I feel like I’ve been in a movie the last two months! The plot is a kitchen soup (actually a bouillabaisse) of drama, love, family, friends, travel, seeing my dying aunt and her “anti-vaxxer” relatives and one who just came down with COVID, (Yes, really!)…and driving for an hour on dark, narrow roads at 5 AM to a hospital in Santa Rosa, Marla’s congestive heart failure and assorted serious heart issues, and high-stress for all! We are finally back in Colorado and coming to terms with the disease, difficulty getting medical appointments, using a wearable defibrillator, and all the subsequent anxiety and worry. A too-close-to-home movie plot.

Since Marla is the star of this movie I will share images of her from the past two months. The shot above is at our daughter’s lake house at Cedar Creek Reservoir in early July.

On to France the next week in July. Marla enjoys a nice lunch at a restaurant on Rue Saint-Paul in the heart of the historic Marais in Paris.

Our star sits down for an early dinner at a quaint alleyway restaurant in Cassis.

We next rented a beautiful home overlooking Anse de Renecros in beautiful Bandol for a week. We shared it with our daughter Lisa and her family. Our star is looking sublime!

A treasured July memory at the Champagne Lounge at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc during our next home rental segment in Cap d’Antibes. Our plans to go to Guernsey and London were blocked by COVID, but this substitution allowed us to spend more time with Lisa’s family. This was an evening like no other!

You can tell just how happy Marla was at this family dinner in Cap d’Antibes. It was carpe diem to the max, even though Marla was slowing down and feeling tired. This was a rare trip to sync everyone’s summer schedules.

In August we rented a wonderful Airbnb in Walnut Creek California to see friends.

Next we connected with our daughter Stacy’s family in Northern California for the twins “nine-year-old” trip. (They are actually 8) This was at the Russian River, a favorite of mine since I was a little boy.

Our star is looking radiant! The emotional highs she felt masked a lot of the deterioration in her health.

EVERYTHING CHANGED a day later! Marla was having great difficulty breathing and was in serious pain at 2 AM on Friday, the 13th! We had to get her to a hospital! Our rental house north of Bodega Bay didn’t have ATT cell phone service so we switched to wi-fi calling. I picked the closest major hospital in Santa Rosa and headed out on very dark winding coastal roads.

Her 6 day stint at Sutter Hospital was obviously traumatic for everyone! No visitors were allowed due to all the COVID patients. We thankfully were able to see her on some Facetime calls! This was a Facetime image Lisa took from Colorado.

We had to juggle the logistics of the trip and Marla insisted the trip with Stacy’s family continue in San Francisco as planned. We connected with Marla throughout the day on the phone and FT! I made some 1 1/2 hour trips to Santa Rosa to make deliveries and see her through the her hospital room window from the parking lot. After I took Stacy’s crew to the airport I moved to a hotel in Santa Rosa. Patients in rooms on both sides of Marla died of COVID!

Our beautiful star was released last Wednesday and we took an afternoon flight home. Marla’s comments as we drove to the airport were,…”I am so happy to be out of the hospital and… LOOK at how beautiful everything is!”



Lisa brought lunch over the next day, on Thursday. On Friday we headed to Urgent Care/ER as the PCP’s RN was worried about her coughing. (It became ER once blood was drawn.) The D-Dimer test for blood clots was a low positive so we needed a C scan with contrast. Mar is allergic to iodine, complicating this scan. After 5 1/2 hours waiting, the radiologist wanted another 2 hours. Instead, we went home with instructions and meds to do the procedure at noon the next morning.

We went to a new hospital on Saturday (Could that possibly be just …YESTERDAY?) and after 6 hours in the jammed ER we got the test…and the result back.

An old blood clot had broken into pieces from the meds, but NO NEW BLOOD CLOTS AND JUST A LITTLE FLUID IN THE LUNGS! We were ecstatic,…actually beyond ecstatic! We finally could come home!

We ate a dinner of low-sodium Indian food… watched a mystery on TV…. looked out at a wonderful sunset…. held each others hand…. and experienced such happiness!

The retelling of this movie plot is therapy for me. I thank you for your patience. We had so many family, friends, and friends of friends, and healthcare heroes working for Marla’s good health, each in their own way. It was a a collective of good people pulling for a good person,…a spiritual and cosmic village. Marla and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Photos: Dick Gentry. Not to be used without permission.