A Shared Sadness

People who haven’t spent much time there seem to imagine cyberspace as their own private nightmare brought to life. To some people it is a scary place, full of predators of one stripe or another. To some it is a virtual Gomorrah, a RAM-charged peep show catering to unimaginable perversions.

Others fear it as a cold place, a place of separation peopled only by the lonely, locked in their own little worlds. Though they may talk to one another, do they communicate?

“What about a sense of community?” asked a friend of mine the other day. “What about things like communication on shared subjects other than the narrow topics at hand, those things that provide the glue that transforms a group of people into a community?” (He is a professor, and he does talk that way.)

So I told him about Gary Holleman. Gary helped start one of the Internet discussion groups, or chat lists, I belong to. A chat list, for the uninitiated, is kind of like an ongoing letter dedicated to a specific topic. If you have something to say about that topic, you e-mail your comment to a central computer, which then forwards it to everyone else on the list. If they have something to add, they can either respond to you privately or send another message back to the central computer.

You can find a chat list for just about any special interest imaginable. I belong to five: one devoted to mysteries, one for wine, one for the organization Slow Food, one for cookbooks and another--the one Holleman started--for chefs and cooks.

There are a couple of hundred people who are on the list; not all of them are chefs and cooks. Some are culinary students or work in related fields. Some are merely curious eavesdroppers (called lurkers).

Conversations--that is the only way to describe them--cover everything from practical matters like Alto-Sham slow cookers (from context, I gather that this is a kind of steam oven used in production kitchens) to a rather heated philosophical argument about whether cooking is an art or a craft. At any one time, several of these topics (called threads) are happening at the same time.

One day early last October, in the midst of these workaday discussions, there was a note titled “Gary Holleman’s Broken Heart.” In it, with surprising wit and panache (we’re talking chefs, remember?), Gary, a corporate chef who did product research and development, informed us that he had suddenly learned he needed some heart surgery.

As you may or may not know, I recently found out that I need some spare parts for my heart--an operation that my doctors perform every day and is analogous to a medical “slam-dunk.” However, for my friends, family and especially me, the prospects are somewhat more intimidating.

The problem, he wrote, began at lunch at a food conference in Portland, Ore.:

“The mean age of the population is gradually moving upward, and with it a new concern for fat-free, heart-healthy foods,” the luncheon speaker from Noble Assn. said as he discussed food trends for the late 1990s. The woman next to me was full of questions for me about the Internet. I heard neither the speaker nor my lunch partner. My heart felt as if it were jumping through my chest. I was sure I had taken on a cartoonish figure [and that] everyone in the room could see my heart beating two feet in front of my body. In fact, I was worried my heart had invaded the personal space of the gentleman across the table.

The problem recurred the next morning. He called his doctor back home in Minnesota and was told to go immediately to a cardiologist. There he learned that he had a leaky heart valve and would need to have open-heart surgery within a couple of weeks. Since the nearest major medical center was in Fargo, N.D., that’s where he headed.

I was stunned. The doctor says I have a four-plus aortic insufficiency (on a scale of one to four, four being the worst). While over the past year I had been unable to keep up my 15-20-miles-a-week jogging schedule, I had no idea that the problem was a lack of oxygen due to a broken heart. I thought I was just getting old.

After a couple of days of tests, he was told there was a complication: He also had an enlarged aortic artery that might have to be replaced as well.

“While not technically difficult, this would be a much more complex operation,” Dr. Damle said with his beautiful East Indian accent. Complex means longer. And slightly more risk, I assume.

To keep everyone updated on his progress, Gary created a small mailing list that he would post to regularly. If we sent him a note, he’d add our names.

I didn’t know Gary and, to be perfectly honest, his name hadn’t registered from his postings in the past. His was a face in the crowd of postings that comes through my computer every day--someone I saw everyday but never thought much about.

But I was touched by the hopeful, funny tone of the note. It was a nice piece of writing. I sent him a note, telling him so and suggested that when it was all over, he should collect these essays for a book. That got me on the list.

The next day another missive arrived.

Can a heartbroken man in Minnesota find happiness in a Fargo operating room? Read on.

“Allergic to any foods?” the intake nurse asked as she diligently filled out the proper forms.

“No, but I am a vegetarian. Ovo-lacto,” I replied.

“A chef AND a vegetarian?”

An hour later the food arrived. A splendid vegetarian feast--sort of: One cup of hot, canned, diced beets. Another cup of hot, canned, diced beets. One scoop of instant mashed potatoes (I recognize the flavor: NIFDA Red Label). Another scoop of instant mashed potatoes.

There was worse news than lunch, though.

The CT scan is in, and the results are clear. I have an aortic aneurysm. “The walls of the aortic artery are weak and enlarged. I am sure that is what is causing the failure of the valve,” said Dr. Damle.

The word “aneurysm” was not what I wanted to hear. It means, in Damle’s words, that “we have increased the magnitude of the operation significantly.” This means more risk, and, as I think it, he says it.

Gary sounded more upbeat after the weekend.

The “rose-colored glasses” in pill form prescribed by my surgeon, also known as antianxiety medicine, are working well. I know this for several reasons:

1) I just traveled 500 miles round-trip over 24 hours with three of my teens and my wife, and I still think I have had an absolutely marvelous weekend. We went to visit my four grandkids. Yes, at 42 years old I am too young for either heart surgery or grandkids, but I am blessed with both. However, I don’t think there is a correlation.

2) I also know the antianxiety medicine is working because I have forgotten what I had anxiety about in the first place.

Well, not entirely. He told of talking with one of his kids over lunch.

“So, did your mother tell you there has been a change in plans for the operation? I need more extensive surgery.”

“Yeah, I guess I heard. But it’s still routine surgery, right?”

It’s always a hard thing to know, much less tell someone else, just how risky an operation is. There is always balance--honesty and plain talk countered by hope, comfort and matter-of-factness.

“Well, yes, routine . . . I guess.” How routine can open-heart surgery get, I wonder?

“Oh, that’s good.”

“But you know when we talked before, I said it was a slam-dunk medical procedure? Well, now it’s more like a three-point shot.”

I see the panic in his eyes. He is remembering how well I play basketball. In fact, I am remembering how well I play basketball. Thinking quickly, I add, “But, uh, Michael Jordan is taking the three-point shot!” The concern fades from his face, and we eat our salads in silence.

The next post was full of news of the next day’s surgery. It turns out that because of the location of the aneurysm, the surgery was going to be even more complex to avoid starving the brain of blood.

The risk here is substantial. It’s starting to feel more like a half-court shot by a random spectator trying to win a million dollars. I exaggerate. The doctor I have chosen is the finest doctor in North Dakota for this type of operation. (OK, I admit it. There aren’t that many doctors in N.D., but Damle is excellent.)

Getting ready for the surgery, he and his wife, Lois, rented a suite in a hotel across the street from the hospital. Since there was a kitchen, why not fix dinner? It had to be better than hospital food.

My only disappointment making dinner was a result of the apparent dearth of fresh basil in Fargo, N.D. We went to Hornbacher’s grocery store--the biggest in town--only to find REALLY shabby looking herbs, none of which resembled basil. I inquired at the checkout counter.

“Where is the best produce section in town?” I asked the checkout person. She thought for a moment, as if it were a trick question. “Uh, here?”

“Excuse me, I don’t THINK so. Not in a MILLION YEARS! Your herbs look like they are left over from the floods of ‘97! They look like they went THROUGH the floods!” I could feel my blood pressure rising. And then I remember that I forgot to take my midday antianxiety pill.

And that brings me to the night before the dawn that has consumed my thoughts for the last two weeks. The blood tests are in. The doctor is ready. My family is by my side. I have my Ambien sleeping pills. And from reading the flood of e-mail I have received, I know my friends are thinking of me and praying for me. It is not generally my nature to try and attract attention (in the grocery store, from my friends or God for that matter), but I am indeed comforted and joyful over the love and affection that has been uploaded to my little port on the Net. Thank you, God bless you all. I’ll key you soon.

The next day, in order to keep calls to the family at a minimum, a member of the chat list was designated to act as go-between. I checked in every hour to see how Gary was doing.

There were constant updates. First:

The surgery is taking longer than expected, but that’s not necessarily a bad sign.

Then:

I have just spoken with the nurse’s station, and Gary has been returned to surgery. I am hoping things are going well, but this may be the time to start praying.

It got worse.

Gary is in very, very critical condition. Please stop what you are doing for just a moment and pray however and to whomever you do it.

By 4, it seemed a corner had been turned.

Gary is out of surgery. His heart is being supported by a left ventricular assist device. He is much improved. He is currently in intensive care and will be in the recovery room soon.

But at 5:

I just spoke with Lois. Gary has been taken back into surgery for the third time. She does not know for what. We all continue to hope and pray.

A couple of minutes later:

I just spoke to Gary’s brother Michael, and Gary’s condition has taken an unforeseen turn toward critical.

After that, a maddening silence. I found things to straighten up around my desk, staying late and doing busy work in between logging on to check for news. Finally, just after 7:

Gary Holleman left us half an hour ago. We all loved him.

Messages flew back and forth as the news spread. It seemed everyone had been doing just what I had been doing--staying close to the computer to check in. The next day--Oct. 22, 1997--was declared a day of silence in Gary’s honor. We took up a collection for his children and--this being cyberspace, again--someone added a tribute section to his home page where anyone who wanted could write a note about Gary. (If you want to visit, it’s still up: https://www.churchstreet.com/co/gary.htm)

Just like anyplace else, we grieved for a friend we’d lost and knew that our little community had been changed forever.