January 17, 2003

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you so much for your prayers, good wishes and journeys. It is Friday morning, just three days from Freddie’s Tuesday surgery and he is already better than he has been in years!!!!!

I woke up this morning to the sounds of his guitar drifting beautifully into the bedroom and mixing with the sunlight. Freddie had awakened much earlier filled with musical inspiration and without popping even one pain pill he headed for the living room and began to play some of the very difficult Carlos Heredia falsetas he has been struggling to learn since 1999. He can play them now, and most of them cleanly.

After the operation on Tuesday he said that his mind felt more clear already and that he thought he could see better. The results of the Wednesday morning blood test at the hospital showed that his blood calcium level had already decreased significantly. This means that the other three parathyroid glands had already started to function normally, now that the one with the tumor was gone. That Wednesday after we arrived home Freddie felt so good that we went into the studio and practiced! I was “trashed”, exhausted and falling apart after the crisis. Freddie was better. Yesterday he said that his back hardly hurt at all. He spent most of the day with our friend Heiner fixing up our sunset room next to the dance studio. They are installing sheet rock and a small wood stove. That is the little room that looks out to the still wild canyon that the sun sets above. In the late afternoon and evening while I saw clients, Freddie put on his tapes of his lessons with Carlos and practiced for hours, something he has not been inspired to do so intensively for quite a while.

And today he is playing guitar better than he has ever played, at least in years. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen him struggle with this musical material, his fingers just not able to play it cleanly. We thought it was age slowing down his fingers. And now as I write, have gotten out of bed with tears of joy and relief streaming down my face, he is playing beautifully. These are two wonderful and immediate results we did not expect: much less pain in his back and better guitar playing! We were told by his surgeon, Dr. Canon, that his former condition (the parathyroid tumor leaching the calcium from his bones and depositing it in his blood) could cause osteoporosis, memory loss, high blood pressure, and cramps, among other things. As Freddie was being given the first anesthesia just prior to the operation, another doctor told us that people often experienced unexpected healings from other types of conditions with the removal of the diseased parathyroid gland. But we never expected this much this fast. I am only sorry that we waited as long as we did to have this surgery.

When Freddie and I first got together in October of 1997, the high calcium in his blood had already been detected by the doctors at the County hospital in Santa Cruz. However they had no idea what it signified or what to do. One said to take in less calcium while another said to take more. When we finally got Freddie to a private doctor I insisted on a test to see why he had the elevated calcium level and we discovered the hypo-parathyroid condition. He was then referred to a local “specialist” who told his doctor that this condition was mild and to just “watch it”. Unfortunately, that’s just what she did. Even when Freddie was in the hospital after our return from Spain this year she assured us that we didn’t need this operation and that his condition was mild. How wrong and misinformed she was. We have since changed doctors. Our new primary care doctor is very bright, is only thirty years old and studies Flamenco dance.

I am sending you this update, full of hope and happiness. Right now life looks for good for us. I have my old Freddie back, even better than before.

Thank you all for your support.
Love from,
Marianna and Federico, Flamenco Romntico