Different spellings to produce ooooooo in English

Last night I introduced the folks in my Italian class to one of the odd points of the English language. In Italian there is but one way to produce the sound of ooooooooo. And that is with the letter "u".

In English it's not so easy. Check out the wide variety of spellings below:

• To
• Two
• Too
• You
• Shoe
• Flue
• Flew
• Flu
• Slough
• Beauty
• Impugn

I think those of us who learned to speak English at an early age (years ago) can be very happy we don't have to confront this battery of linguistic problems.

Vivent les francaises!

Pia and Julia get dual citizenship.

We just got word this morning that my daughter Pia, and her daughter Julia, who live in Brittany, in western France, became naturalized French citizens. The action by the French government was dated November 2. That happens to be my birthday. We're wondering if, now that they have dual citizenship, Joyce and I will have to change the pronunciation of our name--Boyer.

The Durango Herald 10/31/2011 | In kidney exchange, fortune smiles all around

The world seems to approve . . . .
The Durango Herald 10/31/2011 | In kidney exchange, fortune smiles all around

John Peel writes a weekly human interest column for the Durango Herald. Terry and I are honored that he chose to write about our big kidney transplant adventure. And we are pleased that he cast it in such favorable terms. The transplant was a big deal for both of us. We hope by generating some publicity about our transplant  that we can raise some awareness about the need for more donors to come forward. Thank you, John Peel for helping with this effort.

Steve Davis, June 24, 2011

Davis was bigger than life.

His voice was bigger than life. His art was bigger than life. His capacity for work was bigger than life. And his influence on me was bigger than life.

He needed someone who could photograph his art before it was sent out to clients. And he needed to have it done on the same ridiculous schedule that he kept for himself. If he had worked on an illustration all night long (and that was the way it was always done) he would ask me to meet him at my studio at 7 in the morning.

And then we would talk for an hour. We would talk about anything. Music. Literature. Art. Politics (no, we didn't often agree). Religion. Human decency. When the conversation was over, he'd remind me that the work needed to be in FedEx that day. And he'd be off to work on his next project.

He was a marine illustrator. He would get specifications from marine architects, and turn them into illustrations that the common man could understand. The difficult made easy.

The photograph that accompanies this blog entry was made in 1989, in my Port Townsend studio. I knew he'd be coming in with an illustration for me to copy, and I had everything set up. There was no way he could say no. It's one of my favorite portraits, and it was done with one sheet of film. On a big camera.

When I heard that Davis had died last Friday, I realized that none of us is really bigger than life. But Davis was one who made life bigger for anyone who knew him.

He signed his works, "Davis."

Gleb Derujinsky, June 9, 2011

Gleb Derujinsky and his wife Wallis, were killed yesterday, in a car wreck in Durango. Gleb was a friend, and a regular at the Open Shutter Gallery. I first met him when the gallery was located on 2nd Avenue, and he stood outside on a cold night telling me everything that modern photographers were doing wrong. He was never bashful about his opinions.After several years of friendship, and after doing production work on his 2004 show at the Open Shutter, I think I started to scratch the surface of his multi-faceted life. I am grateful for the portrait that I was able to take in December of 2009. When I look at it, I feel that he was starting to trust me as a photographer.

I am reposting the text from Brandon Donahue's appreciation of Gleb from Facebook. Brandon is the gallery manager at the Open Shutter Gallery. It is a very thorough description of a life fully lived. We all knew Gleb, and we will do what we can to keep his image alive.

Brandon's appreciation:

Open Shutter Gallery & the photography community have lost a great friend, Gleb Derujinsky.

Gleb was an acclaimed photographer, pilot, racecar driver, ski instructor, bicycle racer, jeweler, war hero, musician and director. When you read about Gleb’s life, it’s hard to believe one man could accomplish so many things- but after you met Gleb, you realized how larger-than-life he actually was. We will always remember Gleb’s firey sense of humor and eagerness to share his wealth of experience.

Open Shutter Gallery will be putting together a memorial service for Gleb, please contact the Gallery for more information.

http://www.openshuttergallery.com/past/Gleb/Show.htm

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Born in 1925 in New York City, Gleb Derujinsky was taking photographs, developing and printing them by the time he was six years old, and in fact, with the help of his apartment building superintendent, built an enlarger when he was ten, using a paint can as a light source and a camera as the optical system. One of the few, if not the only teenager ever to be invited to join the New York Camera Club, Derujinsky was exposed to the great photographers of the time, such as Steichen and Steiglitz, through his membership.

Straight out of Trinity School in New York, Derujinsky was drafted to serve in World War II, reaching the rank of staff sergeant by the time he was nineteen. After the war, he obtained a GI loan in order to open his first photographic studio. He subsequently photographed for Esquire, Look, Life, Glamour, Town and Country, The New York Times Magazine, and ultimately worked almost exclusively with Harper’s Bazaar. His trip around the world for Bazaar inaugurating the Boeing 707, he photographed fashions in exotic places from Turkey to Thailand and created some of the most exciting photographs of the nineteen sixties. In the late nineteen sixties Derujinsky began directing television commercials, and became a member of the cameraman’s union and the Director’s Guild. He won the Cannes and Venice film festival awards for best direction and cinematography, as well as, the New York Art Directors award.

Gleb has raced autos and was sponsored by Ferrari America. He has flown sailplanes in cross country competition and in the late sixties and early seventies, was one of the top ten sailplane pilots in the country. He has designed and built carbon fiber bicycles for the U. S. Olympic team.

In 1976, Gleb Derujinsky moved to southwest Colorado. He opened a custom jewelry shop and, as an avid skier, eventually also became a ski instructor. He continued his passion for photography and has been continually photographing many facets of the west.

In the past, his deep interest in music led tohis photographing several jazz musicians. Gleb recently took up the playing the piano again, playing almost exclusively Chopin and a bit of boogie woogie now and then.

And so, an update from me . . . .

The other side of the kidney team. I have no complaints at all. In fact, I've never felt healthier in my life. Joyce and I made a trip to Denver this past weekend, and had a meeting at the hospital. The lab results are good, and everybody is pleased with my progress. The folks at the hospital are going to turn Terry and me into poster kids, doing a feature about our transplant on their website. When that happens, I'll post a notice about it on this blog, and provide an address.
Sometimes I wonder if they even removed one of my kidneys . . . .

Another update from Terry--he's off to the races!

This is Terry's blog update from two days ago. It sounds like the kidney is working very well indeed. 

Finalé

4 1/2 weeks post op. My new kidney is working fine, lab numbers are right where thy belong for a good working, healthy kidney. Wounds all healing nicely. No pain at the incision site. It's a total success.

From here on out there will be labs every week, clinic visits every couple of weeks. gradual decreases in the anti rejection meds to a maintenance level. And life goes on with a average life span for a transplanted kidney of 20 years. If it, and I, last that long I'll be 90 years old.

But as I've mentioned before I'm having severe back pain with any weight bearing activity. Undoubtedly surgery will be planned as soon as possible, hopefully the first part of July. This back pain seems totally unrelated to the kidney problems. It's its own separate disease. I am getting used to the wheelchair and today plan my first trip off by myself.

But who wants a blog about an old guys back disease. There's plenty of these in every block. A kidney transplant, that's a bit different.

So with a thank you first to Paul, then to the transplant team, then all of you  people who have made 635 visits on this web site in the month or so it's been open, and finally to ingrid and Itzhak. I will say buena salud y bien viajar. Love Terry

Taylor Willie graduates from the 8th grade . . . .

 On Wednesday night, our granddaughter Taylor graduated from the 8th grade at the Bayfield, Colorado, middle school. The big surprise of the evening for Joyce and me was seeing her deliver the student speech to the class. We thought she was very poised. We thought it was probably the best student graduation speech that has ever been delivered.

Kidneys and treehomes « maffay/m’a fait

This is the written and visual response of my French family to the kidney transplant that took place TWO WEEKS ago. There are some nice photos of Gabriel and Julia and the new treehouse. And, as always with Pia, there is some pretty interesting text too.

This information was posted on Pia's blog, and you can access it by clicking on the link.

Kidneys and treehomes « maffay/m’a fait

CaringBridge / terrytyler / Welcome

Here is a post I received from Terry's blog today. It sounds like he's having way too much fun with that new kidney.

CaringBridge / terrytyler / Welcome

Anaesthesia and Re-entry

Re-entry

This morning I had an email from my daughter Pia writing from her home in France to remind me that I had left the story of the blog hanging somewhere between Denver and Durango. That's the danger of starting a blog. Someone might be reading it and want the stream to keep flowing.

We made it back to Durango last Thursday, right on schedule. The trip was pretty easy for me; Doug did all the driving. It was a beautiful sunny Colorado day. When I got home up on the mountain I made sure to pee in the front yard over by the trees, and I patted Monty the dog on the head. Then I went downstairs to get a bottle of Boyer champagne and I put it in the fridge while I sat on the deck in the sunshine and waited for Joyce to come home from work. Nine days and one slight body alteration later, I was home.

Anaesthesia

My closest point of contact with the surgery was, interestingly, the thing that kept me from having to experience it directly. I'll have more to say about the process of going into that good night. But for the present I'm still trying to come to terms with the re-entry from the land of nothing. Never has my mind gone in so many different directions at once as it did during that little journey.

It begins in the recovery room. Total blackness starts to make way for very dim light. There are voices, then faces, then memories. But of course the memories have nothing to do with what has just happened to my body. These are memories of jobs I might not have finished completely, bills I might not have paid, billings I might not have gotten to my clients, term papers (yes, some of the memories go way back) I might not have handed in to my professors. It was the old "inadequacy dream," and it wouldn't go away.

I remember wanting to just get moving and finish everything before it drove me crazy. I tried to move my arms, my legs. No luck. I tried to sit up. No luck. I tried to talk, and I remember there was a sound. But I don't think the sound formed words.

The sweet face and voice of the nurse was my introduction to the new reality of the recovery room. The gentle insistence of that voice and her constant presence helped me get shut of all that imagined responsibility and inadequacy, and I just relaxed into the pillow. Slowly I came to recognize the world around me and my place in it. And I liked it.

Ready or Not, here we come, back to Durango

Tomorrow (Thursday) Doug and I will point the wondertruck southwest and step on the gas. We got clearance from the folks at the Kidney Transplant Center today. They have declared me the new poster child for the donor program, saying my progress since surgery 6 days ago has been nothing short of remarkable. Aw shucks.

I can't praise my donor team at Porter enough. They have been wonderful to work with. And I feel that the surgery must have been flawless. Certainly there have been no complications from the surgery, and there has been almost no pain. For the past two days I haven't even taken Tylenol as a pain killer. No pain at all. Today I asked the surgeon if he was sure he did anything when he was inside my mid-section. A master of understatement, he just smiled.

When I was in the clinic today, they asked if I'd be willing to go down the hall and talk with a potential donor who was showing signs of nervousness. I don't know if I allayed her fears or not, but I thought I'd start out by bending forward and touching my toes. She probably thought, "What a jerk!" But she was smiling when I left.

It will be good to be home in Durango. I will have been gone for nine days. Nine very productive days, that have given me new perspectives on many things in my life. In a transplant like the one Terry and I have just gone through it is the donor who reaps the rewards. I am completely humbled by the people I have met, and the process I have gone through. I'm sure it will take me some time to get my mind around all of it.

Phase II continues: two happy guys cruising Denver

My education continues. Today Doug took me to the Cherry Creek Mall, where I just walked and stared in amazement at all of the high end products on display and all of the high end retail devices that are used to sell them to the public. It has been quite awhile since I've been in a mall. I have probably never been in a mall as elegant as the Cherry Creek Mall. I found myself wanting to buy something just to celebrate the occasion. Fortunately, I resisted. One thing, though, they had screamer music playing rather loud throughout the mall. It seems that we Americans can't do anything without canned music blasting at us from all directions. Maybe now that I only have one kidney I'm not as resilient and forgiving as I should be; maybe I'll even become a crotchety old curmudgeon. It could happen.

The photographs included in this post show the two pilgrims at the Denver Botanic Gardens. That's me in the red shirt, and Doug Brew in the blue shirt. I'm a real imposter whenever I go to a place that specializes in plants. I just walk around and try to look like I know what I'm seeing, and I stop to snap photos from time to time. These gardens have an architectural beauty that even I can appreciate. That gives me some legitimacy. Fortunately the weather changed for the better today, and we were able to have lunch outside, and then wander through a few of the exhibits. Eating is starting to interest me more and more each day.

Phase II begins & The Prodigal Returns

So, the kidney thing is pretty well under control and I am now convinced it was a good thing to do. I can't believe how great I feel, and I am overjoyed to hear from Terry how well he is doing.

But it's now time to fill the hours between now and Thursday morning, when I'll be allowed to return from Denver to Durango. Denver has never been my favorite city--not since the mid sixties when it literally sucked the life out of smaller towns in the region, like Casper, Wyoming, where I grew up. So I am determined to overcome my old preconceptions and learn to like the city that I have studiously avoided ever since I moved to Colorado.

Joyce and I started the process yesterday by going to the Art Museum. We were completely impressed by the beauty and scale of the place. And we enjoyed a very well-done exhibit of "Cities of Renaissance Italy." Then I took the photo of Joyce sitting by the cow sculptures, just to prove that Denver is still, despite the sophistication of the Art Museum area downtown, still an overgrown cow town.

Then I lost my camera, with the photos still on the card. That was probably payback for my "attitude."

Then, this noon, I got a bit tired and took a mid-day nap.

Then, when I woke, I put my hand over to the middle of the bed, and there was the camera, under the covers. So now I'm going to practice saying only nice things about Denver.

Doug Brew is here to help me with that process. Joyce had to leave and go back to Durango this morning. Doug drove up yesterday, so he could be the one to keep reminding me that I have just gone through a fairly major surgery and that I should take it easy from time to time. But we'll also do a little cruising when we're here. Tomorrow, for example, we'll go to the Botanic Gardens, do a little walking around, act like we know what we're seeing, and have lunch.

Who knows, maybe I'll start to think of Denver as something other than the place where I lost a kidney and almost lost a camera.

If I ever have surgery again,

I want this team . . . .

We're BACK !!

We took a couple of days off, just kicking back at the Adagio Bed and Breakfast. My day was spent reading for 15 minutes, then sleeping for an hour. We did make a trip out later in the afternoon to visit Terry in the hospital. He's looking great, and using his iPhone to snap and post pictures of his nurses. So the kidney must be working. This morning we moved across the hall from the Debussy suite, to the Handel suite, got the computer hooked onto the internet, and spent a few minutes trying to remember the things I wanted to post to the blog. We're going to make an excursion to the Denver Art Museum this afternoon.

This photo was taken a half hour before the surgery. Terry stopped by my pre-op room for a chat, probably to make sure that I had checked in to the hospital. His surgery was scheduled to start an hour and a half after mine, so he got to watch me being prepped like a Thanksgiving turkey. He also got to watch the beginning of my surgery on the big screen in his

operating room. Part of me

wishes I could have seen that too. But the sensible part of me is happy that I didn't see it.

Congratulations! It's a beautiful kidney!

So Terry and Paul are both tucked in at Porter Adventist Wonderful Hospital tonight after an exciting and eventful day. The surgery was completed as planned and Paul was actually in 2 places at once for a little while this afternoon. By now, however, Terry is working on making this kidney his own. We are hoping that it will serve him well and make his life long and healthy. I think it will help him see the bright side of every story, laugh a great deal, and be able to pass Paul's optimism on to everyone he touches! The first report is that he is the Pee King!

Paul still has his left side label where the kidney once lived and is very thirsty. But he has taken his first walk and is happy and relieved as am I.

From this day forward, we can all be content with getting up in the middle of the night!

Pictures to come from Paul and Terry........

Ciao,

Joyce

Catch ya' on the flip side

Thanks everyone, for all the good wishes and prayers. I'll be checking out for a few hours. Ciao.

Today was education day, combined with final exam day. I was poked, prodded, x-rayed, questioned, and weighed for the last time before tomorrow's surgery.

This is a photograph of the surgeon who will pull out my kidney tomorrow. I've always wanted to get a photo of a doctor sitting on the exam table. Today was my lucky day.

Someday I'll get the photos all posted for viewing. But probably not tonight . . . .

A note from Terry

Terry has a blog on the site CaringBridge, under the name Terry Tyler. I'm copying this entry from his blog. One day I asked him what would change for him if we were able to go through with this transplant. Here's the response I got from him:

You asked what would change for me if I got a transplant. I didn't really give the most significant answers. It's not so much what would change as my being able to keep two very important things in my life, for a long time, hopefully.

The first would be to keep the wonderful and ever improving relationship with Ingrid. We have had our times of trials in the past but have gotten to a place of intimacy and friendship that is actually hard to believe. Groundhog day was the thirty-fourth anniversary of our meeting and in August we had our 25th wedding anniversary (we had an 8 year courtship, including 2 years apart.) We never wore wedding rings before, but in August we got a pair of rings from Ben Nighthorse, with bear totems. Last night we had a a lovely dinner at the Kennebec, then this morning, snuggled, made love, babbled and sat in the hot tub from 4 AM to 10 AM. It's really had to beat days like that.

The second thing to keep is my practice. When we first came here 19 years ago Ingrid would ask me when I thought I might retire. I said 10 years. I was 51 years old. Every few years she'd ask again and I'd say 10 years. Now I'm 70 years old and I'm still saying 10 years (with the possibility of extending, of course, if I'm doing well.) I continue to love the work, seeing people get better (most of the time) and I love seeing my patients. When I've been off for a bit I start thinking about individual patients, wondering how they are doing and I look forward to getting back. Hard to beat that too.

So I'm not so much looking to restore something I had before, although that would be nice. I'm hoping to stay healthy enough to continue to love and be loved, to help others appreciate their lives, for them to be loved and to love. If I can do that for another couple decades (or more) that would be the greatest gift I can imagine.

Terry

So two days from now I will have one of his kidneys cleaning my blood. And also, less well known, keeping my red cell count up to par and keeping my blood in the right range of acidity.

So for me one of the important things that has come from all the prayers is running into Paul and Joyce that afternoon in the Mercy cafeteria. And having him offer to donate. This seems rather miraculous.

Too bad I can only do this once.

Last night I punched the "facebook" icon on the first posting of my new blog, just to see what would happen. What happened was pretty phenomenal. I heard from many people and I will carry their good wishes with me into the operating room on Thursday morning. One of the most interesting messages came from my good friend Linda Okazaki, in Port Townsend who said, "We have another dear person, Chuck Deardorff receiving a kidney from his brother today. This gift is one of love and life. Blessings !"

It seems that at least half of all the news stories I've read since this process started in December, have had something to do with kidney transplants, surgery, anaesthesia, weight loss. Okay, that might be an exaggeration. I have been known to exaggerate from time to time. In any case I seem to have become a magnet for the word "kidney." This is probably payback for the many times in my life when I haven't paid any attention to the word.

Here's wishing Chuck Deardorff and his brother speedy recovery.

Off to Denver to share a kidney

Terry and I will have something in common after this Thursday, April 28, 2011. He will have one of my kidneys. I will have the other one. That's me on the left; Terry on the right. This will be a big adventure for both of us, and we want to share it with anyone who might be interested.

The transplant will happen at Porter Adventist Hospital. The people there have graciously consented to let me photograph as much of my experience as possible. There will be written posts and photographs from both of us throughout the experience. We probably won't be doing much during the surgery, though.