrive by themselves. They had a following of flies that took over my apartment. I’d swat and kill two in the kitchen, then find four more in the bedroom. It was never-ending.Richard said the flies didn’t come with the tomatoes.  “So, where did they come from, then?  I haven’t opened a window in over a year.”

“You’re just being negative.”

I decided that the greenest tomatoes would never ripen before we left for vacation.  At six-thirty on Tuesday morning when normal retirees are still in REM sleep, I was lighting the oven to roast those hard little beauties. This would take at least five hours, so I went to the gym. When I came home I met my neighbor in the hallway. “Are you cooking?” she asked with a tone that would have been more consistent if she’d asked “Did you just kill somebody?”

“Not really, just heating up something,” I said embarrassed, racing into my apartment.

We had grown two varieties of tomato:  Romas (plum), which were moist and sweet, and San Marzanos, meaty and densely flavored. Each required a different treatment. The next day some of the plum tomatoes had ripened. They were to be roasted.  Again, at six-thirty I was filling my oven with trays of sliced, salted, olive-oil tossed tomatoes. The following day provided more of a challenge. A good number of the San Marzanos were ready; they just needed boiling, skinning, pureeing, then freezing. I worked on them for two hours, with flies buzzing around my head the whole time.

Richard came home that night and inspected what was left.  “There are still a few tomatoes ready for pureeing, a few for oven-roasting too. I’ll separate them.”

“One damn minute,” I said. “This joke has gotten old.  I still haven’t bought anew valise for the trip, I need to do laundry, and you’re talking about a couple more days work?  I don’t think so.”

“Okay.  You can throw them out, then.  Such a shame, after all that work , , , “

“Boy, the nuns really taught you guilt, didn’t they?”

“It’s just that we’re so close.”

I knew I’d lose this argument before it started, because in reality I, too, abhor waste.   “I’ll figure something,” I said, swatting and missing yet another fly.

I got myself to TJ Maxx early the next morning and bought a valise. When I got it home,I realized it was two inches smaller than Richard’s, my role-model for this purchase. I hurled myself into panic mode until Richard made me fill the new valise with the clothing I’d be packing, and I understood that I’d be able to fit everything I needed.  Back to tomatoes.

It was now two days before vacation and I was almost done. Next day I’d process whatever was left. We’d have delicious pasta sauces for many meals that winter.

The basil was easy, in comparison. You pull the plants up by the roots, pluck and wash the leave and puree them with garlic, olive oil, salt, and pignoli nuts.  There’s no waiting for ripening-all ready at once. In ice trays I made twenty cubes of pesto, ready to use, and froze them in a plastic bag. I felt all set to open a restaurant when I got home from vacation.

On the day before departure I finally bought the extra socks and underwear I needed for my trip. I also got a new power adaptor so that I could charge the many devices I now travelled with. And I had only one more batch of tomatoes to deal with.

I hoped the flies would be gone by the time I got home.

 

I have been writing fiction and memoir for twenty five years. Of late, I have been particularly inspired by the wonderful writing workshops given at the IRP.

My Medical Memoir

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by Claude Samton

As I look back at my medical history I recall the events which were painful and caused anxiety at the time. Now, however, as I write about these episodes years later, I remember primarily the humor and interesting aspects of the situation. The old saying “time heals,”I believe to be true.

August 1950  I look in the mirror and notice a large boil on my left shoulder. Worry takes hold. Is it cancer, a bite by a poisonous insect or some incurable disease I’ve never heard about? I call my uncle, Dr. Brunell who lives nearby and is able to see me in the afternoon. I’m shaking with fear as he says, “Hold still, Claude,” and takes a needle to puncture the boil which turns out to be a heat blister.

December 1954  It is a crisp cold sunny day as I drive with my cousin Albert to Sugarbush Vermont to ski. Our old Ford has a problem with the heater which tends to go off periodically. We get to the slope in the early afternoon, strap on our skis and take the chairlift to the top. On the first run down the mountain, I slide on ice and fall heavily on my right side. Feeling extreme pain in the right leg,  I say, “We better drive home.”  The pain is increasing, so on the way back we stop at Pittsfield Mass General Hospital late on New Year’s Eve. The only doctor on duty is a young Indian intern. He carefully examines the leg and remarks, “Hit it, hit it.” I think he’s crazy until I realize he means  “Heat it, heat it.”

May 1958  I’m riding a motorcycle on a muddy road in Ibiza, a picturesque island off the coast of Spain which has no electricity or paved roads. The motorcycle hits a rut and I fall. The bike lands on top of me and I am covered in mud and blood. A coarse looking farmer in a small shack nearby sees me, runs over, takes me into the house, plies me with brandy and proceeds to wipe the mud and blood from my body. After a superficial cleaning, he lifts me roughly on his donkey and takes me into town. We enter a sparse whitewashed adobe house. Inside there is an old man who claims to be a doctor. Through the window I notice animals in the yard outside. The doctor says I need a tetanus shot which he gives me with a foot long hypodermic needle used for horses.

October 1961 I’m very depressed after the end of a love affair. Diana, who is several years older, is totally controlling and tells me what to feel, to think, to eat, and how to dress. I worry that I’m losing my identity but feel trapped between wanting to be with her and needing to get away from the relationship. I have an emotional breakdown and am taken to New York Hospital psychiatric ward. They give me the drug thorazine and several doses of shock treatment which makes me feel like I am dying. I begin to hallucinate and at dinner, I think I am Napoleon sitting at the table with George Washington and Joan of Arc. The three of us have a spirited conversation and solve the world’s problems without Diana.

August 1970   Sheila, my wife, our two sons and I decide to go on vacation to Maine. The past several months had been a period of intensive work for me. As we drive north, I get a pain in the belly. It could be indigestion, appendicitis, or cancer. We stop at a clinic in Maine where the doctor examines me and says, “You have an ulcer which means you’ll need to eat bland food such as milk and mashed potatoes.” I watch with envy as the family eats lobster, which I love, for the entire week. Back in the city I go to see Dr. Shumann, my regular doctor. He examines me and  laughs, “You don’t have an ulcer. It was just a lot of stress after an intense work period.”

April 1974   I feel severe abdominal pain and rush to St. Vincent’s emergency room. I gradually wake up in the men’s ward after surgery and dimly see a priest who is coming towards me ringing a bell, which I assume is for last rites. “Well it’s all over,” I say to myself as I start to sweat and the priest keeps walking to the next ward.

There are seven other patients–a Hispanic man with a bullet in his pancreas, an elderly Italian man who makes gurgling sounds, a bearded man near the door who yells “Help me Jesus” every few minutes. There are three men on the other side of the room who are immobile and a heavy man in the next bed who looks dead. Wednesday evening an orderly comes to the door and announces, “Bingo Night!” Everyone jumps up including the dead guy.

November 1982   After having a stiff neck for weeks, I see Dr. Shumann who doesn’t know what it could be, a chiropractor who adjusts my head and neck, a neurologist who does a cat scan, a physical therapist who stretches various muscles, and an alternative healer who hangs me upside down and pummels me. Nothing works. I finally go to a shiatsu massage therapist who suggests eating macrobiotic rice and beans. It works.

January thru December 1996   It’s a difficult year in which I have girlfriend problems. I go to see a woman who specializes in primal therapy. She leads a small group which meets in a basement on the Upper West Side and screams once a week. After six months I realize the therapist is crazier than any of my girlfriends and I leave.

January 2002 I enter The Hospital for Special Surgery to have my hip replaced. While being prepared for surgery, a nurse puts a big black magic marker X on my right hip. Ten minutes later the anesthesiologist puts a bigger black magic marker X below the first. Finally the surgeon puts the third X below the first two. “Just to be safe,” he assures me.

May 2006   I break my right wrist falling off a standing bicycle. At Mount Sinai Hospital the surgeon inserts a metal plate and sets the bone. He puts my wrist in a rubber bandage and sling. “You’ll be fine in three weeks,” he says. Eight weeks later the wrist is swollen to 2X normal size and I’m having difficulty sleeping. I go back to see the surgeon who says, “Well, everyone is different.”

February 2010   I am diagnosed with thyroid cancer and undergo surgery to remove my thyroid gland at Beth Israel hospital. The following week I’m given a radioactive iodine pill and told to stay ten feet away from everyone for a week, especially pregnant women. As I exit the lobby, three very pregnant women approach me.

October 2014 I go to see Dr. Shumann  for the annual checkup. He examines me and says, “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.”

I have been an architect who has worked on such projects as Grand Central, a theatre at Tanglewood, and a Trump Golf Clubhouse for which I was stiffed. For the past 25 years, I have also made large photomontages with shows in museums and galleries. Recently, I have written and illustrated six books which are listed at Amazon.

Viewing the Portrait of Titus

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by Elaine Greene Weisberg

 

About twenty years ago on one of our trips to London, my husband and I spent an afternoon at the Wallace Collection whose holdings include five Rembrandts. In a museum containing 25 galleries of Old Masters it is easy to walk past great works. I didn’t give more than half a minute to Frans Hals’s flashy Laughing Cavalier—an icon of the Collection. “Mmm, nice textiles,” I thought, “But it’s not a man I’d want to meet.”

Then I came upon a portrait of Titus, Rembrandt’s son, who was painted by his father throughout his young life. Here at age sixteen he was approaching manhood. On the 64-inch-tall canvas the artist shows us the outer Titus, lighted from the left, dressed in brown against a brown background shading to black. His luxuriant wavy hair is brown and his soft beret is a muted red, matched by the warm tone of his lips. The beginnings of a mustache are visible.

But the inner person was always Rembrandt‘s portrait subject, revealed especially by the eyes. Titus is looking at the painter, an author of his being. They gaze at each other. The painting is about trust and love.

I stand there, tears are running down my cheeks for the first time in front of a painting. My husband says, “ Is anything the matter?” I say, “Rembrandt would have liked me.” We embrace.

 

Elaine Greene Weisburg (under her first two names) worked as an editor at Seventeen, Esquire, House & Garden, and House Beautiful, spending two decades each at the latter two publication. Voices helps her keep her hand in.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Shoot

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by Elaine Greene Weisberg

 

It was New York in the eighties: Money, Baron Guy de Rothschild moves to New York, Conde Nast editors in chief travel on the Concorde, AIDS.

In l987 his publisher asks my friend and colleague Martin Filler, then a top editor at House & Garden, to get a new head shot for PR purposes. Martin asks which photographer they prefer. Pick one they say, send us the bill. Martin, never one to turn down an offer of the best, picks Robert Mapplethorpe.

Mapplethorpe accepts the commission and offers Conde Nast a deal because they have published his studio (photos by the artist, story written by Martin) and have given him other work. He will charge $10,000 for a single image instead of his customary $15,000. The arrangement is that Mapplethorpe will choose that image and will not show the subject-client proofs or contact sheets. OK with Martin. They make a date.

On the appointed day, Martin sees in his morning paper that Sam Wagstaff,  Mapplethorpe’s artistic mentor, benefactor, and longtime lover, has died of AIDS the day before. Martin waits for a phone call cancelling the sitting. When a call doesn’t come he rings the studio. The assistant says there is no cancellation: Come ahead—my boss had to go out but he’ll be back.

Martin is there when the photographer returns, carrying four very large shopping bags whose contents he empties and shows Martin. It is Wagstaff’s famous collection of Aesthetic Movement and Art Deco silver. Included are a chrysanthemum-shaped punch bowl and a large table-center plateau (a tray) ornamented with silver sculptures of polar bears and Eskimos with spears, a piece made to celebrate the purchase of Alaska. Mapplethorpe explains, “I had to get these before Sam’s sister padlocked the apartment.”

Then the photographer motions “Let’s go” to a working corner of the big room and for an hour he takes pictures. The subject is standing against a black background.  A pair of tripod-supported lights about three feet in diameter with an opaque white covering to obscure the bulbs are aimed at him. The two lights are reflected in the subject’s eyes–it is often a mark of Mapplethorpe’s portraiture although he doesn’t always use it. Most photographers prefer a single light source.

The photographs are taken with a minimum of fuss. Many portrait photographers have “hair and make-up” people on the scene to beautify the sitters before and during the session. Many photographers, especially those in the fashion world, sweet-talk the subject throughout the shoot, aiming to relax or stimulate them.  There is no such fussing here.

After Mapplethorpe died of AIDS two years later, Martin learned from his assistant — a onetime member of the House & Garden art department-that there had been at least three contact sheets with a dozen images per sheet. And not long ago Martin also learned that Mapplethorpe charged everyone $10,000 for a portrait and thinks the artist was perhaps currying favor when he told Conde Nast they were getting a special price.

 

Elaine Greene Weisburg (under her first two names) worked as an editor at Seventeen, Esquire, House & Garden, and House Beautiful, spending two decades each at the latter two publication. Voices helps her keep her hand in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sledge and Wedge

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by  James Gould

 

Early in life I learned that keeping busy with work fended off my feelings in the empty alone hours after my mother disappeared from my life. Having money also made me feel better as I could be like my older brothers and stop asking for an allowance. I rode my bicycle along River Road, peering into the roadside weeds to fill the bike’s front basket with bottles thrown out of cars, and redeemed them at the A&P for the two cents deposit, 5 cents for a large one. A middle aged woman neighbor paid me to weed her brick sidewalks by hand until my fingers could no longer bend. Then a Geezer hired me to weed and harvest his large garden. That done, he gave me my first really hard job. Splitting wood.  A lot of wood.

On this crisp, sunny autumn day, the pile of cut logs looked like a mountain to my 11 year old eyes. I squeezed and released the smooth, wooden handle of the 10 pound sledgehammer, imagining, wishing myself stronger than the skinny boy I was. I looked back at my overweight, bald employer, sitting in his rocking chair, slowly moving forward and back with thumbs hooked in his suspenders. I looked back with dismay at the pile, then again at Geezer, catching a little smile of anticipation on his face. I was to be his entertainment, his amusement. His smile made me angry. I would show him.

Let’s see, pick a likely log. They were all big, two to three feet diameter, cut from a tall oak a storm had felled. I looked for the largest aging crack and tapped in the metal wedge. I rested the sledge on the log and backed up to get the proper distance. Then I awkwardly swung the sledge back, overhead and back down, straining my every muscle, such as they were. The sledge hit the wedge off center, flinging it to the right as the sledge swung me to the left. I heard a chuckle in the still air.

I tried again and again, but the log stayed intact. Panting, I stopped to think. Should I just give up? How could I admit defeat to the smiling Geezer? As my breathing slowed, I began to wonder if there was a better way.  I started experimenting with the swing, pounding the log with no wedge. Slowly, slowly the rhythm came. Easy on the backswing, transition smoothly to overhead while inhaling. Then continue the downswing with a forced exhale, letting gravity do most of the work, adding muscle to accelerate the sledge before the strike. Trying too hard ruins the accuracy. After an hour or so the victim log had a deep depression from the beating.

OK. Now add the wedge. I tapped it in further to hold it. Focus. Concentrate. Imagine Geezer’s face on the center of the wedge and don’t take my eyes off it. Things go where you look. I swung easy at first, trying for square hits more than force. Slowly, slowly, as I added more speed, the wedge burrowed into the log. I was surprised when the log split, the two halves even. Splitting the halves into quarters and the quarters into eighths with a splitting ax and sledgehammer proved easier, as the ax bit securely into the log for the sledge, or sometimes split it directly. But after a few more logs tiredness ruined my aim. So I added pacing to the list. Three full days of work converted the log pile into a neat row of split wood. I could feel my muscles growing harder, a feeling I have prized ever since.

I walked to Geezer and looked him in the eye, man to man, as he paid me.

The simple lessons of those days followed me through my life. I learned to sell door to door, seeds in grade school, light bulbs in high school and encyclopedias in college. As a teenager I learned to fit in as the only white guy in the caddy shack in the local golf course we could not afford to join, and not to gamble knock rummy with the other caddies. Finally old enough for a license, I rebuilt old motorcycles bought for a hundred dollars to get to my jobs. To make money for college, I learned in high school how to change oil, grease steering joint nipples, replace tires, and adjust valves on a running engine as an assistant mechanic at an local garage that had decades of grease and grime worked into the floors and walls. I worked as a projectionist in the local theater, pumped gas at a station located on US Highway 130.

During college summer breaks I worked in chemical factories, driving a fork lift, filling bags with vinyl powder resin and manhandling 50 gallon drums of liquid chemicals used to make Plexiglas. For the drum job, I had to hide rolls of quarters in my pockets to meet the minimum 138 pounds required for the job. When I slipped using a crowbar to open a plastic clogged drain and split open a finger along a childhood scar caused by the blades of a  push mower, the foreman was annoyed about the papers he had to fill out.

I learned to imitate the vocal patterns and body language of my fellow workers, as adolescents do in trying to learn what patterns to follow in becoming an adult. Later, mimicry extended to drinking, talking politics, smoking, marriage and more. All of my  jobs reinforced that college was my key to a better way of making a living. Even then, my first mental job, doing research as a soldier in the Army after college, felt strange, though it had the physicality of building a lab from scratch using leftover equipment I scrounged from around the base. I approached research and later law as work that exercised my brain rather than muscles. Both kinds of exercise felt good, still do.

The wood split lessons have always applied.  Define and analyze the problem. Gather the necessary tools. Break a huge task into small digestible ones. Look for the easiest opening to a solution. Focus on the task. If need be, make an opponent the target. Pace and conserve energy. When the pieces are solved, organize them into a neat, organized, logical package.

So now I am a Geezer, working life done. I can afford to buy split wood, but every autumn I walk to my log pile with sledge, wedges and splitter in. I love the feel of tools in my hands, the feedback of a smooth swing, the satisfied feeling when a log splits just where I wanted. Being warmed by the fire is a bonus. When I take a break, I sit on an outside bench and listen to the wind rustling the dried leaves and the geese honking overhead, urging each other southward. And I remember my first hard job with a smile.

 

In the past, I was a patent litigator. In the present I am a motorcyclist, a world traveler, a learning-to-be-writer and a devourer of books and New York City culture.

 

The Ten O’clock Class

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by Celeste Cheyney

  

This wasn’t supposed to be happening to someone like me. I’d always had good habits and had been blessed with good health. I had recovered well from the surgery performed in early August. Now it was November, and I was supposed to be in class, engaging in profound discussions about Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. However, here I was, stuck at home with pneumonia, on my fourth round of antibiotics, having chest pains and shortness of breath and sleeping all day. Not only was this scary, it was a waste of time! My friend and I had planned a European riverboat cruise for May. I couldn’t allow this to interfere with it. I needed to get back to my life.

I called the office every day. This doctor, being compassionate, always returned my calls. I asked questions and pleaded for help. “You’re one of the best pulmonologists in New York,” I said in my sweetest voice. “I know you won’t let me down.”

After a while he must have been tired of our little routine. “Okay, you win,” he said finally. “I’ll send you a script for a pulmonary rehab program. However, you must make a promise. Unless it’s an emergency, you will not call this office again. See you for a checkup in three months.” Success at last.

When the script arrived, I read it right away. Mild emphysemic changes to the lungs, accompanied by two nodules. That first part could mean that I had emphysema. That was a form of that horrible condition Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, or COPD. Maybe the doctor hadn’t mentioned it, because he knew it would terrify me. I couldn’t call him, so I began to read scores of websites. I always worry a lot and expect the worst to happen, so I fixated on the most alarming claims. COPD is usually caused by smoking but not always. It is irreversible. Your lung capacity deteriorates over time until you can barely catch your breath. Some drugs that relieve symptoms may cause suicidal tendencies. Nodules in the lungs could mean you have lung cancer. Life expectancy after a diagnosis of COPD is two to four years.

By the time the paper work for the rehab program went through, it was the middle of December. The first day at rehab was quite challenging. A short, stout middle-aged woman with closely cropped brown hair was waiting at the door. She resembled an angry bulldog ready to attack. Her hands were on her hips and she was frowning as if she were going to reprimand me.

“Hello. I’m Olga, the senior respiratory therapist here,” she uttered. “The ten o’clock class is about to begin.” She pointed to a large clock on the wall. “You are scheduled to be here for one hour every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday starting at 10 o’clock for twelve weeks. You must be here on the dot. For everyone’s safety, you will use the equipment exactly as you’re told. We do not want any accidents. Do you understand?” It had been a long time since I was treated like a pupil in grammar school.

The woman went on. “The disease you have is a terrible one, and it will get worse with time. All we can do is try to help you live with it.”  Well that was reassuring.  There was something about her behavior that was familiar. Who was it that she resembled? One thing was clear. This was not someone you crossed.

A slightly younger, pudgy woman with long bleached blonde hair and a round flushed face dashed over, as if to rescue me.

“Hi, I’m Kathleen,” she chimed with a smile. “I work with Olga.” She had a friendly, relaxed manner. It was easy to feel comfortable with her. This one might make it possible to survive here.

We stayed in the corridor and Olga described the program. “We provide an aerobic exercise regimen, monitor your vital signs, and teach you coping skills. You’re thin, so you will need advice about nutrition. You will have to eat six small meals a day. Otherwise you could waste away to nothing.”  For my entire life I had proudly avoided noshing. Now eating every few hours was good for me? 

The six-minute test to see how much distance I could cover came next. I scurried around and around in a circle while Olga shouted out numbers and Kathleen wrote them down. I hadn’t seen anything like this since my fifth-grade gym class.

We entered the rehab center, a long, narrow room whose walls were plastered with posters and charts labeled COPD. Each long wall was lined with exercise equipment – treadmills, arm bikes, stationary bikes, and elliptical machines. One corner had a low shelf with different sized free weights and small exercise posters above them. Hanging from a hook was a jump rope tied in a loop.  What could that be for?  Under it were oxygen cylinders lined up like a marching army. A hunched over old man was going on about how much he hated Obama while a blonde woman with a rasping voice kept saying, “Yeah.”

“Meet your classmates,” said Kathleen. Tom, who was exercising on an arm bike, greeted me with a smile. He had a ruddy complexion and white hair pulled back in a pony tail. On the floor next to him was an oxygen cylinder with narrow tubes running to his nostrils. “It’s my own fault,” he sighed with a shrug. “Two packs a day for sixty years. Now that I’m eighty, it’s caught up with me.”

Rose, the woman with the rasping voice, was on the arm bike next to him. She was a short, tubby blonde, probably in her seventies, with a pumpkin-shaped face. She smiled and greeted me warmly. She, too, was attached to an oxygen cylinder that was by her side. “A pack and a half,” she confessed.

Loretta was on the treadmill. She was a tiny woman with a halo of voluminous frizzy red hair. She seemed anxious and depressed but managed to smile. “I quit five years ago, but I can still barely walk from the kitchen to the living room without getting short of breath.”

Carl, the hunched over old man, was going on now about how much he hated Hillary. He shuffled over and scowled at me. “I’m eighty-eight and my habits are none of your business,” he barked.

I had begged for the opportunity to be in this program, but actually being here was surreal. Aside from puffing on a few Marlboros with friends in high school, I had never smoked a day in my life!   What was I doing in a pulmonary rehabilitation program with people like this? They were so different from anyone I knew. What would we possibly have to talk about? They were here because they had made a bad choice. I had made some bad choices in my life too, but when it came to health I’d  done everything right. Still, if I actually had this terrible disease, I was one of these people. I would have to make the best of it.

Olga handed me a rescue inhaler and a folder containing information and homework. She said that was all for today, then added, “On Monday, be here at 10 o’clock on the dot.”

“This looks like an excellent program,” I said, forcing a smile. I had to make it work.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I was there at 10 o’clock on the dot. It was all I had scheduled for the winter. I hated missing study groups, but it was flu season and being exposed to lots of people was too risky. Well ,going to rehab would be better than sleeping all day.  

Olga expected everyone to follow her orders. You couldn’t go one minute over the allotted time on a machine. You couldn’t change any of the settings. If you began to swing your arms while walking on the treadmill, she saw it even if she was entering data into the computer and the back of her head was facing you. “Stop that and hold on. You’ll fall off and break your neck!” she shouted. If anyone slouched, it was, “Sit up straight!”

At first I felt like an outsider, but soon I was chatting with everyone. After a while I actually looked forward to being there. When you walked in everybody welcomed you. When one of us had a good oxygen reading, we all cheered. The conversation was not intellectual and we avoided politics, but there was plenty to talk about – an episode of Blue Bloods, real estate near Orlando, a Knicks game, a recipe for spare ribs. I learned about everyone’s life. These were decent people who had faced enormous challenges. They had this terrible disease and were putting up a good fight. I shouldn’t have been such a snob. I shouldn’t have been so judgmental about their smoking. If I’d been in their shoes, I might have smoked too!

Friday was Olga’s day off. Kathleen was joined by her pal Daisy, the free-spirited therapist with long wavy white hair. We spent most of the time laughing about our common enemy.  Loretta and I started swinging our arms on the treadmill. We ramped up the speed. Daisy explained where the rope hanging on the hook had come from. “We gave it to Nurse Ratched as a joke last Christmas, so she could beat the patients into submission. She didn’t think it was funny.”

So that was why Olga seemed familiar. She resembled the infamous Nurse Ratched! Actually, that wasn’t quite fair. Nurse Ratched was a cold heartless tyrant who destroyed her patients’ egos. Olga made insensitive comments and treated you like a child, but she didn’t mean to inflict any harm.  According to Daisy she had been a gym teacher in a Catholic school. Well, that explained a lot. “She can’t help herself,” said Kathleen.

I played it down, but I was always able to exercise more vigorously than anyone else. After a while my breathing was better and my stamina was increasing. Maybe soon I would be able to go back to my regular gym. If I actually had COPD, how odd to be doing so well. 

In mid-March I had my last session. I was kind of sorry to be leaving. I would miss the camaraderie and felt a bit guilty about leaving the others behind. This was not the 10 o’clock class I would have chosen, but it had given me what I needed – a place where I could regain my strength, learn how to cope, and have some fun. Now it was time for the visit to the pulmonologist.

“Well you kept your promise. You didn’t call the office,” he said with a grin. “How was rehab?”

“It helped me in more ways than one. Thanks for getting me into the program.” Then I blurted out the important questions.

“Do I actually have COPD? If I do, will I be able to fly to Europe? Will I need my own oxygen supply on the plane?”

 “Did I ever say you have COPD?”

“Well, yes, kind of. Your script said mild emphysemic changes in the lungs.”

 He started to laugh. “Of course you have mild emphysemic changes in your lungs. So do a lot of    people your age. It’s not just the knees that make it hard for seniors to climb stairs. That doesn’t mean you have anything serious.”

“Oh?” I hadn’t really taken that in. I was too busy worrying about that other issue. “What about the nodules?” I asked.  

“You do not have COPD, so to get you into a program I had to be creative. Without the nodules in the diagnosis you wouldn’t have been accepted. Don’t worry about them. They’re quite small, and small nodules are almost always benign. I was pretty sure your symptoms were due to the pneumonia and that eventually it would resolve itself. I admire your spirit and perseverance. That’s why I wrote the script. I knew the rehab program would help you. I figured if you wanted something that badly, you deserved to have it. Flying won’t be a problem for you. Have a great time in Europe.”  He added some advice. “You shouldn’t worry so much. And when you read something, be more careful about the conclusions you draw.”

 

While working with a remarkable woman who was Jewish, British, and Deaf,  I was inspired to write a memoir about the woman’s experiences in England during World War II. It was published by Gallaudet University Press as part of Deaf Women’s Lives. Always inspired by the IRP, I am delighted to be part of it again.