HONEST MEDICINE: My Dream for the Future

FOUR LIFESAVING MEDICAL TREATMENTS: NOT SO “ANECDOTAL,” AFTER ALL!

Those of you who are followers of HonestMedicine will remember about the terrible time my husband Tim had after his second brain tumor surgery (his first recurrence in 10 years) in 2001. You read about how:

• Tim’s suture line wouldn’t heal for 8 months, continually bursting open

• His wound became infected and leaked cranial fluid off and on for the entire 8 months

• His neurosurgeons performed 8-9 additional surgeries (all of which failed),  in hopes of finally finding two pieces of skin that would hold together

• In desperation, his neurosurgeons took chunks of skin from other parts of Tim’s body and grafted them onto his head, in hopes that the grafts would “take,” and that his skin would finally heal. (This, too, failed.)

• Several times, his doctors put drains in his head to pull fluid from his brain

Our nightmare continued for ten months, between June 2001 and April 2002, with a 2 month break in between. Finally, thanks to a chance phone conversation with a physician friend, the wonderful Dr. Carlos Reynes, I learned about Silverlon -- an FDA-approved, 100% non-toxic, relatively inexpensive, anti-microbial wound dressing that was routinely being used by doctors to treat non-healing diabetic wounds and burns. Thanks to Dr. Reynes, Tim became the first person to have Silverlon used on a non-healing post-surgical head wound. We were extremely lucky that Tim’s neurosurgeon -- afraid that yet another surgery, which had already been scheduled, would kill Tim -- allowed the Silverlon to be put on his head.

You’ll also remember that, from the moment the Silverlon was put on Tim’s head, he began to heal. A week later, he was able to come home. He lived for another 3-1/2 years, and his incision never opened up again.

When my article about our experience with Silverlon was published by the National Brain Tumor Foundation in their Winter, 2003, newsletter, “SEARCH,” as their cover story, it created quiet a stir.

I was very careful to keep my recounting of our story upbeat, in hopes that doctors who read it would be eager to learn about Silverlon, and possibly use it on some of their non-healing patients. (This kind of non-healing suture line -- especially in cases where the patient’s skin has been previously radiated -- is more common than neurosurgeons like to admit.)

But, I also knew that if I were to tell “the rest of our story” in this article, it would never be published. I therefore purposely neglected to write about how:

• All the extra surgeries had left Tim extremely brain injured, so that when he came home, he was paralyzed, bed-bound, incontinent, and had major memory loss.

And I also decided not to tell about:

• How not one of Tim’s doctors was even remotely interested in learning about the treatment that had saved Tim, and kept him from dying.

And there was more that I left out of the article, including that the residents, who had liked me very much before this incident, began acting very differently toward me: suspicious, even cold. One resident, my favorite, stopped me in the hall. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I just don’t believe it was the treatment that you found that healed Tim’s head.” I asked what he thought had done the trick. “Vancomycin,” he said, naming the high-powered IV antibiotic that Tim had already been on for over 6 weeks – along with several other very expensive IV antibiotics. I mentioned this fact to him. His answer – I will never forget it: “Vanco is like that. It kicks in.”

Try as I might, I could not interest one of these residents, or the attending neurosurgeon, in reading any of the materials I had brought to the hospital about Silverlon. (I even tried to share with them the FDA reports that declared that Silverlon was safe for use on ANY non-healing wound. They couldn't have been less interested. Not one doctor, or resident, read even one of the articles. A few actually told me that their “plates were full.”)

Although the doctors at the hospital where Tim’s skin had healed hadn’t seemed interested or curious about our success with Silverlon, I naively hoped that some, more curious, doctors outside of Chicago might be.

The day “SEARCH” began reaching people’s homes, distraught family members started calling me from hospital waiting rooms across the country. “My brother’s head is leaking.” “My sister’s head won’t heal.” Etc., Etc., Etc. Others sent me emails from foreign countries – all describing the same problem.

I convinced the inventor of Silverlon, Bart Flick, MD, who by now had become our friend, to talk with these patients’ family members, to offer to speak with their doctors, and to provide Silverlon free of charge for the patients. He agreed, and in at least one case that I know of, he sent the Silverlon by overnight mail.

Imagine my surprise when not one of these patients’ neurosurgeons wanted to speak with Dr. Flick. And not one agreed to let their leaking, dying patients use this product in lieu of, or even in addition to, surgery. 

For 3-1/2 years after Tim came home, I dedicated myself to taking care of him, and to obtaining coverage for the caregiver services we desperately needed, so that Tim could be taken care of at home while I worked. I also kept my home-based public relations business going so that I could afford to keep Tim at home. Even though he was very disabled, he was still Tim, and we were able to have some wonderful times.

During the year after Tim died (November 8, 2005), our difficulties in dealing with the healthcare system kept gnawing at me. I decided to create this website in Tim’s memory, and in his honor, as my way of educating others about the flaws in our medical system. I also wanted to inform people about other promising (and often lifesaving) treatments, like Silverlon, which I knew that their doctors probably wouldn't tell them about.

But “the rest of the story,” about our Silverlon experience, also kept gnawing at me, too. I kept asking myself:

• Why weren’t our doctors – and the other doctors who read about our success with Silverlon – even interested in reading about it, much less willing to consider trying it? (Remember, it was FDA-approved for all non-healing wounds.)

OTHER "ANECDOTAL" TREATMENTS

And I also wondered:

• Were there other, similar, lifesaving treatments -– like Silverlon –- that doctors also weren’t telling their patients about? Treatments that were quietly saving lives (once patients themselves searched for, and discovered, them on their own), but were being under-publicized, or not publicized at all?

And, finally, I wondered:

• Why aren’t these treatments better known? In other words, what is it about our medical system -- and our doctors, in particular -- that makes them so resistant to learning about (not to mention, trying) anything that is different, no matter how promising. (Secretly, I often wondered, and still do, whether these doctors have forgotten their Hippocratic Oath, and if so, how this has happened.)

Finding other, similarly life-saving treatments, turned out to be far easier than I had thought it would be. I didn’t have to look very far.

The treatments I found all have similar, very compelling, characteristics:

1) They have been around for many years, ranging from “only” 30 to over 90 years, and have benefited hundreds, sometimes thousands, of patients.

2) These treatments have all benefited extremely sick patients, with life-threatening illnesses ranging from epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and even HIV and cancer. The results have been clear (i.e., seizures stopped, MS patients being able to walk, etc.).

3) The treatments all have medical practitioners -- and in most cases, MDs -- who prescribe the medications, and openly champion them.

4) In most cases, the patients who have benefited from these treatments are extremely passionate about helping others to learn about them.  The patients often devote a great deal of their time to doing this, holding fundraisers and educating the public.

5) And finally, some are natural treatments -- such as diets or supplements; others are off-label uses of generic drugs. But they all have one thing in common: No one is making large amounts of money from these treatments -- especially when compared to the money that is made from the treatments championed by Big Pharma.

The good news is that, for many reasons, I think that the time is finally exactly right for fixing this problem.

One of the main reasons the “time is exactly right” is that, for the last several years -- and even more so, recently -- Big Pharma’s duplicity has been making headlines. There have been media exposes about pharmaceutical companies:

• “Rigging” the so-called studies, which they themselves fund

• Hiding the results of the studies that actually prove their products don’t work, while – at the same time

• Heavily publicizing the studies that demonstrate their products’ successes

• Hiring the researchers to conduct the studies, making it very clear to them exactly what kinds of results they are expecting the studies to show

• Hiring writers to write the articles that appear in the medical journals the doctors read, and also hiring big name doctors to affix their names to these studies, while doing very little, if any, of the writing.

In fact, recently (in April, 2008), the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) itself published three articles exposing the fact that Merck Pharmaceuticals had engaged in duplicitous behavior in marketing Vioxx, prior to 2004, when it was pulled from the market. Merck, as revealed by JAMA, had engaged in every one of the Big Pharma practices mentioned directly above.

Because of the media attention given to Big Pharma’s behavior, and also because of many excellent, best selling books -- such as Overdosed America (John Abramson, MD), The Truth About the Drug Companies (Marcia Angell, MD), Over Dose: The Case Against the Drug Companies (Jay Cohen, MD), and the recently published Our Daily Meds (Melody Petersen) -– I think our country is finally ready to be open to these treatments, even though they may not have multi-million dollar, Big Pharma-funded studies behind them. I think the public finally understands that such Big Pharma “studies” do not necessarily result in safe, effective treatments.

In this posting, I’ll introduce you to three very exciting treatments –- all similar to Silverlon, in that they have been saving lives for years. (One of these treatments has been in use since the 1920s, and has been championed by a major medical institution since the 1940s; the other two have been used successfully by many patients since the 1980s.)  In future postings, I’ll discuss some of the reasons doctors don’t tell their patients about these treatments – even though, in one instance, the treatment has been well known by treating physicians since the 1940s. And, in the coming weeks and months, I’ll also interview several of the people involved with these treatments. I am confident that you will find their stories – and these treatments – fascinating.

Treatment #1, Intravenous Alpha Lipoic Acid
Burt Berkson, MD, PhD.

I first heard Dr. Burt Berkson speak at a meeting of NOHA (Nutrition for Optimal Health Association in September, 1999. His talk was a paradigm-shifting event for me.

I will never forget the true story Dr. Berkson told about how, as an internal medicine resident, he used an intravenous antioxidant therapy, alpha lipoic acid, to treat a couple who came into the hospital, suffering from acute liver failure as a result of eating poisonous mushrooms. Dr. Berkson was told that nothing could be done to save these people’s lives, except for an immediate liver transplant, and that a donor was not available. He therefore was ordered to “administer medical support” and to just observe the patients as they “went though the phases of death. I was told to take notes and prepare a report for grand rounds at the hospital.”

Not wanting to just let his patients die, he remembered reading an article about alpha lipoic acid, an antioxidant with promising potential, that was being studied at the National Institutes of Health. He contacted one of the NIH researchers and was able to get some ALA. Thanks to Dr. Berkson’s quick thinking and ingenuity, his patients survived. They are still alive today, 30 years later.

Then Dr. Berkson told (both in his lecture and his book) about how the hospital’s chief doctor, rather than showing joy and curiosity about the wonderful substance that had saved these patients’ lives, told Dr. Berkson that the patients “would have come around anyway, even without the ALA therapy” and assured him that “although these types of recoveries were rare, they sometimes occurred.”

Again, like my experience with Silverlon, a total lack of curiosity. Even a similar hostility, as you will soon see.

In his book, The Alpha Lipoic Acid Breakthrough, Dr. Berkson relates how, the next weekend, another couple was admitted to the hospital with the same diagnosis.  (Mushroom season, Dr. Berkson points out, was “in full bloom.”)

Dr. Berkson writes: "Once again, hospital authorities told me that these people had no chance of living – not with their laboratory results. The patients were assigned to my service, and I was ordered not to use ALA – the pharmacists had never heard of the drug before and it was not on the hospital list. The chief doctor added that because alpha lipoic acid was not on the hospital’s approved drug list and was not recognized by any organization that he was aware of, I could not use it again. . . . I was told either to stand back and watch the patients die or face reprimand."

Of course, Dr. Berkson was very troubled by his superiors’ attitude. He writes: “But I was a doctor charged with saving lives, and I couldn't do that. . . . I could not just sit helplessly and watch them die.” So he used the ALA left over from two weeks earlier – against the wishes of hospital authorities.  These patients, too, recovered.

What Dr. Berkson writes next sheds, for me, a very sad light on our medical system: “Not surprisingly, the hospital administration was furious with me and branded me as a doctor who could not follow orders, a person who was not a good team player.”

Soon after this, Dr. Berkson, whom I will be interviewing for HonestMedicine, left the practice of hospital-based medicine. He is now happily in private practice, saving lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Over the years, he has saved many patients from needing liver transplants – which he suspects may be one reason the medical establishment is not enthusiastic about his use of alpha lipoic acid. Transplants, he pointed out to me in a recent phone conversation, are a huge business in many US hospitals.

Treatment #2 – Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)
Bernard Bihari, MD

Another promising treatment, Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN), is a very-small-dose, off-label use of a medication that was approved by the FDA in 1984 for treating drug and alcohol addiction. Shortly after its approval by the FDA, Bernard Bihari, MD discovered that, in small doses (1/10 to 1/20 the dose prescribed for addicts), LDN has immune-system-modulating, and endorphin-raising capabilities. He began prescribing it for patients with HIV/AIDS, and then for people with several autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis. In subsequent years, Dr. Bihari also had considerable success using LDN for patients with cancers that had failed to respond to standard treatments. In many cases, the results have been stunning. Since the 1980s, several  thousand patients have taken LDN; more are finding out about it on the Internet every day.

However, while many medical doctors have personally observed extremely positive results in their seriously ill patients taking LDN, and while some of these doctors are now conducting serious trials of LDN, the majority still opt to prescribe the more toxic, side-effects-laden drugs -– most of which don’t even work well. And they refuse to prescribe LDN.

I will be interviewing several advocates of LDN, including multiple sclerosis “success story” SammyJo Wilkinson, who has been raising public awareness and money for LDN clinical trials.  (Her group raised several thousand dollars, with which they were able to fund a small trial at the University of California at San Francisco , UCSF.) SammyJo’s website is http://www.ldners.org/. Other LDN patient advocates have websites, too, as does David Gluck, MD, a very devoted physician advocate of the drug, who will help to coordinate his 4th Annual LDN Conference this year.

All of these efforts are labors of love. 

Other LDN studies are being performed, too. Last year, a paper describing the results of one study, performed at Penn State, and titled “Low-Dose Naltrexone Therapy Improves Active Crohn’s Disease,” was published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology. And two successful studies on LDN treatment for multiple sclerosis were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology this April -- one from UCSF and one from Milan. And Dr. Jaqueline McCandless has put $250,000 of her own money, and much of her own time, into conducting a clinical trial in Africa on LDN’s efficacy for AIDS patients.

In addition, SammyJo Wilkinson has coauthored a book (with medical writer, Elaine Moore), The Promise of Naltrexone, to be published by McFarland in September, 2008.

Treatment #3 – The Ketogenic Diet
John Freeman, MD; Millicent Kelly, RD
Jim Abrahams

Finally, I will tell the very dramatic story of Hollywood film writer/director/ producer Jim Abrahams (Airplane, the Naked Gun series, and Hot Shots), his son Charlie, and the Ketogenic Diet, which finally cured Charlie of his almost-non-stop epileptic seizures – but only after he had been prescribed so many expensive, highly toxic drugs that he was literally bumping into walls. Charlie was even subjected to a completely ineffective brain surgery before Jim (through his own research) discovered the Ketogenic Diet at Johns Hopkins. Since the time when Jim found the Ketogenic Diet for Charlie in the 1990s, Charlie had been seizure-free, and Jim has devoted his life to raising awareness for the diet. He has set up the Charlie Foundation, to educate both physicians and parents of children with epilepsy. In 1997, Jim produced a made-for-television movie, “First, Do No Harm,” which starred his friend Meryl Streep, as the mother of a child whose son, like Charlie, was helped dramatically by the diet. (There are clips from the movie, as well as a short video, "Meryl Streep Introduces the Ketogenic Diet," on Jim's website.)

I’ll tell Jim and Charlie’s story in detail in upcoming postings, and I’ll interview Jim for HonestMedicine. But, in closing, I can’t resist including the reason one of Charlie’s doctors gave to NBC’s “Dateline,” for not telling Jim and his wife Nancy about the Ketogenic Diet, and for even discouraging them from trying it, after Jim had found it (even though, like most other pediatric neurologists, he knew about the diet). When asked why he had dissuaded the Abrahams from attempting the diet, he said: “because I don’t think we had exhausted all the medical approaches yet. There were actually still other medications that we hadn’t tried yet.” I could not believe what I was hearing. I urge you to watch this video for yourself. You won’t believe it, either.

When Radiation Was an Anecdotal Treatment for Cancer -- 1928

I’ll end this posting with the true story of my Grandma Julia, who was told in 1928 by Dr. Charles Mayo (when my Mom was 11 years old) that she had colon cancer, and had only 6 months to live. Instead, she went to Germany, where she had radiation treatments, and lived another 10 years! Radiation treatments, of course, would have been called “anecdotal” in America back then. (My posting about Grandma Julia is online.)

April, 2008: Some of Honest Medicine’s Most Popular Articles and Audios

1) NEW: Honest Medicine on the Blogs – This posting features several comments left on blogs, such as the New York Times’ Well Blog and the Salon.com blog, in response to postings relevant to HonestMedicine’s mission. Among the subjects these blogs and comments addressed are: patients who research their symptoms online (“Googling”); mammograms; Dr. Christiane Northrup’s appearance, discussing thyroid disease, on the Oprah Winfrey Show; doctors who “steal hope”; and the overuse of diagnostic scans.

2) Rave Review: “An Uncertain Inheritance: Writers on Caring for Family”
This collection, beautifully edited by author Nell Casey is, by far, one of the most touching anthologies on the topic of caregiving -- filled with real-life accounts by writers, some famous and some not-so-famous. Some of the best writing on this topic that I have read in many years. The book contains fascinating personal essays by such writers as: Stan Mack, Dr. Jerome Groopman, Eleanor Cooley, Ann Hood, Abigail Thomas and Susan Lehman. There is also a wonderful introduction by Frank McCourt.

3) HonestMedicine’s "SiCKO Files":

♣ Honest Medicine's Review of Michael Moore's SiCKO, was noticed by several websites, including one that hailed it as "a superb review from someone who knows." Michael Moore also linked to it from his website!

♣ Audio Interview with SiCKO “hitman” Lee Einer. In this interview Lee shares insurance industry "secrets" not included in the film.

♣ Article #1 Written By Lee Einer: "Faux Health Insurance for the Self-Employed: The Sham, The Scam, The Shame of It." This is the first in what will hopefully be a series of articles written by Lee Einer, the man Michael Moore called the Insurance Industry "Hitman" in SiCKO. It was Lee's job to make sure the insurance companies he worked for were saved from paying just about ANY large bill -- no matter what he had to do. This article is truly enlightening -- and frightening!

♣ Article #2 Written By Lee Einer: “The Truth About Self-Funded Plans.” The second in our series of articles written by Lee Einer, SiCKO’s "Hitman." In this article, Lee tells about a second kind of “insurance” that can be deceptive.

4) Honest Medicine’s Inspiration: Timothy Mark Fisher
      March 13, 1949 – November 8, 2005
My husband Tim Fisher was first diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor in September, 1990. For fifteen years, until he died in November, 2005, we navigated our flawed medical system together. My tribute to him was written on the second anniversary of his death, and contains several wonderful true stories about Tim. He was, and continues to be, an inspiration.

5) Honest Medicine’s Audios

♣ Ronald Hoffman, MD, Integrative Physician/Author -- In this interview, Dr. Hoffman discusses his integrative approach to the treatment of many diseases, including cancer. Also included: a discussion of the ways in which so-called "trials" or "studies" of natural treatments are often intentionally set so that they will "fail."

♣ Nutritionist Liz Lipski -- This interview contains discussions of local/organic foods, hospital food and her books, Digestive Wellness and Digestive Wellness for Children.

♣ Integrative Cancer Specialist Dr. James Belanger -- This innovative naturopathic physician discusses his use of blood tests and natural supplements for keeping his patients' cancers in remission.

♣ Lee Einer, SiCKO "Hitman" -- see above

Timothy Mark Fisher: March 13, 1949 – November 8, 2005

Many visitors to this site know that it is dedicated to my husband, Tim Fisher, who died exactly two years ago today, as a result of complications from a brain tumor, which was first diagnosed in 1990, when Tim was just 40. Had he lived, he would have been 59 this coming March.

As I wrote in my article that was published in 2003 in the National Brain Tumor Foundation's newsletter, during the 15 years Tim lived as a brain tumor survivor, he was subjected to all varieties of treatments our medical system had to offer -- both good and terrible -- from his one lifesaving surgery to remove the original tumor in 1990, to a succession of subsequent, almost-20 surgeries to correct all sorts of complications that ensued. The complications included non-healing suture lines, hydrocephalus and a radiation-caused stroke. In addition, he suffered more than his share of seizures, as well as numerous hospital errors, including both underdoses and overdoses of medications. These errors, and many others, landed him in the ICU too many times to count.

I could go on and on about our healthcare experiences, but I won’t do it here on the second anniversary of his death, except to say that I saw (and Tim experienced) so many examples of substandard medical treatment in some of Chicago’s so-called “top hospitals” that we both vowed that I should make every effort to be part of the solution by at least making people aware of what’s broken.

This is what Honest Medicine is all about. It’s my tribute to Tim.

But today, I’d like to give you a real sense of the QUALITY of this man -- and what made his life such a fine and lasting inspiration to so many people, but most of all, to me. If I accomplish even part of what I hope to accomplish in my lifetime, it will be because of Tim.

I think what’s most important is that Tim kept his cheerful, positive attitude throughout the first eleven years after his brain tumor diagnosis. The word I always used to describe him was “jaunty.” Although he couldn't work full-time anymore -- and less and less as the years passed -- he continued to work part-time as a lawyer and went to court whenever he could. Once he even had a seizure in court. His good friend Steve Deitsch, who had thankfully been there when it happened, drove him to the hospital; I rushed to be with them. Later when he awoke, Tim told me he had had a grand mal seizure right there, in front of the judge; and that, when he woke up, he found that he had peed in his pants. (That’s what often happens when a person has a seizure.) What was Tim’s reaction to this experience? To go back to court the next day, of course! He told me that if he gave in to every little setback, his goose would REALLY be cooked; that the idea was to live WITH these imperfections. I learned a lot from him.

And Tim continued to love his books and his classical music. I always called them his first two loves. (I was a close third!) He knew that the occasional seizures and the many brain surgeries (to correct complications) were taking a toll on his brain, so he worked extra hard to challenge himself. He listened to classical music and read some of the most difficult books imaginable -- he described them as “tasty”! -- and tried to share passages from them with me. (These passages were often so complex that I barely understood them, even though I was the former college English teacher!) He would often get up to read in the middle of the night because that was the quietest time, and it was becoming more difficult for him to concentrate than it had been in his pre-tumor days. He would often tell me that he knew that someday, he might not be able to read anymore, so he wanted to make the most of it while he could.

The same went for listening to classical music. During the first 11 years after his first tumor diagnosis, he worked hard to be able to continue to recognize every composer and performer of every work, and to go to concerts when we could afford them. Music became his one real comfort later on when he was truly brain-injured and bedbound, and could no longer read. (You may read more about his first 11 years as a brain tumor survivor here.)

Things changed drastically after the surgery to remove his second tumor in 2001. Just like after his 1990 surgery, his incision again wouldn't heal. This time, he spent eight months in the hospital, where they performed yet another 8-10 surgeries. In the end, his incision finally healed, but this round of surgeries left him (finally) brain injured and paralyzed. The medical profession gave up on him entirely.

Tim’s last 3-1/2 years were spent at home with me.  Our final years together were very beautiful in their own way. Tim became exactly the kind of disabled person you would have expected: urbane, witty, funny -– even while bedbound and paralyzed.

By the time Tim died, most of our “couple friends” had deserted us. They had started to drift away during the first eleven years, when he slowly became more noticeably forgetful. There is chapter in a book on caregiving (Always on Call: When Illness Turns Families into Caregivers), in which a rabbi, Gerald Wolpe, describes how friends were there in the beginning, right after his wife’s stroke, but that they drifted away afterward, unsure of how to respond to the different lifestyle her illness forced them to live. I think Tim’s condition embarrassed his friends, too. Or, they might have thought that he would be embarrassed if he thought they noticed that he was not 100% the same.

But there were some very good people who stuck by us after Tim's 2001 surgery, and I’d like to mention them here. There was his caretaker, Cindi Saukeld, and his physical therapist, Irene Lewis, who achieved the miracle of helping Tim to get enough movement back that he could pedal his exercise bike by himself. And I can never forget Mick Aber, who was “assigned to Tim” by our local hospital in his capacity as home social worker. Mick was a miracle, staying on as our friend, even after his assignment had ended. It was Mick who found the Brain Injury Waiver Program for me -- a State of Illinois program that helped people like us by providing caretaker services that I never could have afforded. Mick not only found the program for me, but -– with another dear friend, Ginny Lazzara -- fought so hard for us, so that we were FINALLY approved for home care so that I could afford to keep Tim at home with me. And of course, our very good friend Ann McCabe, who visited us so many times during Tim's long illness.

And then, I will never ever forget our dear friends at the AmericInn, the wonderful hotel in Bolingbrook where Tim and I stayed when he was undergoing hyperbaric oxygen treatments. Jim Reich, Marsha Fiocco and Mark Derkacz were the most wonderful family we could have asked for.

Tim and I never really discussed his “after death” wishes in great detail -- probably because we lived under its shadow for so many years. But he had two wishes that he was clear on, and he told me about them several times over the years.

• His vast book collection was to go to our dear friend Keith Peterson, friend for many years to us both, and proprietor of Tim’s favorite used bookstore, Selected Works. Although it was impossible for me to part with his books right after Tim’s death, the time is coming when Keith will be the proud owner of this huge and wonderful collection.

• Tim didn’t want the typical “memorial” or funeral. What he wanted was for his friends to get together and have some drinks -- “on me,” he’d say. I am proud to say that last year, several of his friends from the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s office, which was the site of Tim’s “glory years” (he even won the State’s Attorney of the Year Award one year; I believe in 1984) met and told “Tim Fisher Stories.” We had a great time and Tim would have loved it. I took some great pictures, and am including 6 of them here, here, here, here, here, and here.

I added a few healing rituals of my own -- first, by “adopting” a tree in a beautiful park right near our home. I chose the location because it was next to one of Tim's favorite statues, honoring the Oak Parkers (Illinois) who had fought in World War 1. Listed on the side of the monument were the names of all the Oak Parkers who fought. There was one name among them that Tim always enjoyed pointing out to friends: "E. Hemingway." (Not many people knew that Hemingway was listed here. Tim delighted in pointing this out.) At the base of Tim's tree is a plaque that reads: “Timothy Fisher, In Loving Memory, 3-13-49  11-08-05.” I go there on all significant occasions, as well as at lots of other times. Oh, and this park is right next to the library, too. What could be more appropriate?

Right after Tim died, I asked one of our dear friends (a friend of mine since I was 12 years old), Beth Ryza, an amazing artist and sculptor, to create a sculpture that would always remind me of Tim. She did, and I have it to look at every day.

After Tim died, I also asked some friends to write about their memories of Tim. Several did, and I am including their memories here. You will get a sense of the real Tim Fisher, from all angles, by reading these tributes.

The first two tributes were written by his two cousins (from opposite sides of the family): Greg Dettman, who knew Tim best as a little boy; and Ned Anschuetz, who didn’t know Tim as well as a child, but came to know him a bit better when both lived in Chicago.

Next are the memories shared with me by one of Tim’s DuPage County State’s Attorney’s office friends, Barb Preiner who, with her husband, Steve Deitsch, visited us in Oak Park during Tim’s illness, and were to spend so much time with us when we were in Bolingbrook. Barb’s tribute will tell you about Tim Fisher, the amazingly brilliant and quirky lawyer -- the man who loved his job so much that once, when he was rushing to court to start a trial in a torrential rainstorm, he chose the wrong street to drive down, and literally sank his car! He made it to court anyway, totally wet, but with his files (and his father's saxaphone) intact. From then on, the car was called the “glove sub.” You’ll have to read Barb’s story to understand why. I was (and still am) very touched by her words. I read them often.

To give you a bit different, but equally wonderful, perspective on Tim, the lawyer, there are the words of Shelvia Tinsley, Tim’s secretary at the State’s Attorney’s Office, and a very dear friend to both of us throughout the years. My favorite part of Shel’s story is how Tim was always trying to get her to love classical music the way he did, so she would tell him she was listening to Mozart, while she was really listening to Rhythm and Blues (with her headphones on, of course!).

And I couldn't leave out Barry Bender, who knew Tim best as a drinking and story-telling (and story-listening) buddy. Tim and Barry had a very special relationship, discussing music, literature and politics. Barry moved to California, so we didn’t see him much; but he still called every now and then to see how Tim was doing. And when Tim was dying, Barry and his wife Beth came to visit us.

The next three memories are by some more wonderful friends who -- like the others -- stuck with us throughout the good and bad times.

Keith Peterson -- who will inherit Tim’s vast book collection. (Keith calls this his "inheritance.") He is also the friend who took our wedding photos, as well as the photo that adorns this website (upper left). It was the last photo ever taken of Tim and me together.

Virginia McCullough -- my good friend, who provided (and still provides) a very loving ear on a regular basis.

And last, but very certainly not least, David Dalton, who with his partner Chuck Powers, has been so loyal to both of us for over twenty years. The four of us enjoyed many wonderful evenings (and days) together. In this piece, David describes our wonderful times spent listening to music at the Ukrainian Institute of Chicago.

There were also others, friends and relatives who did not write tributes to Tim, but were there for me. Among the ones whose comfort meant the most to me are my Mom and my sister Fran, who called me every single day when Tim was in the hospital. And my brother Phil and his family (my sister-in-law Carol, and Joey and Zara, my amazing nephew and niece), who called and visited so often. Phil and Carol both knew how much talking and being with the children meant, and still means, to me. Soon after Tim died, they came by car from Columbus, Ohio, to spend Thanksgiving with me. There are also the good friends (whom I will only name here, because of space concerns): Rose, Karen, Vicki, Dennis, Erica, Liz, Virginia, Ginny, Ann, Chuck, Jerry and Ruth. (They all know what they did for me, and how much it meant.)

Finally, I'd like to share some Tim Fisher Witticisms. When people would visit us when Tim was bedbound during those last 3-1/2 years, he would often pretend to be asleep. By then, he was totally embarrassed and humiliated by his situation. Many of our friends therefore didn’t realize that Tim was the wittiest brain-injured person on the face of the earth!

Here are just a few examples of his wit during his last years:

Tim was not a religious person. In August, 2003, a little over a year after he returned from the hospital for the next-to-last time, I asked him if he ever prays. Here is what he said: “On my knees, with tears streaming down. You’ve got to see it to believe it!” I remarked that his sense of humor seemed to be returning. His response: “It’s been to Hawaii.”

The following month, I asked him if he loved life. I admit, this was a silly question, given how sad he was most of the time. But he humored me, with a “yes.” When I asked him WHAT he loved about life, he said, “It’s so full of crap.”

In September, 2003, encouraged by his progress, I said, “Your brain just needs lots of rest.” His reply: “I’m one good nap away from mental health.”

Perhaps the saddest (and wisest) words Tim spoke were in May, 2004, when he told me he was feeling blue. Asked why, he answered: “It's a song I’m hearing and I don’t like what it’s saying.” He added that the song was saying "that I’ll never do better than I’m doing now.”

But the sweetest words he said came once, when I asked him if he wanted to cuddle with me. He said no, but added thoughtfully: “I like to think I turn people down with grace and care.”

These two words -- grace and care -- describe Tim Fisher better than any words I could possibly come up with. Oh, yes. I would definitely add kindness and wit to the mix.