You don't have to send me flowers (but you did)

     Forgive me for an overall "thank you" note, rather than an individual reply. Trying to save some of my valuable time.
     We are so grateful, so appreciative for the outpouring of love and good wishes shown us in the past week.
     It makes my damaged heart feel so much better, and Beatrice wants to add how much she appreciates it, too.

     The response to the blog from earlier this week was terrific, through e-mail, Facebook and cards. We've heard from friends everywhere -- starting, of course, with our roots in Louisiana. And our fellow residents here at Trinity Terrace -- and some staff -- have been as outstanding, as we knew they would be.
     The centerpiece, as you can see in this photo set up by Bea, is this flower arrangement sent by our next-door neighbors, Karen and Dr. Dwight Beery. The delivery of those brought some tears.
     But kindness has been delivered from everywhere.
     The recovery is going to be an 8- to 12-week process, and I've never been known for patience. But as a patient, patience is a must. So I will be taking it slow and easy; not going to attempt too much too soon.
      It is, as you might feel, a sad time in America if you follow the daily news as much as we do. Could be quite depressing when combined with this slog of personal recovery that we're facing. 
      But I refuse to give in to the depression that always is possible after a major surgery. And I remain hopeful and optimistic that we as Americans and as a people world-wide will find the way, as I see it, to advance the mission of mankind -- to make life better for everyone.
      Take care. See you down the road.

    

It's the heart that counts most

          OK, about the angiogram/CABG double play and my eight-day "vacation" at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital, only a few blocks from here in Fort Worth ...

Here is where eight days of my life meant a repaired heart.

     Came home Tuesday afternoon, and I'm here in the apartment,  and just happy to be here.

     Lucky to be here, actually. 

     Anytime in the last year and a half could have been the end for me, really.

     But I'm here, I'm good, I'm mending, and -- doctors tell me -- that with care and better habits (eating, exercise) -- I'll be here a good while longer to bug you.

     Not looking for attention with this piece -- I get lots of attention -- and certainly not looking for sympathy. But I am here to tell you that if you have a feeling in your chest that's bothersome (or worse), get it checked ... repeatedly.

     Don't be like me, and try to play through it. Did not push hard enough to find what was going on.

     There are a couple of dozen family members and longtime good friends who know where I've been and what I've been through. The word spread around Trinity Terrace -- our seniors residency -- but not everyone here knew.

     I am not one for posting play-by-play on Facebook or e-mail, especially not on health matters. Some people do, with gory photos to add. No, thank you. 

     Choose to write and post after the fact, same as with the intestional blockage six years ago, and another eight-day stay in the same hospital. 

     That was no fun. This was worse, and more crucial.

     So about CABG. That's not cabbage (not much of a fan). That's Coronoary Artery Bypass Graft surgery. Simpler terms: open-heart surgery and, for me, a triple bypass.

     I hit a triple, and it's not baseball or a 3-point basket.

     I don't recommend it. But it was necessary, a no-choice option. You've gotta have heart, and mine was blocked, and failing.

---      

     People know that, for two decades, I have gone on long walks through streets, drive-throughs, parking lots. Started yoga classes a decade ago. More recently, I added all sorts of exercise classes -- yoga, strength training, water aerobics.

     In the last couple of years, there was this growing "discomfort," "pressure," "heavy feeling" on the left side of my chest up through my left sinus cavity and just a touch down the left arm. Happened on many (but not all) of my walks and during exercise classes. It was a distraction.

     But it was never painful, and always gone after a moment or two, or a brief stop.

     Kept thinking my issue was too much weight -- a gain of 15 pounds in a year. Felt uncomfortable, but not limiting.

     Kept telling Bea about the pressure, kept telling my doctors, and they ran me through a number of tests. It never left. I passed a stress test with surprising ease about a year ago. 

      Developed atrial fibrillation (Afib) -- irregular heartbeat, stroke-threatener -- several months ago. A cardioversion (shock) treatment worked on the first try to put my heartbeat back into rhythm. Added lots of medicines (blood-pressure, blood-thinner, etc.)

      After several long walks in April, the "problem" kept calling. But, again, it was OK after brief stops.
      Really clueless about how much danger I was in. 

      With our place pretty much locked down during the pandemic, Bea and I were taking short walks in the area. On the last day of April, a Thursday, we went about two minutes ... and I felt the pressure, and felt ill. Hurried home, went to bed, and was OK after about 10 minutes.

    Every day after that, there was a slight-to-bothersome headache and that same feeling anytime I exerted myself.

     On my annual physical and on a visit to the cardiologist within two days, I stressed the discomfort-pressure-tight feeling. The cardiologist set me up for an angiogram.

    (Crucial point here: I was going to wait until June 8 for the angiogram. But after a couple of days of nagging, Bea -- the nervous wreck who runs this apartment and has run our house and lives for 43 years -- insisted I move it up. All she did, likely, was save my life).

    The angiogram -- the diagnostic procedure to X-ray blood vessels in which a long flexible catherer is inserted through a spot in the wrist (my right one) or a thigh -- showed major blockages of 100 percent, 100 percent and 75 percent.

     Great percentages if you're shooting free throws. Related to the heart, "we found a helluva mess," Dr. Gurpreet Baweja told Bea.

---

     The CABG, delayed a day because kidney numbers weren't quite where they needed to be, was Thursday, May 21, and it was a 5 a.m. wakeup call.

     After about 6:15 a.m., I was out of it. It's a 3 1/2 to 4-hour procedure, and you come out of it with a broken chestbone, some nice incisions, bruising, and tubes and wires ... lots of tubes and wires. Glad I didn't have to see that picture.

     So, thank you, to Dr. Carlos L. Macias and his team. Imagine, they do this once or twice a day most weeks. Wow.

     In this time, we hear so much about the great things doctors and nurses do. We always know that, and we should  not take it for granted (but we do). 

      The staff at Harris Methodist, in every instance, was so damn good -- especially Dr. Macias & Co., his nurse practictioner (who gave me a booklet and printed sheets of guidelines on what to do now), and the conscientious personnel in the Intensive Care Unit (spent two days there) and on the fourth floor of the Heart Center (three days there).

     Thank you, thank you, thank you.

     Go for a CABG, and see for yourself.

     A couple of my really close friends have had bypass operations, and their guidance (by text and e-mail) was so helpful to me. And a couple of people -- my sister Elsa, and best-friend-since-sixth-grade Casey -- reached out again and again. 

---       

     I'm one of the lucky people; I have always known that and said that. This is just the latest example.

     Great family -- Bea, the two kids, the four spectacular grandkids, Elsa and all her "new" family, Bea's extended Shaw family. Great friends from all over and way back -- school, work -- at many stops in many places. Satisfying career that, looking back, I am proud of, no matter how many times I messed up. (And I did.)

      Love my Amsterdam and Holland heritage, my North Louisiana and Louisiana roots, especially love our forever hometown, Fort Worth, and the "family" we are part of at Trinity Terrace.

      Received a dozen cards from fellow residents, and our great friends Nell and Bill Gould sent a "care" package to the hospital. 

      People have been so kind, so helpful, especially our next-door neighbors (Dr. Beery, Dr. Malmstrom and Dr. Smith). 

      People offer to help in any way. Appreciate that. What can you do? Aw, heck, send money. Yeah, that's it. 

      I'm just kidding. 

      Dr. Baweja, personable and encouraging, assured me that "you will feel so much better in a few days and you will be better than ever."

      That's the intention, and I am on the way.   

Facebook messages received ...

     So how's your coronavirus vacation going?
      Would not say that we are bored; we can find enough to do -- reading, studying our computer and/or I-Pads, and watching lots and lots of television "news" -- but we are not as busy as we were before, either.
      How about you?
      Interesting to watch the debate on when and how things -- well, our world -- should open up again. Seems to me that it's become a political divide (isn't everything these days?), and I am not about to delve into that argument. Not here, not on this blog.
      Make up your own mind. And if you go out into public often enough -- mask or no mask, social distancing or not -- good luck. Don't be afraid. Don't be lax, either. 
       We did go, carefully, on a shopping trip to our favorite Costco this morning -- we had items we needed -- and then on a walking trip to the credit-union drive-through across the street from our facility, I happened to see the Blue Angels flyover in Fort Worth that had many of our residents excited to see. 
      Here is the link to those few moments, as posted on Facebook this morning: 
  https://www.facebook.com/TrinityTerraceTX/videos/2914550845259066/?t=5 
       We will keep our distance, and I will keep researching on the Louisiana sports-related project which I have been grinding on lately.
     It is good, though, to see our neighbors and fellow residents here at the compound -- even at a distance and (most often) masked -- and neighbor Dr. John suggested, "I haven't seen any of your blogs lately."
     Told him I was working on a couple, and so here is the first.
---
      These are three notes I received by Facebook Messenger last week, reminders of family and published work -- blogs and the book -- done in recent years.
      ● Dr. Larry Joseph Rapp Jr., a two-year Centenary College student from New Orleans and then an LSU-BR graduate, sent this note:
    "Hi Mr. Van Thyn, 
     "You don't know me but I just want to say thank you for compiling your parents' stories. I was fortunate enough to see your mother speak at Centenary College in the early 2000s. She was so memorable that nearly 20 years later I had to find out more.
     "Thanks to Wikipedia, I think I found out about your book. My mother read it first; I just finished it, and I will certainly share it with anyone who will read it. You probably hear this frequently; at least I hope you do. Your parents would be proud of and honored by your work."
      Joseph went on to earn a doctorate in physical therapy from the University of South Alabama and has accepted an offer to work for the Department of Defense at Hurlburt Field AFB (in the Florida Panhandle) as director of physical therapy.
      ● B. Wade Brooks, a Benton resident and school teacher who attended Parkway High in Bossier City and then the University of Central Arkansas and University of Tenneseee, sent a note asking to contact a friend about another matter, and then added: "I saw your mother (Mrs. Rose) speak at Shreve Memorial Library one afternoon. Our kids need to hear those type stories these days." 
     Paid special attention to this surprising message: 
     ● "My name is Joe Sanders. I am the son of Leen Sanders. I just read an article  you wrote about my father and his actions as a prisoner in Auschwitz. Things I was never aware of. I am not much of a reader, but I really enjoyed reading your story about my father. 
     "Thank you so much. Joe Sanders."
---
     These are gratifying, of course, and the Joe Sanders note particularly was/is intriguing. Leen Sanders was the Dutch boxing champion/hero -- my Dad's hero -- who was the subject of a blog piece 6 1/2 years ago as part of the blog series on my father's story and it is Chapter 16 in the book about my parents and our family. 
      So I did contact Joe, we have exchanged messages over the past week, and I am about to follow up with more on the Leen Sanders story -- yeah, the rest of the story -- and Joe's perspective on life with his parents.
     As one of our favorite talk show hosts/analysts says: Watch this space.        

"The rest of the story" on a boxing/Auschwitz hero

     Facebook Messenger note, APR 27, 2020, 8:24 PM:
     "My name is Joe Sanders. I am the son of Leen Sanders. I just read an article that you wrote about my father and his actions as a prisoner in Auschwitz. Things I was never aware of. I am not much of a reader, but I really enjoyed reading your story about my father.
      "Thank you so much.
      Joe Sanders"
---     
     Life, as it does, has presented challenges for Joe Sanders. 
     Being the child of a Holocaust survivor (or survivors) is different. Hard to capsulize in one sentence or paragraph.
     Joe experienced it -- as many have, me and my younger sister included -- so he knows, as we know.
     To hear from Joe, some 6 1/2 years since I first wrote about Leen Sanders was quite a surprise. Never realized that Leen had a "second family" because -- to be honest -- I did not research much of his post-World War II life for that blog piece.
     That was published January 25, 2014, as part 15 of the series on my father's "story" and subsequently became Chapter 16 of the 2017 book on my parents and family.
     I described Leen as one of Dad's heroes. The details are in the blog piece (if you care to read it again):https://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-boxer-leen-sanders-my-dads-hero.html
     Look, many people who knew Louis Van Thyn knew him as a hero, too -- and still do. But he wasn't a national hero.  Leen Sanders was.

Leen Sanders, in 1985
(photo from Rotterdam Jewish Heritage)

     He was a star, a Dutch boxing champion through the 1920 and '30s, and a behind-the-scenes champion at Auschwitz who through sacrifice, selflessness and -- honestly, some thiefery -- made miserable existences a bit better for fellow prisoners.
     This blog will be about "the rest of the story," his final 4 1/2 decades. Much of the information below was supplied by Joe Sanders, and some of it is from a November 1985 "Rotterdam Jewish Heritage" webpage article available online.
     There was much glory and much travail in Leen Sanders' life.
---
     When contacted by Joe Sanders, it was reminiscent of a follow-up of another blog piece involving another chapter of Dad's story. Jacqueline Frankenhuis, daughter of one of the three men with Dad in the Russian Army-uniform photo, sent a note 2 1/2 years after my original piece (in July 2014) and we subsequently did a Skype session that led to a blog about Jack Frankenhuis' post-WW II life in Amsterdam.
      So now more correspondence with Joe, and the follow-up on Leen Sanders and his second wife, Joe's mother ... 
     In the Nazis' destruction, the murdered included Leen's firrst wife and two sons (ages 10 and 8) -- all killed not long after arriving at Auschwitz -- plus seven of his siblings (including the older brother (Bram) he had followed into boxing.
     And before that even, when the Nazis bombed Rotterdam -- where Sanders' family lived -- their house was destroyed and everything -- medals, cups, scrapbooks included -- burned. 
     So emptiness on his return to Rotterdam after survival of Auschwitz and a "death march." But soon -- like my parents in Amsterdam -- a new start.
      Leen married a friend of one of his deceased sisters, Henriette van Creveld, on July 4, 1946. (The sister's name was Rosette -- same name as our mother, slightly different spelling).

Jetty and Leen Sanders greeting his former sparring
 partner, Rinus Krijger, on a 1975 visit to Rotterdam.
(photo from boksen.nl)

     Joe and "Jetty" were together nearly 47 years -- nomadic in a way, with much happiness and much sadness, bitterness mixed in, with U.S. citizenship and then a return "home." 
       The journey, from 1946: A brief time in Rotterdam; a move to Aruba, a Dutch-influenced island in the Caribbean Sea; a move to the United States -- the Los Angeles area (first in Culver City, then Canoga Park) for 31 years; and finally a return for the final decades in Rotterdam.  
     Leen died at age 83 in April 1992. Henriette outlived him by almost 22 years; she died in January 2014 at age 101. 
     Joe was born in Aruba in 1949. But he eventually became a California surfer dude.
     And here is a we-can-identify start: tension, some anger, in the home, no love -- at all -- for the Nazis and Germany. 
     "I think the best place to start is what it was like growing up with my parents," Joe wrote. "As a child I was curious about the war and how it was for them." (Henriette was hidden during the war, and survived it.) 
     "Both my parents were willing to tell me, but after a few years I realized it caused a lot of tensions between my parents. They would become angry thinking about the horrible things the Germans did to them and their families."
     There is a reason that Joe describes his father as "a pressure cooker." There were times when the old boxing champion's aggressive nature surfaced.
     "They would say things to each other," Joe related, "and before they knew it, a violent argument ensued. So I knew some facts, but not all.
     "They never hit each other, but the yelling and screaming at each other was horrible for me to witness. They would cool off and make amends to each other and that is the way it was until [I was] in high school.
     "I was now bigger and quicker than my father and I told him not to take his anger out on my mom any more. Although things cooled down in the house, the rage in my father's head stayed with him until the day he died." 
     But, Joe added, "Life was not always like that. There were plenty of good times." More on that in a moment.
---
     After liberation from Auschwitz, at age 38, Leen boxed two more bouts -- and won -- against the same opponent. The war had taken its toll, and he knew it was time to retire as a boxer. 
     With a new life and a new wife, he also needed a new career in a new place.
     The bad memories in Rotterdam haunted him, just as they haunted my mother in Amsterdam. Especially how hard he had tried to save his wife and two boys.
     As a Dutch soldier, the Nazis had taken him as a POW (same as my Dad), but he escaped and found his wife and kids hiding in a barn. 
     For two years -- as the Nazis began their cruely campaign against Jewish people -- Leen did subterfuge resistance work, distributing illegal magazines and stolen identify documents to help fellow Jews. Then in August 1942, he and his family went into hiding, only to be discovered four months later ... and the Nazis sent them to the camps.
     Three years later, he could tell people that "I really owe my life to a Polish kapo (prisoner guard) who gave me extra food in exchange for boxing lessons."
     But no Selly, Josua ("Joopie") or David. Only their memory, and his sorrow, and a place that no longer felt like home.
     Henriette was the new life, Aruba the new place, boxing trainer the new job. And "he wanted to try a second time in having a family," Joe said.
     The job fizzled, so Leen opened a bar in the town of St. Nicholaas. Then in 1954, when Joe was 4, their application for immigration to the U.S. was accepted.
     In 1959 (Oct. 9), they became U.S. citizens. My family  can identify with that big step. 
     In Los Angeles, Joe noted, "My mom and dad did whatever kind of work they could get to support themselves."
     Leen was a truck driver, then had a government job as a cleaner in schools, which led to his one-man cleaning company during the 1960s.
      "I was an only child, so I was as close as I could be with my parents," Joe wrote. "They always seemed to be working. So I was a latch-key kid."
     His old sport was now a distant memory for Leen. "He never got back into boxing," Joe recalled, "other than to teach me. Although we would watch an occasional match, he did not appreciate the fighting styles he saw. It was more fighting than boxing."
     (Boxing encyclopedias refer to Sanders as a defense-minded, punching stylist, willing to outwit and outpoint his opponent, rather than slug with him. So his "old school" form didn't jive with many of the 1960s fighters he observed.)  
     Joe wasn't interested. "I had developed a passion for surfing," he said -- in Southern California, remember -- "and had no passion for boxing. He thought I was a beach bum. But when I pointed out how his parents disapproved of his boxing, he was a lot more understanding."
      After leaving Rotterdam in 1946, Leen had made only one return trip in 1952. The next visit was 19 years later. But in the 1970s, it became a trend; they made several trips back to see what family and friends remained there.
      And Rotterdam -- a city bombed to shreds by the Nazis in 1940 and totally rebuilt and modernized, one great Dutch success story -- began to grow on them again.
      Leen, in the 1985 Rotterdams Niewsblad interview,
explained that he liked talking to people anywhere and everywhere, "and that was difficult in Los Angeles because you hardly see people on the street there. Besides, my wife and I grew older and we couldn't take the heat so well in the summer. ..."
      So, in 1978, they packed it all up and went back to live in Rotterdam -- The Netherlands' major port city.
       "I am glad I came," Leen said in the '85 interview. "I was born here and I still have many acquaintances in Rotterdam."
       Joe, now totally Americanized, surf-crazy, and with a family, remained in California. He made three trips to visit the folks in Holland, and Leen and Jetty made a return visit or two to Los Angeles. 
      Joe went through a variety of jobs, and one he liked and stuck with was as a micro photographer/artwork cutter.
      "The flexibility of the job worked great with my passion for surfing," he wrote. "Surfing has been a major part of my life. My closest friends that I've gotten to know are from surfing. It is how I met my wife (Diane), who was also a surfer."
      But the business faded, and later work included carpentry. And in June 2006, his wife was diagnosed with cancer. Joe and their two sons watched her decline over 3 1/2 years; he quit work at the start of 2009 to care for her. She died in mid-December 2009 at age 58 1/2.
       Joe: "It was devastating, very depressing ... life was nerve-wracking."
      But he drew inspiration from a familiar source: "There was Dad. Although he had passed away ... he showed me the way. If he was able to survive the things he went through, so could I."
       And there was Jetty, in Holland. "My mother was always on the nervous side, so Diane and I kept her condition from my mom. I was always lying to my mom. She wanted to know why we wouldn't fly to Holland and visit."
      Life, he admits, "was a series of extreme highs and extreme lows. Surfing during the day lifted my spirits to euphoric highs. Being home alone at night was so depressing."
      Ten months after Diane's death, he attended a Breast Cancer Awareness fund-raiser, and he met a girl.
       She soon became his girlfriend -- it's been a decade -- "and I feel so lucky to have her in my life now."
       His and Diane's oldest son served as a U.S. Marine in Iraq and is now a computer tech. The younger son is a structural engineer, working at University of California-San Diego in the testing lab.
      The grandsons of boxing/Auschwitz hero Leen Sanders.

photo from eubcboxing.org

      And the man is not forgotten in The Netherlands. A little more than two years ago -- May 4, 2018, the day of a national sports commemoration in Amsterdam -- the president of the Dutch Boxing Association placed a garland of flowers in Sanders' honor near a statue outside the historic 1928 Olympic Stadium.
      In the 1985 interview, Leen said, "We have a beautiful flat in Bijdorp, and we hope to have a few more pleasant years."
     And they did. They had long, memorable journeys.
     "I love both my parents," Joe summed up. "They were not well educated, but they taught me a lot. To think about what they had to live through, they did very well for themselves and me."