Life goes on...



Chef Dan, the Latke King of Landgraff, WV!

 We did our best to have a wonderful Hanukkah...

Elisse, lighting the Hanukkah Menorah

Elisse wearing her Hanukkah present dress & shoes...

The Elkhorn Inn's Inflatable Holiday Decor...

Elisse & our 6' Hanukkah Menorah...



The NS "Pokey" in the Snow...



and a happy Christmas: We inflated all our decorations, including our 6' Hanukkah Menorah, and Santa in a plane, helicopter, train, NASCAR racing car with an elf pit-crew, & getting a ticket from a cop!

I took photos of the NS trains going by the Elkhorn Inn in the snow and posted them on the Elkhorn Inn & Theatre Facebook page for our "railfan" guests. We filled gift shop orders from around the country from our on-line gift shop http://store.elkhorninnwv.com and sent coal statuettes, books, jewelry, gourmet goodies, and vintage ornaments off to people around the country. Dan, THE undisputed Latke King of Landgraff, made his fabulous "two-tone" latkes (potato pancakes) with grated sweet and white potatoes, and we lit the Menorahs each night of Hanukkah & gave each other fun gifts. On Christmas eve we followed Santa around the world on NORAD's Santa Tracker on the internet, and cleared the embers out of the fireplace just in time for Dan to get an "Extreme Racing Package" from http://www.tryitracing.com/ and for Elisse to get massage slippers & Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds perfume with an adorable teddy bear! 

But, all in all, this has Not been a wonderful winter for us. Dan's sister Martha- who was brilliant, talented, funny, incredibly accomplished, and whom we both loved more than I can ever begin to say- died in November, and it shook us both up very badly. What shook me up the most is how she gave up immediately once the doctors told her the chemo "was doing more harm than good" (to me, "dead" is far more harmful than chemo...) and sent her home with a pain pill to die.

Their "care" was very effective: She was in a hospice within a week, made comatose on morphine immediately, and died inside 3 weeks.

I am still in shock- and so angry that words can't express it adequately.

There, but for the grace of G-d, go I. And You.

And I, for one, will NOT go gentle into that Obamacare good night, sent home with an "economically sound" pain pill to die, and so relieve "the system" of the financial burden I, as  a "Baby Boomer", would impose, by continuing to live, thanks to expensive medical treatment.

And as I have been under treatment for another antibiotic-resistant infection these last 7 months- and it's expensive, and I wound up in the hospital last month from it- I do not say that lightly.

What is ever in the back of my head is: when are they going to tell me that the treatment I'm getting is "doing more harm than good" or "isn't working" or "isn't cost effective", and send ME home to die?

What happens if my government insurance (which covers me as Dan served in the US Army for 21 years, including 3+ tours in Vietnam) decides the medication I've been prescribed is too expensive or "isn't working" and refuses to approve it?

And how about when they do it to YOU?  

And how if we do nothing but sit by & let our elected criminals (who are not required to use the same garbage, worse-than-3rd-world medical care that we must) foist this upon us, we are all doomed to early graves.

Dan couldn't go to Martha's funeral in Illinois as we were in the middle of an ice/snow storm here & lost our water; I've been fighting off that infection in my leg for 7 months and he didn't want to leave me alone without water, & then he threw his back out- badly- putting in a new a water line. Then we got hit- as did everyone else- by The Blizzards of 2010, & it's been snowing and icing up non-stop for over 2 weeks.

We have our water back. We have plenty of firewood, rum, food, and water. Dan's taking Advil, & is making, as I type, more of his unbelievably delicious Vietnamese Spring Rolls, with the Chinese mushrooms & Vietnamese rice-paper wrappers I brought back from a fabulous Asian grocery in Virginia our friend took me to after my hospitalization there. (When life gives you lemons...). I've decided to take the offensive against my infection (as opposed to blindly following AMA medical care into the grave by simply continuing to take stupidly higher & higher doses of antibiotics against an antibiotic-resistant infection), and, after much research, am going to start taking Allicin garlic against my infections. (I have used garlic to knock out acute infections on 3 occassions in the past, so I know this works).  Dan & I are planning vacations in the hope, B"H, we'll live to enjoy them. In short, we are both trying to take the high road, "look on the bright side", push forward, "think positive", and look forward with enthusiasm, hopefulness and joy to the new year... but it's hard.

Very hard.

Love and best wishes for a HEALTHY, happy 2011.

Elisse

Travel is SO Broadening!

I've been Tweeting... with a bunch of Travel Junkies, inc. @tomtravel2 @TastyGalaxy @thetripchicks @EliteTravelGal @miafeinstein @sueyoungmedia
@Journeywoman @FillYourHotel @GoPetFriendly @princetonrt @TRACWV @wvurl and so decided, after an hilarious conversation about an article on Not Kissing The Blarney Stone For Fear of (eeeeeeewww) Germs, to post on Broadening Ones Horizons via Travel: Infections I Have Picked Up On The Road. I am 50 and still alive, amazingly enough, and still a FIRM believer in Kissing the Blarney Stone, Feeding The Pigeons, Swimming In That Rather Brown & Murky Vietnamese River, Bathing in That Hotel Bathtub After The Hurricane, and Eating the Damn Sandwich That Dropped On The Floor, as I truly believe that our immune systems need the boost and life is too short to worry about this crap! I also believe that my mother's family's genes will see me through: she is 86, a heavy smoker & drinker, and about to enter the Golden Olympics for golf AND bowling. And her brother David (my uncle) is 97. And so I am posting a few bits on the most memorable infections I have picked up along the way...

Dysentery, 1979: Sewage backs up into drinking water on kibbutz. For several days until we realized it. I am sick, but so is everyone else, so we all keep muddling along for a few days, until I finally have to Take To My bed, as they say. Not knowing, of course, that dysentery can kill you (mom later enlightened me with tales of her experiences in the WWII India-China-Burma Theatre), secretly I am happy, for I consider this my "painless" (well, sort of) way to weight loss. But no! Friends are so worried about me that they bring me a toaster from the Chader Ochel (dining hall), & soup, & a stupefying amount of bread! Challah! Soft, yummy challah, right out of the oven! And so I manage to GAIN 20 lbs- probably the only dysentery weight gain on record.

Leishmoniasis, 1984: Got bit by the Jericho Rose Fly ("Zvoov Shoshanat Yericho") at the Dead Sea in Israel In Sept., literally DAYS before my induction into the Israeli Army. Got bit because I was kipping in a friend's room at ground-level, not knowing the little bastards can't fly above one story. Thought I had a couple of really nasty mosquito bites on my ankles for several months, but by December I had elephant legs. By order of my CO, I checked into Tel HaShomer IDF Army hospital. Told to "go home & get your toothbrush". Did so. Overheard doctor's conversation about "Leishmonaisis". Phoned mom in NY. Mom goes to NYU Medical Library & phones back: "Get to a tropical disease specialist! It's "Dum-Dum Fever" & it attacks the central nervous system & then you're DEAD"! Told Doctors about this during 6a.m. rounds. Got told they WE'RE The Tropical Disease Specialists, Thank You Very Much, & that I had "cutaneous" liesh (thank G-d), and I was gonna have it for 12 months. And that It was Really Rare for anyone to get bit in Israel (apparently true: I've never met anyone else), and that it was also Damn Fortunate I wasn't bit on the face. (No freakin' kidding). Was told I would have oozing sores on my legs for 12 months & some really crappy scars. Bandaged legs, went back to the Army. July: Mom comes to visit, we go to the Dead Sea ('cause I have Psoriasis and the Dead Sea heals that), I unwrap my legs & sit in the sun, and we watch, with our mouths open, as the lesions heal inside 2 hours! The Dead Sea is THE place for healing! I am left with REALLY cool rose-shaped scars on both ankles that look like gunshot wounds! I dine out on these scars for Many years, esp. when in the company of US Marines, who think they are Very Sexy and Really Hard Core! :-D Observation: I don't Ever need to get a tattoo- I've got cool scars!

Lung infection, 2001: After the 911 WTC terrorist attack in NYC. Coughed green phlegm and took my dog's penicillin as I didn't have medical insurance & couldn't afford to go see a doctor. Me and everyone else.

E-coli blood poisoning, 2005: Working for FEMA on disaster response and recovery operations, I was on the Hurricane Katrina Strike Team that went into St. Bernard Parish, LA (truly Ground Zero) by boat after the hurricane hit Louisiana. At some point during my 30 days in St. B (most probably when I bathed in contaminated water at the OMNI hotel my last week in NOLA), I got a skin infection that was misdiagnosed (repeatedly, for 1 1/2 years, in both LA & WV) as a fungus, and treated with larger and larger dosages of anti-fungal medications. (The awful irony is that I was So happy to see finally get a hotel room & see fancy towels, toiletries and a bath tub! But for weeks the US Navy had provided me and my coworkers with wonderful lodging on their ships- and TRULY CLEAN water! And if I'd just stayed on the USS Shreveport, I could have saved myself a heart attack!) I later run into FEMA gal from NOLA who tells me "everyone in NOLA" has the same oozing skin lesions I do... And then it turns out it's NOT a fungus, it's e-coli, as in Oct 2006 I wind up in the Bluefield, WV hospital ER w/ecoli blood poisoning, from which I have a heart attack. And "code" & spend 5 days on Life Support. And have my husband be told to "call her mother and find out how to plan a Jewish funeral". And spend 3 weeks on 14 drips and 9 IVs, & get sent to Duke U Heart Center as a transplant candidate. And from which I make a rather amazing 100% recovery- thank you Dr. Chieu Nguyen! (Back to having my mom's genes...) Try to get the CDC interested in the NOLA-ecoli issue while in Duke U Hospital's Heart Center- but they couldn't care less.

Antibiotic resistant staph & strep, 2008 & 2009: Keep picking up antibiotic resistant staph & strep skin infections while On The Road Again... Had to leave WV twice in order to find doctors who would do simple skin tests, as medical care here is in the toilet. Fortunately, FEMA keeps deploying me to places like Tallahassee, Florida that have Real doctors who WILL do such tests...