To Sara: A Memoir in Bloomington, MN

This truly epic story in 1993 encompasses a lifetime of events condensed into 43 days. Included is a snowstorm of the century that dropped 41 inches on Syracuse, NY in one day, celebrating Easter Sunday with family in the hospital cafeteria, a car that broke down and had to be towed over 40 miles twice, a furniture-eating German Shepard, overseeing the construction of a two-unit townhouse in Scriba, NY, and getting tested for the chickenpox virus. This was all while holding down a job at the local utility, Niagara Mohawk Power Company, while my wife, Andrea, had an emergency C-section at Crouse Hospital and recuperated at the Central New York Ronald McDonald House because our in-utero baby was fighting for her life battling a blood-sucking tumor twisted around her vital organs. She continued that brave fight as a preemie with hydrops that caused her to be born double the normal size and weight. I couldn't make this all up; I don't have that kind of imagination. It's all unbelievably true.