I am interrupting this week of Miracle Workers to let all of you know that during my convalescence my mother gotten me addicted to HGTV.

Have you seen this channel?

It's incredible.

My mind is swimming with ways to organize, decorate, and add "curb appeal".

I cannot stop watching.

I am pathetic.

Labels: Life

Today's Miracle Worker is my neighbor. You can read about him here.

Labels: Life

Today's miracle worker is Paula Resco, RN. Paula is a hospice nurse. She was not my husband's hospice nurse, but she was the nurse who happened to be on call the weekend my husband slipped into a coma and died.

I don't know how any of those hospice workerd do it, but they are the kindest, most compassionate people in the world. When Paula came to home and explained to me that John was in the process of dying, I couldn't stopped crying. She held my hand and waited until I was ready to hear what I needed to hear. She promised to come back and check on him. She stared a lot at our children, her heart obviously breaking a little bit, too.

When John died, she came to our home, officially pronounced him dead and then stayed a while. This is unusual. They just sign the paper work and move on to their next paitent, but Paula waited for the funeral home to come get him; she helped clean up his room. Together we discarded all the medications. She even let me keep the albuterol that John used to help him breathe because my son has asthma and it was the exact same dosage.

Besides being John's nurse, Paula was a sorce of comfort to me also. I hope I never have to see her again, but I was happy to have her when we needed her.

Labels: Life

Labels: Life

Today's Miracle Worker will remain anonymous. She is a former student of mine. I'll just call her A.

By the time A was in sixth grade she had TWICE grown her hair and had it cut for Locks of Love. No one told her to do this. It was just something she wanted to do.

A was a kind, compassionate young lady. She would have been on my list of favorite students even if she hadn't donated her hair to charity (and yes, all us teacher have favorite students that we will always remember). She wasn't the smartest in the class or the most popular, but she was one of the sweetest.

I should probably include A's mother as a Miracle Worker too because I'm not quite sure how you raise such an unselfish charitable child, but I hope I can do the same.

Labels: Life

I know I'm supposed to be talking about Miracle Workers this week, but I can't let the day go by without discussing the following:

I always had a fantasy that I would be one of the hosts of The View. I know I'd be much better than that Debbie Stupidopolous or the vapid Elisabeth Hasselback. I have a lot of opinions and would love to express them on The View. I also have a lot of life experience, something the younger women they choose for the show never seem to have. Lately The View has pretty much sucked, though. They used to have a nice cross-section of professional women represented--a journalist, a lawyer (and before her ridiculous wedding to her gay soon-to-be ex-husband, Star Jones was good on that show), a comedian and a moron (Lisa Ling excluded). Now it's 3 comedians and one moron. Ugh.

Today, though, I realized why I could never be on The View. Today I would have been fired. You see today, "Mother of the Year" Dina Lohan was on with the newest child she is exploiting. As I listened to this woman BS the women on The View; as I watched the 2000 pound gorilla in the room that no one would talk about (you know, the fact that her oldest daughter is a drug-addicted whore whose career is destroyed); as I watched these seemingly intelligent women (minus Elisabeth, she's a moron) ignore the obvious, I found myself yelling at the television. And I know, in my heart of hearts, if I ever had the type of job where I had to interview someone like her, I would have lost it on this women. And then Barbara would have had to fire me.

Labels: Life

The next two miracle workers are a team. They are neonatologists at St. Barnabas Medical Center.



When Aidan was born he had breathing issues. Our poor baby boy was on oxygen and was hooked up to IVs when he was just hours hold. We couldn't even hold or touch our baby for four days--and even then, we had to be so careful because of all the wires he was hooked up to. Aidan spent eight days in the NICU. One of the hardest things I ever did was leave the hospital without my baby.

Drs. Tien and Santo Domingo cared for him in their NICU with caring, competence and compassion, along with all the NICU nurses. I remember when Dr. Tien would come to my hospital room to see me, he would always touch my hand and try to make me more comfortable with the whole situation. Both doctors acted like it was their own children in that NICU.

Fortunetely, Aidan's story has a happy ending. He left the NICU eight days after he was born a perfectly healthy baby.

Labels: Children, Life

I am stealing Babspeapod's theme from last week, and I am going to spend this week talking about the miracle workers in my life.

The first miracle worker I am going to write about is Doris DiPoce. Mrs. DiPoce was my sixth grade teacher. Mrs. DiPoce was, hands down, the BEST teacher I have ever had--this includes elementary school, middle school, high school, college and 3 graduate schools (one Ivy League).

She was young, pretty, and very smart. She instilled in me a life-long love of learning. We both admired the same historical figures with Queen Elizabeth I of England being at the top of our lists. I remember how excited she was when I did a report on her, and how excited I was when she told me Queen Elizabeth was her favorite person in history.

She gave birth to her first child the year I had her and for three long months we had a substitute teacher. Not that the substitute was not capable, but I remember being very happy when Mrs. DiPoce came back to work.

I found out a few years ago that she had worked her way up in the school system and was the Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction. Ironically, it's the type of position I hope to achieve one day.

I've tried to track down Mrs. DiPoce so that I could tell her how much she has meant to me all these years, but she retired and I can't find her.

Labels: Life

I have a friend who is going through a bitter divorce. She discovered her husband was cheating on her recently. It was going on for a while, but she honestly had no idea. They've been married for 15 years and have two children. She's devastated.

I had this conversation before. Although I do not have any experience with divorce, I truly believe a bad divorce can be worse than the death of a spouse. Having experienced the death of a spouse, people think I'm crazy when I say that.

But I know our love was always real. I don't look back and think, Did he ever love me? Did he mean anything he ever said to me? I have no self-esteem issues because of his death. I am not left to wonder if there is something wrong with me or if maybe I did something wrong in the marriage.

Oh, there are tons of emotions that run through me on a daily basis--survivor's guilt, wondering if I did enough, questioning if I somehow could have prevented it from happening. But when all is said and done, I know deep down those are typical feeling we all have when we lose someone we love and they are not the least bit logical. At the end of the day, I will always know the love was real.

Labels: Life, Love

Root For Vinny!

Vincent Pastore to ‘Feud it Out’ in Support of Pancreatic Cancer Research
Earlier this year in his role as a contestant on the NBC hit reality show, The Celebrity Apprentice, actor Vincent Pastore earned $50,000 for The Lustgarten Foundation!
We were proud to accept such as generous gift on behalf of Nancy Berke in memory of her husband, Mitchell, and we are proud now to have Vincent’s continuing support through an exciting new endeavor.

On July 1, Vincent returns to prime time as a contestant in the celebrity version of one of the greatest game shows in the history of American Television: Celebrity Family Feud. The 30-year-old classic will feature the one-and-only Al Roker at the helm, as celebrity families battle it out to name the most popular responses to survey-type questions.

Vincent is competing for the opportunity to win $50,000 for The Lustgarten Foundation.

Celebrity Family Feud airs Tuesdays at 8pm on NBC. Tune in and root for Vinny!

Labels: Life

I want to thank everyone for all their support and well-wishes. I can't believe the "friends" I've made through this blog and the support I've received.

My recovery is much slower than I expected. Of course I had nothing to base it on. I thought it was going to be like a C-section. The good news is that my recovery is not slower than anyone else expected. I guess I set my goals too high.

The scariest part about the news I received yesterday is thinking about the future of my children. They have a genetic pre-disposition for pancreatic cancer from me, and all the oncologists we spoke to believed that John's cancer was also genetic. For him to have gotten it so young was a big factor in that assumption. I learned when John was sick that his grandfather had "back cancer". John had cancer in his back, too. I strongly suspect he had pancreatic cancer that had metasticized to his spine, just like John.

So now my children are genetically pre-disposed from both parents. Dr. Frucht, my gastroenerologist at the Pancreas Center, assures me that by the time we need to worry about them, there will be many, less invasive tests. I hope so.

Labels: Children, Life

I had my follow-up appointment today. Good news. According to my surgeon, I will lose a few more pounds before I begin to gain my weight back. I'm going to look like a friggin' Olsen twin.

I also learned that the cyst was pre-cancerous. If I hadn't had it removed I would have been dead within the next five years from pancreatic cancer. All I thought was that I wanted to go home and hug my kids. Those poor babies would have been orphans because of this insidious disease.

So, despite my doubts yesterday, I did the right thing. I said it before and I will say it again. I can't help but think that John died to save my life. I don't know if it's the choice I would have made, but I wasn't given a choice and now I am the parent that's left. I have to live long enough to see my children grow up and become independent.

Labels: Life

I look like a crack whore. I'm not even exaggerating. At 5'5" I probably way about 105 lbs (I don't even want to get on a scale and get an exact weight; besideds, I don't even own a scale), and I have bruises up and down my arms from the IVs and blood draws. My mother says that my teeth (which she payed a small fortune for when I was in sixth grade), are a dead give away that I am not a crack whore because they are in great shape.

I question my decision to have the surgery. I walked into NY Presbyterian Hospital last Tuesday, healthy and happy. A week later, I can barely eat, I'm nauseous a lot, I'm exahusted and miserable. I can't lift my own children or play with them.

This surgery was supposed to be a preemptive strike against pancreatic cancer. No one know, though, if I ever would have gotten it. No one knows if that cyst would have ever turned into something.

Today I wonder if I have just become a victim of modern medicine.

Labels: Life

By the way, bear with me in these last few posts. I am hopped up on Percocet and my have a lot of typos.

I'm feeling stronger every day, though.

Labels: Life

As many of you know I was a huge fan of Tim Russert and Meet the Press. His sudden death greatly saddened me. I also mentioned that John and I had seen Tim Russert speak live at Drew University in New Jersey.

One of the things he talked about in his speech was what an incredible country the United States of American is. This was in 2002, shortly after one of the NBC correspondants had died in Iraq of a blood clot while embedded with the troops. He discussed, in awe, the 2000 elections (for which he became so famous) and the reaction of this country. He said to the audience that we, as Americans, simply waited, heard the Supreme Court ruling, and whether we were happy about the decision or not, came to terms with it and accepted George W. Bush as our new President. There were no coups, no rebellions, no acts of violence, no attempts on the lives of either candidate, much like there would be in other countries. We just waited and accepted the outcome. And then we all came together again as a country. Mr. Russert spoke about this with much pride in his country.

Today, while I was waiting for Meet the Press to come on, Chris Matthews talked about something he witnessed at Tim Russert's funeral mass. It reminded me of his talk years ago. At the end of the second pew were two gentlemen talking together and nodding in agreement, most likely about what a wonderful man and skilled journalist Mr. Russert was. Those two men were John McCain and Barak Obama.

I am sure this would have made Tim Russert proud. I am sure if he is holding a live speech in heaven or wherever he is, he is discussing what a great country this is when the two Presidential candidates can commiserate in the friendliest of ways, over a dececeased journalist's career and legacy.

Labels: Life

I got home from the hospital yesterday and spent most of the day sleeping. They really don't let you sleep very peacefully in the hospital.

I hope everyone enjoyed my brother Andrew's posts. I jokingly told him he could simply write about what a great big sister he has. I didn't think he would actually do it. I was very touched when I read that post.

My other brother, Rich, his wife, Nancy and their baby daughter, Carly moved into my home to take care of Ava and Aidan while I was in the hospital.

My mother and brother Andrew stayed overnight at the hospital during my surgery.

My mother has now moved into my home to take care of the kids and me. Last night Rich and Nancy also stayed over. They were worried I was going to have a tough first night back home and wanted to be here to help (I had a great night, everything went smoothly).

I have been thinking a lot about family lately. I have come to the conclusion there are two types of families--those that circle the wagons in times of crisis (obviously I have this type of family); and the ones that cut and run when the going gets tough.

Many years ago, when I was all of 23, I worked with a man who was around the age I am now. His father was dying. I don't remember from what. He couldn't "face" it and when he was summoned to say good-bye, he didn't go. He told me he thought if he didn't go, his father wouldn't die. Even at the young age of 23, with very little experiencel, I thought what a complete ass this man was. Grow up and face life head on. You father was dying and now you have to live with the fact that you did nothing to ease his suffering and didn't even say good-bye.

I don't believe you have to have experienced personal setbacks or tragedy to know what the right thing is. My good friend Babspeapod is an example of that. While, fortunately, she has not personally experienced the type of devastation my family has, she seemed to instinctively know all the right things to do and say. My 17-year-old babysitter is another example. Hell, I have been fortunate to run into tons of people who just want to help in the face of crisis.

A few years after I worked with the idiot who never said good-bye to his father, I worked with a woman whose mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She, as a first-year teacher (she started her career later in life) with a family of her own, was completely stressed out. We taught the same classes and it didn't take much for me to photocopy all my lesson plans and hand them to her. That was one less thing she had to worry about.

People have a habit of mistaking the words "I can't" with "I won't". I can't flap my arms and fly to Florida on vacation. If someone is sick and needs helps, but I don't do anything for them, it's because I wouldn't do it, not because I couldn't. I tried to explain this to someone who carelessly interchanged the words "I can't" with "I won't". Not surprisingly, it fell on deaf ears.

I feel sorry for the people like my former co-worker, though. They used to piss me off to no end, but now I just feel pity for those that cut and run. What must that do to a person't self-esteem and self-worth? Think about that old episode of Friends, when Joey told Phoebe there is no such thing as a selfless act. If you do something good for someone, it also make you feel good, so it's not selfless. He was right. I now when I handed that first-year teacher over my lesson plans, I felt good, too.

Labels: Life

After John died I was obsessive about putting everything in its place, making sure the children's pajamas were laid out, keeping the house immaculate. I was afraid something was going to happen to me and I wanted to make sure that my family would find everything in order. This went on until about February. Then I relaxed. Nothing was going to happen to me any time soon.

I've been doing it again, though. For about the past two weeks, I've been spending less time playing with my children and more time keeping the house in order. It's the only thing I can control right now. As of this morning, my car has been cleaned, the oil changed, the gardens watered, all the laundry cleaned, dried, folded and put away, meals cooked for the week, bills paid, checks made out to the babysitter, the electrician, and the housekeeper, and all paperwork filed and in order. I had a busy weekend.

Tomorrow I will be checking into New York Presbyterian Hospital to have a laparascopic distal pancreatectomy (try saying that 5 times really fast). Basically my surgeon will be removing about 35-40% of my pancreas because of a small benign cyst found in the body of my pancreas that doctors are concerned can turn into cancer one day.

I will be out of the hospital in about 4 days and home recovering. My brother and sister-in-law are moving in while I'm gone to take care of the kids.

My mother will be at the hospital with me acting as my healthcare advocate. Then she will move in with my while I recover at home.

My youngest brother, Andrew, will update my blog on my progress and will also be guest blogging for me while I am in the hospital.

I am scared.

I also have an awesome family.

Labels: Life

It is with great sadness that I write about the death of one of my favorite television personalities and journalists, Tim Russert. It may sound strange, but I feel like I have lost a good friend.

John and I had the pleasure of seeing Tim Russert speak live at Drew University in New Jersey. He was one of the best public speakers I have ever had the pleasure to see.

Meet the Press was one of my favorite shows and I can say with all certaintity that it will never be the same.

The loss of Tim Russert will leave a huge hole in telelvision journalism.

Labels: Life

I have a lot to be pissed about. With Father's Day right around the corner I do not have a living father, grandfather, uncle or husband. I decided I needed to reflect on the things I should be grateful for:

• The three uncles my children are lucky enough to have as a huge part of their lives--and the two sisters-in-law who would not have it any other way.
• The nanny who is a kind, wonderful and sweet person who also sends her husband to my house to do odd jobs for me.
• The 17-year-old babysitter who is incredibly responsible and reliable and so selfless that she donated a week's salary to the Lustgarten Foundation in my husband's name.
• The daycare center that purposely chose a Father's Day project that could include my children (they can put their projects on his grave).
• My mother who is my number 1 support and advocate.
• My grandmother, who at the age of 88 cooks the most wonderful meals for my family.
• The friends, both old and new, who have reached out and given me their support.
• My co-workers, who are the kindest, most wonderful group of people in the world.
• My husband's friends who have shown through their actions how much he meant to them.
• And of course, my two beautiful children. John will always live on through them. I don't know where I'd be right now without them.

Labels: Life, Love

This is not a political blog (except when it comes to cancer research), but today I'm going to get a little political.

I stated in the past that I am an independent voter. I am the one both parties are trying to get on their side. I have voted both democratic and republican, and even independent.

I voted for George W. Bush in 2004. I never reveal who I vote for or who I will vote for, but I am making an exception because I don't want anyone who reads what I have to say next to think I am a knee-jerk liberal who loves to bash Bush.

The biggest problem I believe with George W. Bush is that he has never experienced a first-hand tragedy or adversity. He comes across as unsympathetic to the plights of us "common" people because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and got to do anything he wanted. His parents, spouse, siblings and children are all alive and healthy. There is nothing in his life that has humbled him and he could use a bit of humbling.

Franklin Roosevelt was a lot like Bush in this regard. Then he contracted polio and became paralyzed. He also began associating with the "common man" and became humbled. Hence, all of his social programs.

Not that I wish harm to Bush or his family; not that I wish for more social programs. I would just like for him to admit he screwed up (hey Kennedy did it with the Bay of Pigs and everyone admired him for it), and come up with an exit strategy. And then put more funding towards finding alternate sources of fuel. And towards cancer research. And stem cell research. You know, stuff that can really do some good because I can't honestly think what good this war with Iraq has done. Hell, we haven't even found bin Laden yet.

I truly believe he will go down in history as one of the worst presidents we ever had (maybe even worse than Jimmy Carter).

When the World Trade Center and Pentagon were bombed, I thought to myself, Thank God we have Georgie Executioner from Texas as our President. He will take care of this.

And he did. I remember him telling the world we didn't ask for this war, it came to us. And he was right. I was all for bombing the shit out of Afghanistan for harboring Bin Laden and Al Quaeda. And shame on those Americans who claimed we deserved to be bombed because of our foreign policy. How dare they speak that way when thousands of civilians who did nothing more than show up for work died. That just pisses me off (yes, I'm talking to you Susan Sontag* and Reverend Wright--I know Susan Sontag is dead, but right after September 11 she wrote an article for the New Yorker about how we deserved to be bombed and when she died I thought, Screw you, you bitch--and I do not believe that Obama echoes the feelings of Reverend Wright, but I do think the good Reverend in an asshole).

Then Bush got the idea in his head to go after Iraq. I had some doubts there. Shouldn't we finish the job in Afghanistan first? He believed (or wanted to believe) faulty intelligence about Weapons of Mass Destruction. He began to sound like the rulers of Medieval Europe who believed they were on a mission from God to take over the Middle East (and we all know how well those Crusades turned out).

The war is costing billions, the price of oil is skyrocketing which is making the price of everything else skyrocket, we are heading into a recession and I believe the people have spoken. We want a change.

It doesn't matter if Obama or McCain are elected President. They both represent change. Obama in a much more obvious way, but seriously, McCain is the second most unRepublican Republican to hold a government office. Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City is the first and there are rumblings of him becoming the Vice Presidential running mate.

George Bush has done for the United States what former New York City Democratic Mayor David Dinkins did for New York. Dinkins was so horribly incompetent that in a city filled with minorities, homosexuals and a large Jewish population, all of whom vote predominantly Democratic, he made it impossible for a Democrat to win for the past 12 years.

Bush has made it impossible for a conservative or even semi-conservative Republican to hold the office of President. Whoever wins in November, Obama or McCain, they are both Democrats--I don't care if there is an "R" next to McCain's name.

* While we are all familiar with the comments made by Reverend Wright, for those interested here is what Sontag wrote in the September 24, 2001 issue of the New Yorker (because to this day, despite the fact she died in 2004, it still pisses me off):

"Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word 'cowardly' is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): Whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards."

This was less than two weeks after the attacks.

Labels: Life