Last week was strangely serendipitous for me. I received updates on the situations of three people in similar, uh, situations, on consecutive days. It was this that prompted me to include this song in this position on the chart this week (as before, I had it ranked higher). The stories of the three people and their families I'm going to mention are touching, sad, sweet, and uplifting, and I hope I'm up to the task of conveying their importance to me. As best I can, today, I'll refrain from hyperbole and invention and treacle and smarminess and smugness, and I'll try to let these stories speak for themselves.
My very dear friend Sarah Satterfield, who lives in Atlanta with her husband Shawn (both pictured above) and her five-month-old daughter Sophie, called me last week to tell me of some good news. Her husband had finally been accepted into one of the country's top brain research, treatment, rehabilitation, and recovery programs in the country. It's in Atlanta. Sarah was delighted, for this meant that--in addition to the obvious fact that the facility was close to home--someone thought that Shawn had a chance of improving his condition.
Three weeks ago, on a Monday morning, Shawn took some new prescription pain medication. On her way out of the house with Sophie, Sarah found Shawn on the floor in the living room. She had him rushed to the hospital, where he lapsed into a coma. Shawn's reaction to the medicaton had caused him to seizure, which caused a loss of oxygen to his brain. The doctors, who (at least at the time) didn't know how long Shawn's brain had been without oxygen, weren't very optimistic, nor at the time had they reason to be. Shawn wasn't responding to stimuli. Once, he opened his eyes and squeezed Sarah's hand, but this was viewed as an anomaly, because for three days--otherwise--Shawn hadn't moved. The physicians tried taking Shawn off his ventilator to see if his body could breathe on its own, but when they did, Shawn's heartbeat increased to an unhealthy rate. Fearing cardiac arrest, the doctors put Shawn back on the ventilator. Within the next two days, the doctors repeated the procedure, but Shawn's body reacted in the same fashion.
A few days later, Sarah was apprised of (some of) the doctors' prognosis: Shawn was essentially brain dead. Sarah would either have to care for his comatose body, or she would have to decide to have the physicians remove all means of artificial resperation. Sarah had three weeks to make her decision.
As of yesterday, Shawn was walking almost completely unassisted, eating regular food by himself, and was speaking in coherent, complete sentences.
In two (or three) weeks, Shawn will move in with his mother in Tupelo (MS) while Sarah soldiers on--with their baby--in Atlanta. When Shawn is released, he'll need constant care, and right now, Sarah can't provide that for her husband. Sarah's insurance is covering Shawn right now, so Sarah can't leave her job and still pay for Shawn's care and medication.
. . .
Last November, Sports Illustrated writer Paul Zimmerman suffered three successive strokes.
Zimmerman--known as Dr. Z to his many readers and admirers (he's not only the best sports writer I've ever read, he's one of the best writers period)--has had a slow rehabilitation process. He can know speak, but stringing sentences together proves to be painful if not impossible. He's slowly learning to move again, but this too has been an arduous process. He has to work at visual recognition and recall. He hasn't learn to write again. Most likely, he never will, certainly not at his previous level.
There is a program that has had enormously-high success rates at rehabilitating stroke victims; unfortunately, this program is extremely expensive, and as of right now, his wife Bailey--the Flaming Redhead whom Dr. Z spoke so highly of in each of his twice-weekly columns for SI.com--cannot afford it.
Fortunately, Dr. Z's fellow Sports Illustrated NFL writer Peter King has put together a benefit dinner and auction for Dr. Z and his wife to take place on May 18, at 7:00 p.m., at Mayfair Farms in West Orange, New Jersey. King will host a round-table discussion of this Saturday's NFL draft and the upcoming season with New York Giants' coach Tom Coughlin and New York Jets' coach Rex Ryan--and a few other prominent NFL guests as well--with the auction to follow. A few items will be auctioned online.
For more information about what both Dr. Z and his beloved Flaming Redhead are going through, you can check her blog here. You can find out more information about Dr. Z's benefit dinner and auction here (though that link is a couple of weeks old, it still contains all the prescient information. Check Peter King's Monday and Tuesday's columns on sportsillustrated.cnn.com for updates).
. . .
Two years ago, anti-folksinger Cindy Lee Berryhill (who appeared earlier on the chart at #296) released her album Beloved Stranger. The title track tells in heartbreaking, painful detail the
(Paul Williams, son Alexander, Cindy Lee Berryhill; photo courtesy of Kathryn Cramer)
In 1995, Berryhill's husband Paul Williams--noted rock critic (one of my favorites, and his book Rock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles was one of the inspirations for this blog of mine; he founded the now-defunct rock magazine Crawdaddy...and pretty much founded rock criticism in general), sci-fi editor (ever heard of Philip K. Dick? You can thank Williams for that), and philospher--had a bicycle wreck. The resultant brain trauma triggered what physicians believed to be an early onset of Alzheimer's disease.
As Williams is an author and freelance journalist, and Berryhill a musician, neither had insurance to cover the costs of rehabilitation and treatment. They still don't.
Last week, I received an email from rock critic Dave Marsh's Rock N' Rap Confidential. The email quoted from a David Fricke article in Rolling Stone, which detailed Berryhill's and Williams's situation, and pointed to a new website-- http://paulwilliams.com/ -- where donations can be made to help Berryhill cope with the costs of managed care for her husband while she also tries to raise their son.
Cindy Lee Berryhill's album Beloved Stranger is on iTunes and Amazon. The album is very good, and it contains two fantastic tracks, one of which is this one listed here, "Beloved Stranger." I'd link to a video, but there's not one. The single itself can be had for ninety-nine cents. It's one of the most personal songs on this list, and Berryhill's pain and longing for her beloved husband is evident in her twangy voice, whose passion cannot completely cover the inherent weariness and sorrow. Willie Nelson provides vocal support, but the loss and heartache is still apparent.
It's sad, and it's sweet, much like the situations of all three of these wonderful people who've been struck down by fate recently. Their recovery has been helped by their tireless, courageous, devoted wives, but sometimes, even love ain't enough. I'm not asking anyone to donate money here, 'cause most of the people I know need every cent they have to help themselves and their own loved ones. I'm just wanting to acknowledge and shed some light on their situations, for I know others reading this would, like I, hope for as speedy a recovery as possible.
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