The Summit

It had been about twenty years since I last climbed a mountain, a trip so terrible I had all but blocked it from my memory.  The highlights of that hike include a run-in with a six foot rattlesnake and wading through chest deep water while taking a "shortcut" suggested by one of my fellow hikers.

Probably because that trip was all but forgotten, I decided that I wanted to hike again.  My goal last summer was actually to start hiking, but somehow it never happened.  This past winter, I decided I was going to start training and be ready to do it in the spring.  I was doing the treadmill on steep inclines for an hour at a time and feeling pretty good about myself.  Then I got plantar fasciitis which is basically fancy doctor talk for excruciating pain in the foot.  For a while, all walking was put on hold, my foot so painful at times that I struggled just to go grocery shopping.

After months of babying it, my foot was finally good enough to start walking again. I went out most nights for at least an hour, enjoying spending time outdoors and yearning for more.  I was ready.

So, last Saturday morning, I got up and climbed Buck Mountain.  As soon as I started the first part of the ascent, I realized I had forgotten my asthma inhaler at home.  At that point, I wasn't going to let a little thing like not breathing stop me, so I pressed on.  I took as many breaks as I needed to, for as long as I needed to.  I took pictures along the way and enjoyed the peace and seclusion of an early morning hike in the woods, listening to the breeze rustling through the trees and the sounds of the birds chirping away to each other.

I made the summit in just under two hours.  It was beautiful.  Amazing.  Everything I wanted it to be.  I chose a rock to sit on and had my breakfast.  A friendly dog belonging to another hiker came over and licked my face in greeting.  I pet her for a few minutes and she ran off as soon as I tried to snap a picture, preferring a life of anonymity to the constraints of celebrity, apparently. I took pictures and enjoyed the wind whipping through my hair and cooling me off after all the hard work of getting to the top.

After about an hour, I headed back down, glad I had decided on an early start as an endless stream of people made their way upward.

I was so thrilled with my day's experience that I decided to hike Sleeping Beauty the next morning. I practically skipped up the mountain, it was so easy compared to Buck, and I made it to the top in a little under an hour.  Again, I spent an hour taking pictures, having a snack, and generally feeling content before heading back via Bumps Pond. 

But this journey did not begin this past weekend.  It didn't begin at the gym last winter or even last summer when I decided climbing mountains was something I wanted to do.  This journey began a few years ago, when I decided I didn't like the life I was living any more.

There have been many starts to this journey.  I have made advances, and I have had setbacks. Some days my path has been clear and others I have all but lost my way.  In the beginning, I took a step.  And then another.  And another.  Until one day, I found myself at the top of the mountain...looking forward to the next mountain to climb.

There is only one way to change your life. Take a step. Start moving in the direction you want to go in and keep moving in that direction, even if you find that your path is long and winding or overgrown completely in places.  Sometimes you may need to sit and rest.  Sometimes you will need to lay back and look up at the stars to make sense of it all.  Sometimes you might even need to stop and have a good cry.  But no matter what else you do, keep getting up and moving in the direction you want to go in. 

I promise you, one day you will get there.

Barcelona

This is an overview of my visit to Barcelona and surrounding areas in October of 2015.  It was a beautiful city and I found so many things to love there.  Sights included in this video are the city of Barcelona, Park Guell, The Vall de Nuria in the Pyrenees Mountains, Queralbs, Labyrinth Park, Barcelona Beach, Cadaques, and a hot air balloon trip in Cardedeu, among others.  The music on this video is by Romuald Borowiak, who was playing guitar and selling his CD's outside Park Guell the day I visited. I hope you enjoy it!

I Can't Remember: A Poem

I wrote this a few months back and decided to share it, finally.  I wrote it thinking of someone I knew a very long time ago and then was surprised to run into that person not long after writing it.  Sometimes, writing feels like an invocation, a spell, that has the power to make things happen in the real world.  This is one of those times for me.



I can’t remember a single conversation we ever had
I sat here and tried
But I can’t think of one

I can’t remember the way we made love
Or why it felt so right
I can’t explain it

All I can remember is the way my heart skipped a beat every time you walked into a room

All I can remember is the sound of my name on your lips whispered quietly into my ear as we lay in bed together

All I can remember is your smile, and the way everything else in the world melted away when you were near

Love isn't something we can grab hold of, stick in a jar and preserve for later

Love is fleeting

It’s the moment when your eyes met mine and my whole body lit up with electricity

I knew then that you felt it, too

Now, I’m not sure anymore because the memories are gone

I have nothing to tell me it was real

I have nothing to tell me if your heart still aches sometimes, lying in bed with someone else all these years later

Our bodies always knew better than our minds

We could never be in the same room without feeling it

We could never be alone without touching

My lips always found their way to yours

Our clothes always found their way to the floor

I can’t remember the first time we made love
I’m surprised to realize that
But I can’t remember

I can’t remember

Pedal, Fat-Ass!

I had been riding my bike for over an hour.  I was tired, using the last of my energy to get back home, and I was almost there...just around the corner.  I'm sure I looked exhausted.  I know I wasn't moving very fast by then, every push of the pedal a struggle.  That's when he stopped dead in the middle of the road, half a block away from me, stuck his head out the driver's side window of his car and yelled, "Pedal, Fat-Ass!"

I admit it, it stung.  How could it not?  At the same time, I was perplexed.  Why?  I mean, he could have just driven across the street, he was nowhere near me.  Even if he felt the need to shout insults, he could have done it without stopping.  But this guy, this young guy in the old car, he felt so strongly about the sight of me pedaling my fat ass down the street that he was compelled to stop dead in the middle of an intersection and yell at me.  Pedal, Fat-Ass.

And I did.  I continued to pedal, or to walk, almost every day since then.  There were days in the beginning when I had to bribe myself with promises of ice cream to get me out there, but I did it.  I got out there.  Over and over again.  For the past two months I have walked or biked for about an hour and a half to two hours per day, for at least five days a week.  I decided to make a change in my life, and then I went out there and started to make it happen.

Obviously, I had already begun to make this change before I was heckled, or I wouldn't have been there to be shouted at in the first place.  This whole thing of trying to get in shape didn't happen over night.  In some ways, it's been happening for years.

I was a smoker for twenty years.  After many attempts, I finally succeeded at quitting that particularly bad habit almost seven years ago.  I think about it now and don't know how I did it.  How did I even function as a smoker?  I have asthma, for Pete's sake.  If I walk past a heavy smoker, one who isn't even currently puffing on a cigarette, I gag.  When I'm out walking and pass smokers on the sidewalk I hold my breath until I'm clear of them.  I think it's safe to say that I'll never start smoking again.  No interest.  I like breathing too much.

But smoking wasn't my only bad habit and when I quit I gave in to the urge to snack far more often than I should have.  I was a couch potato.  I love books and movies and TV.  I love writing and daydreaming and laying on the couch with my dog.  I love chocolate and pot roast dinners and bread.  But all of that was taking its toll on me.  I was far too sedentary and my diet was terrible.

A doctor's visit a couple years ago revealed that continuing on the path I was on would lead me to diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, and a host of other problems I didn't want to deal with.  I started trying to improve my diet.

Over the past couple of years, I have started experimenting with vegetables.  Don't laugh, until that point in my life the only veggies I would eat were corn, potatoes, and canned green beans.  Since then, I've learned that roasting vegetables can transform them into something not only edible but, (dare I say it), delicious.  I've learned to like broccoli and even brussels sprouts when they're roasted.  I've cut out most red meat and stick to mainly poultry and fish.  I started a garden and made countless stir fries using my fresh pea pods and green beans along with the red peppers that have become one of my favorite foods.  I eat more beans, and less processed foods than I ever have before.  Okay, I admit it, I'm still a chocoholic and that will probably never change, but who wants to live a life without chocolate anyway?

I've had my ups and downs.  Lost some weight, gained it back plus some when I fell off the wagon and started eating too much junk again.  At one point, my doctor told me that I'm not using the bottom of my lungs at all.  My blood pressure was also getting high enough that she was pressuring me to go on medication to manage it.  I didn't want to do that.  I didn't want to go down that path.  I didn't want to write myself off as a fat middle aged ex-smoker who couldn't be anything but a couch potato because walking and talking at the same time was enough to make me wheeze.  I didn't want to follow in my father's footsteps and end up having a heart attack and a stroke.

At that point, I had to decide who I wanted to be.  I started slow.  I had to.  At first it was a struggle just to go for a half hour walk three times a week.  But I started to feel something.  I started to feel the seed of possibility.  I came to the realization that I was changing.  That with every step I was quite literally changing who I was and making myself into who I wanted to be.

I stepped up my game.  I started walking more.  I set goals, and then exceeded them.  I walked over six miles one night because I was determined to walk for at least two full hours.  I came up with a couple of regular routes I walk, one takes an hour, the other an hour and a half.  I very seldom use the hour route.  If I do, it's because I'm pairing it with a bike ride.  I've lost about fifteen pounds in two months.

Right now, I seem to have plateaued.  I haven't lost any more weight in a while.  I was starting to get frustrated.  The little voice in the back of my mind was saying, "Screw this.  Let's sit on the couch and eat ice cream for a few days."  So, I did what I didn't want to do.  I told the voice to shove it.  I went outside and I walked, and I walked harder.  I pushed myself to walk faster.  Tonight, for the first time since possibly High School, I even jogged.  Not for very long at a stretch, after a couple of minutes I start wheezing and have to go back to walking, but I did it nonetheless.  And I did it at least a half dozen times during tonight's walk.

I finally figured something out.  When I quit smoking, I had to come up with a better argument than the voice of addiction that whispered in my ear and told me how great a cigarette would be and how I could just have one more and that would be it.  I had to come up with a voice stronger and louder than that one.  I had to come up with a more persuasive argument.  And that's what I've done again.  Sometimes, the argument is simple.  I want to look better.  Sometimes that's not enough and I have to think about the health consequences of not getting into better shape.  And sometimes, I just have to listen to my body.  To feel my lungs engaging all the way down to the very bottom when I jog for a block or ride my bike up a hill.  I like that feeling.  I like feeling my body coming back to life.  And I like the ridiculously baggy asses of all of my pants now.

I have a long way to go, but I'm on the right path now and nothing is going to stop me.  Which brings me back to the guy who felt the need to stop his car to let me know how ridiculous I am.  I've had ample time to consider that one shouted sentence while walking and biking for the past several weeks.  What I've come to realize is this.  That guy obviously has issues that have nothing to do with me.  For some reason, the only way he could come up with to make himself feel better was to try to make someone else feel worse.  His only power would have been to make me give up, to pedal my fat ass home and console myself with an ice cream sundae.  I didn't do that.  I got my fat ass back out there, day after day after day and I will continue to do so, especially on the days that I don't want to.  That guy is not my problem.  He never was.

In the end, we are all our own worst enemies. The only way to defeat the enemy without defeating yourself is to get out there and do it.  Push through it.  Take the first step, the first spin of the wheel, the first row of the oar, whatever it takes.  Just get moving.  Every step is a step in the right direction.  Every time you push yourself forward you change who you are.  Not just on the outside, but on the inside.  You increase your sense of worth by increasing your resolve.  You sculpt your mind while you sculpt your body.  You can be anyone you want, you just have to make it happen.  And you make it begin to happen with the act of beginning.  Sometimes, when you don't feel like doing it, you just have to Do It Anyway.

Figuring It Out

The past couple years have brought a lot of changes to my life.  The death of my grandmother.  The end of my marriage.  The struggle to figure it all out.

For a long time, and I mean several years, I was running on autopilot.  I was a zombie.  I was watching the movie of my life go by and I wasn't even enjoying the popcorn.

My marriage was a mess for a long time before it ended.  I guess that technically my marriage is still a mess because I'm not divorced yet, but that's just paperwork.  As far as my heart, my mind, and my life go...I'm on my own.

Even after Tommy left, I had my sister and her family here and I kind of piggy backed onto their lives.  And then one day they were gone, too.  And I was left with this big empty space where I thought I had a life.

So...here I am.

If my life were a Rocky movie, I would already have gotten my ass kicked and I would now be training for the next big fight.  This is the part of the movie they always show as a montage.  Why?  Because it's not exciting to watch.  It is, however, the pivotal moment in the film.  It's the time when our hero decides to scrape herself off the couch and get to work.  It's the time when the hero of the story grows, changes, becomes...whatever she's supposed to become.

When you see a cocoon, it's not much to look at.  I mean, you wouldn't sit there and stare at a cocoon for weeks on end because it was just so riveting that you couldn't take your eyes away, would you?  No.  If you did, your life would be more boring than mine.  Which might explain why you're reading my blog.

Anyway, once the Spring comes, something very exciting happens to that cocoon after all.  Something new emerges from it.  A caterpillar goes in and a butterfly comes out.

I'm trying to build a butterfly in here.  I know it takes time, but I think I've figured out how to do it.  So take a peek in my direction now and then.  One day, you might be surprised to find an empty cocoon.

The Freedom of Being an Outsider

Yesterday, I read a news story about Whitney Kropp, a high school sophomore who was voted Homecoming Queen as a joke. 

 

Whitney Kropp

Unfortunately, this story hit rather close to home for me.

Halfway through eighth grade, my family moved and I changed schools. Eighth grade is a pretty tough year to begin with. Many kids are entering their teens and all those wacky hormones start kicking in, plus the school system I moved to was known to be very cliquey.  I made friends, but I was not a part of the established cliques, so I was far from being part of the "in" crowd. 

I was one of the youngest kids in the class, and still very much a goofy kid. My friends and I were a pretty close-knit bunch of misfits. We all got picked on from time to time, but I don't think any of us worried about it much.

I got teased by some of the more popular kids. Some people called me Dogface. I assume that stemmed from a really bad "poodle perm" I got at my mother's urging, but, who knows. One kid comes up with something mean, another laughs, before you know it, it sticks. Of course I didn't enjoy it, but it wasn't something I spent time worrying about. I knew they didn't like me. I knew they thought I was ugly. But there were other people who did like me, and there were other boys who asked me out.

At the end of the year, there was an 8th grade "prom". It wasn't a big dressy event like the high school prom, but they elected a prom court and all that sort of thing. Imagine my surprise when my name was announced as one of the girls who had made the Prom Court. I was stunned. I knew it couldn't be right, even though friends came up and congratulated me.

Then I started getting threats. Anonymous notes turned up in my locker threatening to beat me and my friends up if I didn't drop off the Court. One of the teachers came up to me and introduced himself saying that he wanted to make sure I was a real person as he had never heard of me before. He asked if I was sure I wanted to stay on the court. I did.

As we neared the date of the prom, the threats escalated. It was doubly difficult because I couldn't explain to my mother that I was on the prom court as a joke. She was glad because she thought I was popular. I think I might have tried to tell her, but she didn't get it and I let it go. Or maybe I never said anything because I assumed she wouldn't get it. I don't remember after all these years, except to say that I felt I had to be secretive about the circumstances of my arrival on the prom court.

What I do remember is walking across the auditorium and up onto the stage when they called my name. I remember being pelted with wadded up paper. I remember the animosity in the air. I think I smiled. I certainly tried to. The last thing I wanted was for any of them to ever know they had hurt me.

It did hurt.

The way I felt.

I have absolutely no regrets about standing my ground and walking up onto that stage, though. If I had dropped out and let them have their way, I would have been their whipping girl for the next four years. They would have known that they had shamed and embarrassed me and I would have known that I had let them. Instead, I forced them to live with the consequences of their actions; namely that one of their friends did not get to be on the prom court they were "supposed" to be on because a goofy little geek girl was standing up there.

I don't know who the "mastermind" behind that little plot was. I have no idea who voted for me or even why they hated me enough to single me out in that way.  Back then, not knowing who it was just made me feel that it was "everyone" or "the popular kids". In reaction to that, and to a couple other horrible incidents that occurred shortly afterward, I entered my freshman year of high school with a strong feeling of being an outsider and a rebel.

From then on, my motto was, "You may not like me, but you won't forget me". I lived a little louder. I gave up any fear of what my classmates might think of me. I actually grew to relish the idea of being hated. I loved feeling that I was a giant walking "Fuck You" to the popular crowd. Having been shown so forcefully that I did not fit in, I lost my desire to do so. Of that, I am grateful.

I may have taken it a bit too far, but Whitney Kropp seems to be handling what was done to her with a great deal more intelligence and grace than I was able to muster. I hope that her pride in herself for handling the situation so well and for attracting the kind of support she has will help her to gain confidence in herself and to remember her value over the years. I hope she will never forget that she took an insult and turned it around on those who tried to do her harm.

Even more, I hope that others who have stood by silently and watched someone being bullied will stand up and say that it's wrong.  Once you lose your fear of rejection, once you realize you have nothing to lose and stand up for what you know is right, you will find what true freedom is.

 

Support Whitney Kropp

Teens Against Bullying

http://www.stopbullying.gov/
Photography by Mary Anne Marcondes

 

 

A Year in the Life

This is not something you ever want to see on a brain scan.

A year ago, we were on the verge of splitting up.  Tommy had requested a job transfer back to Florida, his motorcycle had already been shipped in anticipation of the move, and I was planning on staying in New York without him, relishing the idea of being on my own again.

Then one night, I awoke to find Tommy violently sick, spraying vomit all over the bedroom.  I sat in bed blinking at the clock, trying to figure out what the hell was going on, miserable to have been woken after just a couple hours of sleep, angry at Tommy for making such an ungodly mess, wondering what to do about it all.  Then I got up to check on him.

When Tommy staggered out of the bathroom, he apologized and then fell into a chair.  He said "Something's not right".  I asked if he needed to go to the hospital and he said yes.

My heart started racing.  I went into the bedroom and got some clothes, brought them to Tommy in the dining room and told him to get dressed.  I went to get dressed myself, grabbed a towel and started wiping up the vomit which was sprayed on the walls, the dresser, the bed, the floor...everywhere.

When I went back out to the dining room, Tommy had one sock on.  I asked him why he wasn't dressed and he said he couldn't do it.  I saw that he wasn't moving his left side normally.  My heart stopped.  I dressed him and helped him to the car.  He was listing to one side, not thinking clearly...I had no idea what was happening.  I just knew we were both frightened and that I had to get him to the hospital.

I pulled the car up in front of the Emergency Room doors and we walked in.  I started giving the receptionist Tommy's information while he staggered around the room.  I know from talking with the receptionist later that she thought Tom was drunk at first.  As I tried to explain the situation, he vomited in front of the snack machine.

Soon we were taken into a room.  I ran out and moved the car and by the time I got back they had started doing tests.  Doctors and nurses asked their questions...what could I say?  He had a bad headache last night, and now his left side isn't working.  My mind could reach no conclusions about what was happening. 

                                     Believe it or not, this guy was in the room next to Tommy's at the Glens Falls Hospital ER.

As the night turned to morning, I started making calls...I called in sick to work at my new job where I'd been for just a couple months...I called in sick for Tom, not knowing what to say except that we were at the hospital and didn't know what was wrong.  I felt like a liar.  I felt like I was making up some kind of crazy story.  This sort of thing doesn't happen in real life.  This is a House episode.

Then another Doctor came and asked me to explain it all again.  I told him how Tommy had been complaining of a headache for awhile and how it had gotten really bad last night.  How he thought he had pulled something in his neck and had tried putting ice on it...how he woke, the unbelievable projectile vomiting, how he couldn't dress himself and how I realized that his left side wasn't working right.

The doctor told me that made sense.  That they had found something on his CT scan.  There was "something" on his brain and they didn't know what it was, but that it was going to require brain surgery within the next couple of days.

My mind reeled.  I don't know what I had expected to hear.  I guess I thought the doctor would say it was the flu or something...food poisoning...I don't know.  Anything but an unidentified something on his brain.  Anything other than the need to choose whether to stay in Glens Falls or arrange for an ambulance to bring him to Albany for the surgery.

I chose Albany and called his parents.  Imagine doing that.  Calling your in-laws and explaining calmly that their son is being sent by ambulance to Albany Med because he has something on his brain.  No, you don't know what it is, but he is probably going to need brain surgery within the next couple of days.  Try to keep the panic out of your voice while you do it.

Tommy's parents and brother met us at Glens Falls Hospital just as the ambulance arrived to transport him.  His mother rode with him, his father and brother drove down seperately and I stopped home to let the dog out before making the hour long drive by myself in a daze.

We spent a long day in the ER at Albany Med waiting for a room to open up for him.  I tried to keep the panic at bay as the day wore on and Tommy kept getting worse.  At first, I had thought that he was sleeping and out of it because of the medication they had given him but hour after hour went by and he wasn't being given anything else...he was just slipping away, from incoherent to unconscious and back again.

At some point, I convinced Tommy's family to go home and get some rest, which was good because it was six o'clock at night by the time we got into a room.  The nurse tried to get him up to get his weight.  She looked at me and asked, "Does he walk?"  I always think of that moment, because that's when it hit home...he looks like a stroke victim.  "Yesterday he did," I replied, "Just like you and me".  I saw the realization dawn on her, the sympathy in her eyes. She stood Tommy up with the help of an aide.  His left side was completely useless by that point.  He was awake but not aware.  He kept insisting he could do it himself if they would just let go of him.  "You are, you're doing it yourself," the nurse told him as she pushed his left foot forward with her own.

Not twenty-four hours before, we were on the verge of splitting up.  We were fighting because he had a headache and he was yelling at me like it was my fault.  I was yelling at him to shut the fuck up and let me go to sleep.  Not twenty-four hours before, we were just regular people who were not getting along.   Now, everything was different.  Now I was watching as he lay in a hospital bed, mumbling nonsense phrases then shouting them while looking me in the eye, obviously angry that I didn't understand what he wanted.

I made arrangements to have him watched by the staff overnight so I could go home and get some rest.  I was told that they would do more tests the following day to determine exactly what it was and what the best course of action would be.  We never got that far.

The next morning I got up early and went to drop the dog off at my brother-in-law's house.  On my way there, I received a call from the hospital.  The doctor told me that Tommy's condition had deteriorated rapidly overnight.  He asked for my permission to do emergency brain surgery.  He said that they still didn't know what it was but that they needed to get it out.  He told me to consider it a life saving procedure.  I agreed as I shoved the dog into Tommy's brother's arms.  I agreed to transfusions.  I agreed as they explained that they might have to removed a section of Tommy's skull and put it in a skull bank until the swelling went down enough to reattach it.  I agreed to anything and everything...just do what you have to do.  I explained to Tommy's brother what the conversation had been and then got back in my car, fighting with myself to not speed, drive carefully, don't get in an accident, but hurry hurry hurry.

I kept it together until I got to the surgical waiting room, then finally broke down.

Tommy's family came and waited with me.  We paced, answered doctor's questions.  Again, I had the feeling of being trapped in a House episode.  No, we hadn't been out of the country.  No, Tommy doesn't do drugs.  No, he doesn't have any allergies...

Finally, the surgeon came out and told us that Tommy was okay.  It was an abscess, not a tumor or anything else that might have been far worse.  Surgery had gone well.  They didn't have to remove any of his skull.

After what seemed like an incredibly long wait, we could finally see him.  His head was bandaged.  He had blood filled hoses snaking out of the top of his skull.  Other than that, he looked pretty good.  He was awake.  He talked to us.  He was confused about what had happened, but that was to be expected.

We spent just over a week at Albany Med while Tommy healed.  It seems like we were there so much longer.  It was one of the longest, hardest series of days I hope I ever have to go through.  Tommy was on morphine through most of it and doesn't remember a lot of it now.  He was sometimes very bossy and difficult to deal with.  It was sometimes hard for me to look at him without letting him see the fear in my eyes.

And there were days when I was terrified.  The swelling increased after the surgery until he looked like a fighter on the losing end of a few rounds with Rocky Balboa.  He lost use of the left side of his body completely, including his vision.

Finally, Tommy was cleared to go to rehab at Glens Falls Hospital.  As soon as I got him settled in, I went back to work, trying to regain some kind of normalcy in my life while he did physical therapy.  He regained movement on his left side and quickly regained his strength.  The vision took a little longer.

By early May, Tommy was back home.  He still had a PICC line, and I had to give him IV antibiotics twice a day, which was sometimes nerve wracking, but we got through it.  Altogether, he was only out of work for two months.  His recovery was remarkable and seemingly complete.  He was back on track and we were back together.  Everything seemed to be going well.

Then, in September, Tommy had his first seizure.

Since then, it's been a battle to keep our hope up that there will be an end to this.  Everything will seem to be going well, and then Tommy will have another seizure.  With each seizure comes time off from work while the doctors adjust his medications.  With each increase of medication come side effects from an increase in anxiety and a decrease in patience to an inability to think clearly or concentrate.  With the time off comes worry over money and whether or not Tommy will lose his job.

And, the worst part for Tommy, with each seizure the clock is reset and it's six more months until he can drive.  No car.  No motorcycle.  No freedom.

It's no wonder he's frustrated.  I'm frustrated for him.  

 We are both so grateful that he has come through this as well as he has.  We are especially grateful to the many doctors, nurses, aides, and physical therapists who have helped us along the way and who continue to help us try to find a solution.  We are grateful for our friends and family who have been there to support us along the way, including the friends that Tommy made in rehab at Glens Falls Hospital who have had similar struggles of  their own.

It's been a year since I nearly lost my husband.  It's been the most difficult year of both of our lives.  We have had good moments and bad, but we have worked through all of it together and for that I am grateful.