Oh, What A Long Strange Trip It's Been!

I feel exhausted today. After losing Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson both in the same day, I had a violent headache and just didn't feel good. I don't know what the energy zap is when someone so BIG is suddenly gone, but it really knocked me for a loop this time!

As I logged into a pr agency site for photos for work, the first thing I see (it had to be like, 2 minutes after Farrah was pronounced...how do they do that???) is that she had passed away. It was not a good start to my day!

I am sad for Ryan and for Redmond (note to God: I hope this will scare him sober and he can make his mom proud of him)and for her friends.

She was just incandescent, yes she was! I am sad for the world to lose another wonderful, strong, REAL woman. And to share her agonizing last several months with us to help people who may potentially be or are going thru the same thing is beyond amazing. I don't want anyone around when I've got a headache for crying out loud! And I look at her younger photos and it takes me back to such a wonderful time in my life; when things were so much simpler and so much more glamorous. She was a real "STAR" in my eyes.


















On the other hand, I'm thankful that she isn't suffering or in pain any longer. And I know she wouldn't want her friends and family to have this horrible time dragged out for any longer.

Part of the reason she was so memorable to me aside from being the most beautiful woman in the world as far as I was concerned; was that she did something REALLY kind for me. Not so much for me, but for a couple of patients I had when I worked at Stanford Hospital in the ICU.

At that time, we were still in the old ICU; it was kind of a typical old hospital ward; long hallway with the patient rooms along one side which had windows overlooking some trees that lined the parking lot. Which looked out to some other medical buildings. Lovely view, haha.

The other side of the hall was just break room, storage rooms and nursing stations.

The patient room doors were made of dark wood and had just one small square window at about eye level, but that was it as far as any view went. Of course, most of the time, that made no difference, since we normally kept the door open (our patients were all heart surgery patients of one type or another and were usually in there for the least amount of time they needed to be: so basically, once they were awake enough to want some privacy they were transferred. Not quite that quickly, but you get the picture). Plus, we at the illustrious world-famous heart surgery institute known as Stanford, didn't have centralized monitoring. Dr. Shumway wanted a nurse in his patients rooms at all times. Which meant, we stayed in the room for the entire shift except when another nurse came to relieve us for our breaks.

I specialized with the heart transplant patients. At that time, Stanford was the only hospital in the entire world doing heart transplants and it was a HUGE BIG DEAL. It was so complicated and labor and time intensive getting the patients worked up and then they had to wait for a match; all the while getting weaker and weaker. By the time some of the patients got their heart, they were extremely ill.

Once they got their transplant, the patient was in what's called "reverse isolation", meaning, the door was shut at all times other than when people entered or exited; anyone who went in, had to be in a gown, cap, mask, gloves and booties. And the only people who could go in were the dr's, nurses who were working with the patient and immediate family.

The patient never saw what anyone looked like because all the gowning up was done outside the room before entering. So all these people behind masks with non-descript bodies were constantly hovering over them.

The television was marginal at best. They couldn't see out the door and there was not much of a view from the window.

Most of our transplant patients were teenagers or young adults! And they had to stay in this room until they were no longer in rejection; which sometimes would be MONTHS after surgery. So imagine being a teenaged boy and being stuck in a room (this was LONG before iPods, text messaging and iPhones existed) with nothing to do!

It was very boring and disheartening for them. A couple of them that I took care of; two teen boys; used to see each other in the hallway once they were well enough to take walks down the hall (but then, THEY had to be the ones gowned, masked, gloved etc) and they would talk a bit as they passed each other on their daily walks but it was sort of discouraged for them to really hang out together (only b/c they didn't want them to catch anything the other one might be carrying), so they'd talk on the phone between rooms.

One thing they found that they had in common was they both had crushes on Farrah Fawcett (bet you thought I'd forgotten what the point of this story was, huh?).
And they'd yak about her and watch Charlie's Angels and then yak about her some more (having to be in the room constantly made me privy to a lot of their personal information, LOL).

It was a good thing; it gave them something normal to think about other than meds (of which there were dozens a day for them to take) and procedures and lab work.

When my one guy went into rejection not long after this, his out of room walks were discontinued and he was back on the painful anti rejection injections, ATG. He was so down, and I felt so badly. I thought "what can I do to cheer him up so he'll get better?" and the only thing I could come up with that didn't involve food he couldn't eat or people he couldn't have in his room was maybe a picture of Farrah Fawcett signed by her.

Of course, I had NO clue how to get that, but I called the SF radio station KNBR and told them what I wanted to do but had no idea how to contact Farrah. They said they didn't know either, but they'd find out and get back to me.

Later that day, someone from the radio station called me with a phone number and told me it was Farrahs' publicist and I could at least try her and see where it went from there. I figured "it can't hurt". So I dialed.

A pleasant sounding woman anwered the call and I explained what the situation was; 18 yr old heart transplant in rejection, sad and dejected and in need of a happy surprise. She hesitated a second and said "I'm going to let you talk to Ms. Fawcett yourself"...and she handed the phone to Farrah herself! OMG!!! I was totally NOT expecting to speak to a movie star right then and there! I was almost speechless!

But Farrah was so patient while my words tumbled out of me and I felt so dumb, but she just listened and said "I'll tell you what I'm going to do"....and she said she'd send them both an autographed poster (yes, THE poster of the red swimsuit) signed to THEM, and she would call them the next day between 2 and 3 pm (which is when I was at work). She took their names and took down the phone number of the intensive care unit. And I thought...."oh, she'll probably get busy and forget all about it" so I wasn't going to say a word to the boys.

But sure enough.....she DID call them the next day and I don't think I've ever seen two boys ( I was SO glad she called them both b/c there would have been a lot of jealousy if only one got a call, LOL) so excited! And a week or so later, they got the posters and she also sent some other photos of her to them.

So, that's my Farrah story and that's why I think she was just the best of the best! And why I'll miss her so much. Her sparkling laughter and her sense of humor and joy.

I'm sure she's resting in peace. Don't all angels?