Elvira,
how can anyone except you turn a traumatic event into something wonderful?
Only you!!!!!!
I admire your ability to look at life with so much passion, love and confidence, to turn pain into something productive, to make a hospital sound like summer camp with friends, how do you do it?
I love your collage,
this visual diary of your hospital ordeal, the friendly faces of the hospital workers, they just gather around you and you shine on them! The puzzle pieces of your operation, put together, they become threads of life!
You have the power to turn something painful into something uplifting!
You are so very special; there is so much I can learn from you.
I have been sick for the past 4 weeks, bad pneumonia with lots of horrible antibiotics which changed my sense of taste, smell and perception.
At times I could not feel the ground beneath my feet; it was like flying.
Slowly I am trying to get my strength back.
Your email made me smile and I feel so much affection towards you.
Thank you for being here and doing things your way!
Much love and kisses and a strong back bone!!
Ritu and Nicky
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: ELVIRA RODRIGUEZ PUERTO [mailto:elvirarod@yahoo.com]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 19. Juli 2007 13:45
An:
Dear friends,
now, and once again, I know that I cannot live without art. Leben ohne Kunst? Neither without you.
Before undergoing the operation I was afraid of a trip "to limbo", but then I thought: I will go to limbo (as a Cuban) without a letter of invitation. That gave me a lot of peace to face the operation. I would not have stress then. I wrote a note in my diary for Javi and Dayi, but it was a note for my coming back.
One of the six days I spent in the hospital I asked Javi where I was, for Station 42 seemed to me a familiar place. Everybody there seemed to be part of my family.
The last day I felt happiness in Station 42, more than just my own happiness, that which I spread everybody. I inserted the white flowers that Javi brought me into the surgical collar, and I wore it till the evening all around the city. That way I said goodbye to Station 42, where everybody smiled at me every time. You can see in this picture all the nice people that took care of me.
The pain is gone! Disappeared! A deep pain that didn't leave me alone since October 2006. The operation lasted 6 hours and now I have a passport to travel with my metallic disks, which even have a serial number, and which I have to show at the airports! They will forget then where do I come from and where I am going to!
I will recover my voice, for I am still kind of hoarse, as if I've gotten the biggest hangover of the Oktoberfest!
BESOS
Thanks for being there!
To Dayi, Sofi, Marti, and to Javi all my love!
Elvi
estación 42, ope
PERFORMANCE DE UNA OPERACIÓN
Julio 2007, Munich.
Ocho meses de dolor intenso casi me vuelven loca. Los médicos decían que era estres, pero yo conozco mi cuerpo y sus reacciones. Gracias a un médico colombiano César Pérez, que detectó mi dolor, fuí operada de urgencia de dos hernias cervicales. Atravesaban la médula casi a punto de dejarme paralítica. La operación debía durar 3 horas, pero duró seis y lucía peor que en las radiografías -dijo mi cirujano. Gracias a mi Javi, a las niñas y a todo ese colectivo de la estación Privada 42, pude recuperarme enseguida.
El dolor desapareció total y con el dolor desapareció la voz. Es normal que en una operación como esta algún nervio se dañe. Mientras estaba en el hospital tejí mi collarín con flores blancas, porque una mujer se ve muy fea con el cuello escondido. Fuí a almorzar al trabajo de Javi y estuve andando toda la ciudad con mi collarín de flores. La población sonreía. Aquí basta con que des amor visual.
Estaba en el medio de la realización de FICCU, pero no me detuve. La voz volvió con mis ejercicios performáticos de logopeda, porque la logopeda era muy cara y se quedó dormida durante la primera y única sesión que tuvimos. Siempre me paso la vida aprendiendo de todo y de todos:
VIVAN LA VIDA!
NO DESGASTEN ENERGÍAS EN LO QUE NO LO MERECE!
TRATEN DE SER FELICES!
DE TENER UNA FAMILIA Y CUIDARLA!
LO DEMÁS, VA Y VIENE,
MENOS LA VIDA!
Acht Monate tiefer Schmerzen haben mich fast wahnsinnig gemacht. Die Ärzte meinten, es wäre nur Stress, aber ich kenne meinen Körper und seine Reaktionen. Dank eines kolumbianischen Arztes, César Pérez, der die Ursache meines Schmerzens entdeckte, wurde ich notoperiert, von zwei Bandscheibenvorfällen. Das Rückenmark war so gequetscht, dass ich knapp vor der Lähmung war. Die OP sollte um die 3 Stunden dauern, hat aber tatsächlich 6 Stunden gedauert und, laut dem Chef-Arzt, haben die Scheibenvorfälle schlimmer als in den Röntgenaufnahmen ausgesehen. Dank meinem Javi, den Töchtern und all diesem Team von der Privatstation 42 konnte ich schnell wieder gesund werden.
Eight months of hard pain almost drove me mad. The doctors said it was stress, but I know my body and its reactions. Thanks to a Columbian doctor, César Pérez, who found the cause of my pain, I was operated in urgency of two cervical hernias. They pressed the spinal cord so, that I almost became paralytic. It should have been a three-hour operation, but it took 6 hours, and the hernia looked worst than in the radiographies, so the surgeon. Thanks to my Javi, to our daughters and to all the personnel of the private station 42
I could get over very soon.
Der Schmerz verschwand total, und mit ihm meine Stimme. Es ist normal, dass nach so einer OP ein Nerv geschädigt wird. Als ich noch in der Klinik war, habe ich die Halskrause mit Blumen verziert, da eine Frau mit verstecktem Hals hässlich aussieht. Ich ging zum Mittagsessen zu Javi und spazierte durch die Stadt mit meiner Blumenkrause. Die Leute lächelten. Hier reicht es, wenn du ihnen visuelle Liebe gibst.
The pain disappeared completely, and with it the voice. It is normal that a nerve gets affected in an operation like this. As I was in the clinic I knitted my surgical collar with flowers, because a woman looks quite ugly with the neck hidden. I went to have lunch with Javi in his work and then strolling around the city with my flower collar. The people smiled. Here it is enough when you give them visual love.
Ich war mitten in der Vorbereitung von FICCU, ( I FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL CINE CUBANO, in München) aber das hat mich nicht angehalten. Die Stimme kam mit meinen performatischen logopädischen Übungen zurück, weil die Logopädin sehr teuer war und in der ersten und einzigen Stunde mit mir einschlief. Ich lerne ständig von allen und allem.
I was in the midst of the organization of FICCU,(( I FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL CINE CUBANO, in München) but I did not stop. The voice came back with my performatic exercises of speech therapy, because the speech therapist was very expensive and she fell asleep during the first and only one session we had. I spend all my life learning from everything and from everyone.
LEBEN SIE DAS LEBEN!
VERSCHWENDEN SIE KEINE ENERGIE IN DEM, WAS SICH NICHT LOHNT!
VERSUCHEN SIE, GLÜCKLICH ZU SEIN!
EINE FAMILIE ZU HABEN UND ZU PFLEGEN!
ALLES ANDERE KOMMT UND GEHT,
AUSSER DAS LEBEN!
LIVE YOUR LIFE!
DON'T WASTE YOUR ENERGIES IN WHAT DOES NOT DESERVE IT!
TRY TO BE HAPPY!
TO HAVE A FAMILY AND TAKE CARE OF IT!
EVERYTHING ELSE COMES AND GOES,
BUT LIFE!
HERE A LETTER OF "RITULA AND NICK". THEY ARE SO SPECIAL!
FOLLOWING IT, MY E-MAIL TO EVERYBODY ABOUT MY OPERATION.
