We moved to Ft. Myers on the west coast of Florida on Sunday. Ed's sister and I thought it would have been good to stay with the oncologist that he had in Ft. Lauderdae, but he wanted to see more of Florida. A lady who used to live in my condo, Joan Benson, lived over here for 6 years and got me in touch with her best friend's husband's oncologist. Ed's got an appointment for Feb. 6 with him. Interesting coincidence - the husband also has stage 4 lung cancer. Ed's doctor in Ft. Lauderdale asked who he was going to and he knew of Dr. Harwin....in fact, his partner used to work with him. Dr. Harwin is the senior member over a group of about 10 oncologists.
Even though I wasn't keen on moving, I do feel more like we're on vacation. In Ft. Ldl. we tried to spend as much time with family and friends as possible. Maybe knowing we were leaving motivated me to see several friends that I might have missed.
My friend, Linda Traub came on Saturday morning for coffee. I met Linda when we went on a work team with our church to Homestead, FL to help with recovery from Hurricane Andrew in 1994. Linda was the leader of the work team on the bus that day and I was enchanted with her "aliveness" (She's a teacher, wouldn't you know?). The pictures of the hurricane results could not begin to depict the devastation we saw. Her husband, Dr. Ray Traub, was so helpful with Alan the during the weeks before I had to place him in a home in 1996. Isn't it ironic that Ray now has Alzheimer's and is in a home? Linda is a tiny blonde who is real tennis nut, is involved with many church activities, and has "childlike enthusiasm" for everything. She was quite curious about our RV so, she not only got the inside tour, she also got the tour of the basement underneath the RV. She's a good model for me at making the best of difficult times.
I have kept in touch with Hazel Pennington, a co-worker at Antilles Elementary on Ft. Buchanan army base in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We worked together in 1973. She moved to west Ft. Lauderdale and when I moved there in 1978, she helped me pick out the carpet colors, etc. for the townhouse I bought in Davie. (I got a full refund when my plans changed and I married Alan.) She lost her husband, Dudley, 5 years ago and is still recovering. Maybe, because they had no children, they were closer than many couples. Hazel took me to lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, which was new to her. When she finished her salad, she thought she was finished. When I showed her the bread, pasta, soup, and desert bars, she could hardly believe that was all included in the price. We could have talked for hours more.....such a wonderful friend.
1 comment:
I am an old friend of Linda and Ray Traub and have been trying to find them for a long time. Would it be possible for you to give her my email address and phone number. My name is Temma Ecker and the contact information is temma@journeysofthemind.com and 708-383-8739. I would love to hear from her.
Post a Comment