May 3, 1998

It was 7:15 in the morning, and my gigantic linear friend wheeled me down to operating room 103B of Yale-New Haven Hospital. Dr. Issam Awad would soon operate on my right carotid artery. His former operating room nurse turned administrative assistant would later tell me that he had had a 5 percent opening in which to work. The operation was unusually long.

Transferred from my portable bed once inside the cavernous room to the rock-hard operating room table, I looked up into the gigantic dome of a light above me. I signed the hospital's release form. I was crying. The anesthesiologist put her hands ever so gently on my face. I knew the operation would be successful, but nonetheless I was very scared.

Joanna, my eldest daughter, had left her practice as a psychiatric social worker at Kaiser Permanente in California to be with me for a week. She kept a meticulous notebook during my entire time in the hospital: she recorded every conversation anyone had with me or with each other about me.

I received extraordinary care at Yale-New Haven that week in May three years ago.

Russell Goddard
Milford, Conn.