March 2015

Saving Celia EwEind Fs R the

a

A Wellsboro nurse’s journey to the Valley of Death and back

By Brendan O’Meara

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Volume 10 Issue 3

Saving Celia

By Brendan O’Meara A Wellsboro nurse’s journey to the Valley of Death and back.

8 Plotting Ahead

By Roger Kingsley Want to bag a trophy buck? Help a herd survive a rugged winter.

15 Mother Earth

By Gayle Morrow Small is beautiful.

20 First Come, First Served

By Cornelius O’Donnell Who knew the Empire State boasted so many food firsts?

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Cover by Tucker Worthington; Cover photo by Paul Finestone This page (from top): by Karen Kmetz; by Roger Kingsley; by E. Dronkert; and by Eugene Peretz.

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w w w. m o u n ta i n h o m e m ag . co m

Editors & Publishers Teresa Banik Capuzzo Michael Capuzzo Associate Publishers Dawn Bilder George Bochetto, Esq. D e s i g n & P h o t o g r ap h y Elizabeth Young, Editor Tucker Worthington, Cover Design Contributing Writers Angela Cannon-Crothers, Patricia Brown Davis, Alison Fromme, Holly Howell, George Jansson, McKennaugh Kelley, Roger Kingsley, Don Knaus, Adam Mahonske, Cindy Davis Meixel, Fred Metarko, Dave Milano, Gayle Morrow, Cornelius O’Donnell, Roger Neumann, Gregg Rinkus, Linda Roller, Kathleen Thompson, Joyce M. Tice C o n t r i b u t i n g P h o t o g r ap h e r s Mia Lisa Anderson, Bernadette Chiaramonte-Brown, Bill Crowell, Bruce Dart, Ann Kamzelski, Nigel P. Kent, Ken Meyer, Tina Tolins, Sarah Wagaman, Curt Weinhold, Terry Wild S a l e s R ep r e s e n t a t i v e s Brian Earle Michael Banik Linda Roller Administrative Assistant Amy Packard T h e B ea g l e Cosmo (1996-2014) Yogi (Assistant) ABOUT US: Mountain Home is the award-winning regional magazine of PA and NY with more than 100,000 readers. The magazine has been published monthly, since 2005, by Beagle Media, LLC, 25 Main St., 2nd Floor, Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, 16901, and online at www.mountainhomemag.com. Copyright © 2010 Beagle Media, LLC. All rights reserved. E-mail story ideas to editorial@mountainhomemag. com, or call (570) 724-3838.

TO ADVERTISE: E-mail info@mountainhomemag.com, or call us at (570) 724-3838.

AWARDS: Mountain Home has won 66 international and statewide journalism awards from the International Regional Magazine Association and the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association for excellence in writing, photography, and design.

DISTRIBUTION: Mountain Home is available “Free as the Wind” at hundreds of locations in Tioga, Potter, Bradford, Lycoming, Union, and Clinton counties in PA and Steuben, Chemung, Schuyler, Yates, Seneca, Tioga, and Ontario counties in NY. SUBSCRIPTIONS: For a one-year subscription (12 issues), send $24.95, payable to Beagle Media LLC, 25 Main St., 2nd Floor, Wellsboro, PA 16901 or visit www.mountainhomego.com.

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Saving Celia

A Wellsboro Nurse’s Journey to the Valley of Death and Back

By Brendan O’Meara

C

elia Finestone, seventy-nine years old, a highly respected nurse for sixty-two years, the longtime chief nurse to neurologist Dr. Daniel Britton, has seen thousands of patients, and looked at hundreds of X-Rays and MRIs to help doctors diagnose their patients’ ills in hospitals from Corning to Wellsboro.

When she was a girl she saw what others couldn’t see. She couldn’t explain it, though southern preachers thought she may have been of the devil and 8

shamed her for staring at the women knitting in her Kentucky church. They clicked their needles together, a beehive of Madame Defarges, and Celia saw the colors radiating from them. All different colors, or auras, that spoke to the mood they were in and also who they were at their core. She saw it in men, too—especially when she was in high school—but most of the men were overseas fighting in World War II. Celia also saw visions of a majestic, female eagle who looked like a cross

against the sky. The eagle was, in some ways, her silent guardian and watchful protector. But when she was eight or nine, she repressed the auras and the eagle in respect for the local culture. In fact, she never thought these sights were special or different from anyone else’s. It wasn’t until she was in nurses’ training that the colors blossomed again, but this time, no matter what the world thought, she was going to let them stay.

• In 2005, at age seventy, Celia began

Paul Finestone

Before the news: Celia and Stephen Finestone in August, at their daughter’s wedding, as yet unaware that her tumor would require surgery.

Karen Kmetz

to have headaches just behind her right eye. It wasn’t chronic, but the pain “felt like the floor came up to meet me,” she says. She got an MRI and it showed a small growth, a meningioma underneath the dura.

She didn’t panic. In fact, she was moderately relieved. To that point, fifty some years of nursing taught her a thing or two about what merits worry and what can be dismissed as merely a pimple on the brain.

Celia knew it wasn’t malignant, but it wasn’t harmless either, and in those years since 2005 the tumor gathered strength, securing peace, preparing for war.

• Dr. Daniel Britton shook out his elbow. He was an avid golfer and he complained about the pain in his left elbow. Celia had heard enough of his complaining. They had been working together for over twenty years and she could say just about anything to him, so she said, “Quit your bitching and get an appointment.”

What could he do? So he set up an appointment to have his elbow looked at on the condition that Celia would get another MRI to see just what was happening in the theater of her brain. It had been several years since she had her meningioma imaged.

In Nov e m b e r, Dr. Br i t t o n triumphantly told Celia that he had set up his appointment to fix his elbow, so she picked up the phone right away to set up a long-awaited MRI. The prognosis wasn’t good. This benign, harmless meningioma had multiplied in size.

• The tumor sat there indenting Celia’s brain. There was extra swelling and it had shifted slightly to the left. It couldn’t be left alone.

How had this happened? Was it the harp lessons she started at age sixtyfive? Was it only sleeping three hours a night? Was it still working as a full-time nurse at the age of seventy-nine? Celia thought that maybe all this activity prescribed to help train her brain away from the Alzheimers that killed her

Close to home: Dr. Hani Tuffaha (left), with Celia and Steve Finestone at Williamsport Hospital before her discharge.

mother stirred the pot and intensified the problem. Celia called Dr. Britton, who was recovering from his elbow surgery, and gave him the report.

“You have to do something,” he told her.

It appeared that Celia had a choice.

To keep fighting, to live another day. She wasn’t going to just give in and give up.

They thought of Rochester, Hershey, and Cleveland. What they failed to consider was the divine magician just fifty miles south at the Williamsport Hospital—Dr. Hani Tuffaha. He was right there under their noses. So they called him right away.

• Celia called Dr. Tuffaha’s office and said she had to refer a patient and she had the report and the report was hers.

Dr. Tuffaha, who Celia immediately felt was this “smart, wonderful man,” said he’d call her back after lunch.

Celia went home to her retired husband Steve. He, a man of modest stature, slightly stooped in the manner most eighty-one-year-old men are stooped, looked straight down past his tightly cropped mustache to a pan of soup he was preparing, then set the table.

“Tell me about the MRI,” he said.

She told him the news and, as Celia recalls, “After I peeled him from the ceiling, he was going to jump in all these directions. I said, ‘No, Steve, we’ll take

care of it in order. I’m expecting a call from Dr. Tuffaha’s office this afternoon sometime.’”

“Sometime!?” Steve cried. “You have to call him now.”

“They’ll get in touch with me.”

Back at the office, Celia found a message waiting for her from Dr. Tuffaha’s office. He didn’t like what he had seen in her report.

Enough waiting. It was time to go on the attack.

• Dr. Tuffaha took a look at the MRI and the tumor and said, “That doesn’t look pretty, does it?”

“I came to give you a piece of my mind,” Celia said.

“You’ve got that wrong. I’ve come to take a piece of your mind.”

“Can you just save me half a brain to think with?”

They set a date of December 22 for the surgery.

Celia heard that Dr. Tuffaha had described her as vibrant, which she undoubtedly is, and she wondered just how vibrant she would be on December 23.

• Celia felt uneasy, not so much nervous as unsettled by this growth inside her head. She had never been sick and she hadn’t felt any loss of motor control, yet there was this parasite on her See Saving Celia on page 11 9

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Saving Celia continued from page 9

brain ticking away like a bomb.

She took her precious harp over to Garrison’s on Main Street and played for two hours. She felt her fingers pick at the strings as she played Celtic melodies and Civil War tunes. She feared she might never have this feeling again, this delicate control over her fingers that created such wonderful music. She knew the tumor wasn’t malignant and that gave her some confidence, but if this drew on any longer it could prove debilitating. If it pirated her ability to live, to make music, to move, it will have won.

• Celia visited a friend who helped guide her through some meditations.

She saw colors encased in a glass sphere, healing colors. The glass orb encircled her, making her feel utterly protected.

Celia saw the eagle again, the same eagle she saw as a girl. The eagle was nervous for her this time. “Fear not, for my spirit is with you,” it told her. “I am with you always. Trust. Don’t be afraid. Have no fear. It is not malignant. Swelling?

Don’t worry about that. Pictures are not

always as they seem.” It also told her to pay attention.

Celia conversed more and more with her eagle, asking it if she should bring her harp to the hospital. The eagle, always a calming presence in her life, calmed her again. The harp would tell her all she would need to know: if the surgery was a success, if she could play again, if she was even alive to play again.

So Celia left the meditative session and stepped out onto Main Street. She lost her footing and fell, face first, onto the sidewalk, hitting her right eye—the offensive line blocking her tumor. The injury required several stitches and swelled her eye completely shut.

Just ten days before the surgery, and now this?

Celia performed healing touch, a gift she’s had since her teenage years, channeling energy from a higher power, to her eye. It’s a practice she performs for anyone willing to accept it. She hovers her hands over the area, radiating warmth, funneling energy to the trauma that needs it. As for her eye, she was

already up against the clock, and it was unclear, at this time, just how this injury would set her back.

And, more importantly, had she ignited the fuse to the bomb inside her skull? And if she did, when would it blow? Today? Tomorrow?

• The operative report said Celia had a moderately large, progressive right subfrontal meningioma with severe vasogenic edema. Essentially, lots of swelling. Waiting any longer would be tempting the fates.

Dr. Tuffaha showed concern over the injury to her eye, but, after examining it, he found there to be no residual interference. The surgery would go on as scheduled.

She had the utmost confidence in Dr. Tuffaha and knew she could trust him because, “He’s quiet. He’s certain in what he says. He’s very friendly, very warm. It was his manner: you knew you were in good hands. He was not going to jump if something bad happened.”

She made a pact with Dr. Tuffaha in See Saving Celia on page 12

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Saving Celia continued from page 11

his office that, if the surgery took a turn he couldn’t steer out of, Celia was to be let go. “I could not take living as a vegetable.

Just pull the plug and let me go. I’ve had a beautiful life.”

Dr. Tuffaha nodded.

It was time. It was time to defuse this bomb.

• At 4:30 on the morning of December 22, 2014, Celia played her harp. It may have been the final time, and she wanted to savor it once more. Maybe she could further imprint the memory of the movements so when, and if, she regained consciousness, she could still play.

Celia kissed her daughter, Karen Kmetz, also a nurse, and said, “I’m going to be fine. I’ll see you later.”

By 7:30 the nurses rolled her into the operating room.

Karen kept her dad company. Steve was rightfully nervous.

He would be watching the screens in the waiting rooms as the hours ticked by.

Celia made a joke about being in good hands, better than Allstate car insurance. The team of nurses and doctors, led by the honorable Dr. Hani Tuffaha, laughed.

Celia went to sleep with the sound of laughter in her ears.

• The intubation was successfully administered and Celia received Kefzol, Tobramycin, Decadron, and Keppra IV prior to the procedure.

They placed her on her back with her head facing slightly left, secured to the horseshoe headrest, exposing the right side of her head. The right front of her scalp was freshly shaved, where there was once flowing white hair. The area was sterilized using Betadine scrub and Betadine solution, and a Vi-Drape was applied to the area.

Dr. Tuffaha started his incision in front of the right ear pinna then extended upward and backward behind the hairline. He maneuvered the scalpel creating an incision in the shape of an arch. He secured Raney clips on the margins for hemostasis, to stop the bleeding.

He dissected the scalp flap from the pericranium, the surface of the skull. He made a series of cuts to the thin sheets of muscle exposing the temporal bone just below the temple.

He made five burr holes and a keyhole at the junction of the temporal and frontal bone above the pterion, just behind the eye. Dr. Tuffaha then took the craniotome of the Midas Rex drill and he removed a bone flap and rested it in a solution of Kefzol saline solution. Now he was looking at a hyper-vascularized section of the brain.

It was what he had expected.

• Celia may have been unconscious, but she woke.

Her body lay sleeping, but she heard Dr. Tuffaha call for mannitol and she felt the pressure on her brain. Mannitol, she knew, was supposed to reduce swelling. She was hyperaware and knew not to open her eyes. If they saw her awake-awake they’d put her into a deeper sleep where her blood pressure could drop, the bleeding couldn’t be stopped, there could be clots in the brain or chest. All these thoughts ran through See Saving Celia on page 28

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Roger Kingsley

O U T D O O R S

In the Clover: One of the most popular and easy to grow food plot plants.

Plotting Ahead

Want to Bag a Trophy Buck? Help a Herd Survive a Rugged Winter

By Roger Kingsley

I

harvested the whitetail on December 6, 2012 at 4:15 PM on the edge of a small, secluded plot of land planted to brassicas, and known for many years by our family as the Potato Patch. I had never seen this great buck, which we had nicknamed Split G2, in reference to the branching of his antlers, but I was well aware that he roamed our property, thanks to a number of scouting cameras armed in key locations.

Field dressing revealed what I suspected...clover, brassicas, and lots of corn, indicating he was not only visiting the Potato Patch, but our northern food plots as well. While the deer stands around the perimeter of the northern

plots were hunted by other members of my family, he was never seen there during shooting hours.

The day before Split G2 showed up at the Potato Patch, I had watched a group of bucks enter the plot one by one until the eighth and final buck arrived. Shortly after, several antlerless deer walked in and fed amongst them.

Suddenly, a gunshot thundered across the wooded area. It came from where I had a pastor friend concealed in a homemade ground blind near another food plot. I really didn’t have to wonder if the Pastor, hunting with a DMAP tag for antlerless deer, had connected, because the Pastor—shooting a 300

Remington Ultra Mag—doesn’t miss!

I waited ten minutes then attempted a text, but my phone battery was dead.

Without communication and full of wonder, I decided to leave my stand early to help him with his deer, just in case. I climbed out of the stand, out of sight and totally undetected by the feeding deer—just the way the setup was designed.

Like I said, the Pastor doesn’t miss.

He had a big doe all field-dressed, and was sitting there beside his trophy, happily toasting his marksmanship with a thermos of hot coffee when I arrived.

The following morning I occupied the Hotel—one of our farm’s most See Plotting Ahead on page 16

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WELCOME TO

WELLSBORO Plotting Ahead continued from page 15

productive deer stands, but I checked out at 9:40 without seeing a deer. Dad and I had planned to work in our woodlot known as the Big Woods for a few hours to cut and skid logs, which we did, but I left in mid-afternoon with plans to sit in a stand until dark. Around 3:45—with the wind and quiet in my favor—I climbed into the rifle stand concealed in a mature white pine tree within sight of the secluded Potato Patch.

Shortly after 4:00, I noticed an unfamiliar buck entering the plot. That was a good sign, for he might be traveling with a different group than those I’d seen the previous afternoon.

Several minutes later another buck—nicknamed 125 for his estimated score—showed up. I’d seen him a few times during the season, and, once again, he had not been a part of yesterday’s group…another good sign.

After several minutes of watching the bucks through binoculars, I lowered them for a rest. And there stood the Split G2 buck on the far right-hand side of the plot with his nose to the ground. Seconds later a gunshot thundered across the wooded area...mine! Climbing down from my sixteen-foot ladder stand and walking toward the lifeless buck, I passed the spot where I once sliced an arrow through a doe with my crossbow. Further on, I passed the spot where a spring gobbler took a load of No.5s from my muzzleloader shotgun. When I finally knelt down beside the beautiful buck, I was all smiles—all from the power of plots.

• Building up the wildlife habitat diversity on our property for the past several years has been a very rewarding activity, and food plots have been a major addition. Even though our Pennsylvania farm consists of hundreds of acres of agricultural crops that wildlife—especially deer—utilize, those crops are seldom available year round. That’s where plots come in. Planted properly, food plots not only provide nutritional benefits, but also fantastic hunting opportunities.

And the Split G2 buck, gross scoring 162-2/8 Boone & Crockett points, is proof that they work.

Years ago, to most hunters, anything associated with deer hunting was limited to those days when the seasons were open—or about to be. Preparations were made just prior to opening day, the hunting occurred, and memories of the hunts were planted for another year. But then something happened. An organization founded in 1988 called the Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA) began to emphasize the importance of balancing whitetail populations with quality habitat to produce better deer and better deer hunting. And better deer hunting opportunities became an instant incentive for people to get involved.

Herd management became a major cornerstone of the QDMA philosophy, and was symbolized by the Association’s doe and buck logo. The doe represented that part of the herd that controlled deer density, while the buck was the key to 16

building age structures and balancing buck to doe ratios.

Yet another cornerstone of QDMA—and one that has turned many landowners into farmers and deer managers—is habitat management. The practice of creating additional food and cover beyond what nature provides has now kept deer hunting on the minds of many people all through the year, and one that has become a means for them to give something back to an animal they deeply admire. An added return to making improvements to the habitat for deer is that many other wildlife species benefit as well.

In the past several years, the construction of food plots during spring and summer has become a popular pastime across the country, and one that has been the major player in converting traditional hunting tactics from drives to stands.

Hunger drives wildlife, and food plots help drive the wildlife to the stands where hunters await.

As I previously mentioned, the purpose of food plots is two-fold: hunting and nutrition. For hunting, plots should be sown to a plant species that offers the most attraction at the precise time the hunting seasons are open. And for nutrition, plots must still be attractive, but be worthy of adequate yields to support estimated deer densities. Plenty of food reduces the severity of stress, which can have a huge impact on the health of deer during the winter months.

One of my favorite wintertime food sources is corn. It’s a high carbohydrate sustenance that is ripe when deer need it most. And, unlike other plants that can easily become snowbound, the grain of the corn is located well above the ground, which saves deer and other wildlife from burning up additional calories by having to dig through deep or crusted snow. Cornfields also make attractive summertime hangouts for deer long before the grain has developed, by providing shade and security from heat and pesky flies.

Because of the machinery needed, along with the fertility, weed control, and moisture requirements to grow it successfully, corn becomes out of reach for most food plotters. Therefore, clovers like ladino, red, and alsike; small grains such as oats, wheat, and rye; and members of the brassica family, including turnips, radish, kale, and rape have become the most popular seeds used alone or in blends for both hunting and nutritional plots. Also—unlike corn—these smaller seeds can be planted with very minimal or no soil coverage once the ground is prepared.

The key to establishing such sources of attraction and nutrition lies in the soil that the seeds are planted in. Soil tests are highly recommended to determine the optimum nutrients and pH levels for the forages you want to grow, and such an analysis can make the difference between having a lush, mediocre, or a failed crop. Your nearest agricultural supply store or Conservation District Office can assist you with soil testing.

If possible, deer hunting plots should be established on

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Plotting Ahead continued from page 17

the innermost portion of your property so that any cover surrounding the plot can be utilized as a bedding refuge.

The location and effectiveness of stands within shooting range of the plot is determined by access, concealment, and prevailing winds when the stand is occupied.

While food plots have a huge reputation for helping hunters fill tags, one must keep in mind that the timing of natural food sources or other plantings nearby can often stall or prevent deer from visiting them. I remember the time I was in a stand overlooking a lush plot of brassicas. Not long after the sun had slid below the tree line, a few deer began to filter out of the woods and into the leafy greens. The deer—taking only a few bites—hardly stopped as they continued through the plot, passing my stand and out of sight.

When shooting hours ended, I climbed down and headed home. As I approached some large fields bordering the woods, the dimly lit fields came alive with nearly twenty deer running for cover. I discovered that the deer were feasting on the winter wheat and rye cover crop that had been drilled into the fields after the corn harvest. More than once I had the same encounter at that location. So, to satisfy my curiosity, I sent a sample of the vegetation to a forage lab for analysis. The 33 percent protein results revealed why it was so attractive to deer, and it presented a convincing message to add small grains to my list of future plantings.

Make no mistake, food plots have become a huge center of attention in the world of whitetail deer hunting. It seems no matter where you shop for your sporting needs, you’ll likely find something on the shelves that’s connected to enhancing the habitat. I’ve noticed major retailers now have a variety of seeds so broad that it leaves the shopper wondering what on earth to plant and how to go about it.

One way to start is by joining the Quality Deer Management Association. Membership in the QDMA includes their Quality Whitetails magazine—a journal of wisdom, research, success stories, and management practices written by both professionals and ordinary folks like you and me. Also, an excellent guide for food plot management, and one of the most used books on my shelves, is Quality Food Plots published by the QDMA. Contact them at 800-209-DEER or visit www.QDMA. com to learn more about the power of plots.

A hunter and photographer, award-winning writer Roger Kingsley’s articles and photos have appeared in Deer & Deer Hunting, and Pennsylvania Game News, among others.

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f you’ve ever had the hunch hovering there in the back of your brain that your Holsteins aren’t as happy as they could be, then the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture’s annual Farming for the Future conference might be for you.

If you’re curious about terms like permaculture, biodynamics, and community supported agriculture, then the Farming for the Future conference might be for you.

If you like to eat and/or grow healthy food, then the Farming for the Future conference might be for you.

Are ya seein’ a pattern here?

PASA’s 25th annual conference (www.pasafarming. org) will be the first weekend of February 2016 in State College; it’s not too early to reserve the dates on your calendar and along about October or November it won’t be too early to call the Penn Stater Conference Center to reserve a room. The event generally draws a crowd of close to 2,000, with attendees typically coming from thirty or more states and several countries, and yet the feel is small See Small Is Beautiful on page 22

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Small Is Beautiful continued from page 20

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and familial. The focus is on local—the importance of eating locally, growing locally, and working together to find local solutions to local problems.

There are dozens of workshops on myriad topics throughout the two-day conference as well as intensive, singletopic learning experience opportunities prior to the main event. Are you interested in seed-saving? There’s a workshop for that. How about oncea-day milking, beekeeping, or getting started in farming? From building healthy soil to building hoophouses, there is someone at the conference who knows how to do it. The sessions I attended at this year’s conference included “Wild Wisdom of Weeds,” “Uncommon Fruits in the Food Forest,” and “Restoration and Utilization of the American Chestnut.”

And, I heard an inspiring keynote address from Frances Moore Lappe— yes, that Frances Moore Lappe, author of Diet for a Small Planet. Every aspect of our lives is a choice for the kind of world we want to live in, she said, so why are we together creating a world that as individuals we would never choose? She questioned why there is hunger in a world of plenty, then suggested we get out of the “scarcity mindset” and “rethink power” (hint: power and wealth are not limited to weapons and money).

The Farming for the Future conference is a fabulous mid-winter break, guaranteed to give hope to even the most Vitamin D-deficient as well as glimpses of a new, sunny growing season and insight into the “PASAbilities” of healthy food systems that respect and nourish ourselves and the natural environment.

Keystone State Press Award-winning columnist Gayle Morrow, former editor of the Wellsboro Gazette, cooks locally—and organically—at the West End Market Café.

22

My heart is Susquehanna Health

At Susquehanna Health, you’ll receive the best heart care in the region. We’ve joined forces with Cleveland Clinic, the nation’s #1 ranked heart program by U.S. News & World Report for 20 consecutive years. This means you’ll have access to all the latest treatments, techniques and technologies.

We’re committed to improving the heart health of our community. Because it’s our mission to keep you Susquehanna Healthy.

( 570 ) 3 21-2 8 0 0

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Williamsport • Lewisburg • Lock Haven • Wellsboro

23

&

DRINK

flickr.com/ChefRomaine

FOOD

The idea for the garbage plate—named by Health.com one of the fifty fattiest foods in the states (and the only one from New York state)—was cooked up in Rochester at Nick Tahou Hots.

First Come, First Served

Who Knew the Empire State Boasted so Many Food Firsts?

By Cornelius O'Donnell

N

eed a new party game? How about asking your guests to list their favorite New York foods? I was prompted to list favorites by a rather odd circumstance.

I was playing tour guide and took a new friend on a tour around the Corning/Elmira area. There was a bit of snow on the ground and the temperature hovered in the low twenties. Up we went to the top of Harris Hill for the primo view of the valley. There was the sign pointing to the Soaring Museum, and my passenger got very excited. I had been there many times, but I was excited that it was open on this winter day.

While my friend examined all the fascinating exhibits, I started checking out the gift shop—also fascinating. I found the Official 2014 New York State 24

Travel Guide, and I don’t think too much has changed. The I (Heart) New York full-color booklet has a section on “New York Food + Drink Favorites,” and I immediately started reading, especially the “Food Firsts and Claim to Fame” section. Here it is for your perusal and edification—fascinating reading: Thousand Island dressing, Jell-O (have you seen their museum yet?), pie à la mode, beef on a weck, Buffalo wings, spiedies, the garbage plate (you’ll find this in Rochester), ice cream sundaes (Ithaca claims this delish dish), Saratoga’s seasonal peppermint pig, potato chips, and spring water. And here’s a bunch from the Big Apple: baked Alaska, black and white cookies, Bloody Mary (made with gin I’ll bet, way before vodka arrived)—but wait, there’s more!

Delmonico steak, eggs Benedict, Waldorf salad, lobster Newburg, New York pizza, Reuben sandwich, egg creams, chocolate egg creams (I’m getting wildly hungry), Coney Island hot dogs (my dad’s favorite), Long Island duck—all of those from the New York City area.

Now we’re heading back to the Finger Lakes, so how about these: Vinifera grapes—stellar stuff from the Finger Lake’s Dr. Frank; and grape pies from the Naples, New York, area; first mass-produced cream cheese from Chester; Oswego’s Bold onions; salt potatoes (Syracuse area); and King Kullen, probably the first supermarket (Queens). They listed restaurants that made their mark—Moosewood in Ithaca, Anchor Bar in Buffalo, the Culinary Institute, and Dinosaur BarSee First Come, First Served on page 27

25

Chase away the winter blues with a visit to Lakewood Vineyards.

Tasting and sales daily.

Mon-Sat 10-5 Sun noon-5

4024 State Route 14, Watkins Glen, NY 14891 877-535-9252 www.lakewoodvineyards.com

Also available in local stores.

26

First Come, First Served continued from page 24

B-Que in Syracuse. (Those are their choices. Don’t blame me or send me nasty e-mails.)

Thanks to the New York Times Heritage Cookbook for this “different” but very New York recipe:

Cheesecake With Beer Here’s a recipe that’s fun to make and easy, too, especially now that cracker crumbs come in a box. The little alcohol in the beer disappears in the cooking, darn it. It’s used for taste.

1 ½ c. graham cracker crumbs ¼ c. unsalted butter, melted 4 8-oz. packages cream cheese (lower fat is fine) ½ c. freshly grated cheddar cheese 1 ½ c. sugar 1 tsp. pure vanilla 4 large eggs 2 egg yolks ¼ c. heavy cream ¼ c. beer ½ c. pineapple preserves Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Mix the cracker crumbs with the butter. Press the mixture over the bottom and sides of a buttered, nine-inch springform pan.

Beat the cream cheese until soft and creamy. Add the cheddar cheese and gradually beat in the sugar.

Add the vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time and then the egg yolks.

Continue to beat until the mixture is smooth and satiny. Fold in the cream and beer.

Spoon the pineapple preserves, if used, over the bottom of the prepared pan. Pour in the cheese mixture. Bake about 1 ½ hours or until set. Turn off the oven heat and allow the cheesecake to remain thirty minutes in the oven with the door ajar.

Cool the cake on a rack. Chill thoroughly before serving. If pineapple preserves were not used, the cake may be topped with a fruit glaze. This recipe yields about eight servings.

Trail-Wide

March 21:

March Preferred Pairings March 27-29:

CRUISIN’ THE TROPICS WEEKEND April 24-26:

SPRING WINE & CHEESE WEEKEND

Chef, teacher, author, and award-winning columnist Cornelius O’Donnell lives in Elmira, New York.

27

Saving Celia continued from page 12

her mind.

Celia could see the colors in the room, like the knitting women of her youth. She felt the angst. She felt fear.

Above all she felt doubt. She felt lifted up by the shoulders, a familiar presence.

She’d later say, “That’s where my truth begins.”

Celia felt no pain, just pressure.

She felt sharpness on her shoulders— talons? They belonged to her eagle. It lifted her away from her body.

Standing.

She felt the sticky earth and smelled something putrid in the air. It was dank and the wind fluttered her patient gown like curtains in the breeze. She thought of the 23rd Psalm: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” The landscape was purplish and gray. The ground was slippery and tacky, like clay. It discomforted her, but she wasn’t scared.

She saw a river, flowing, turbulent water. Celia could still sense the tension in the operating room. Things weren’t going smoothly. She looked beyond the banks of the river and knew crossing it would mean she could no longer return.

She knew she had a choice.

Celia peered to her right and saw the deep, dark orb of her eagle’s eye. It hoisted her up onto its left shoulder.

It took flight, carrying Celia above the Valley of the Shadow of Death and its

Restaurants

putrid fumes and river rapids.

They flew down the middle of the stream. It looked like Pine Creek, but it wasn’t Pine Creek. Celia knew if the eagle flew her to the other side of the bank that there would be no returning.

Dr. Tuffaha would have to fulfill the pact and let her go. But she didn’t want to go there. There was too much to do, still life to live. So her soul clamored, ever longer, just to stay in the sun.

• Dr. Tuffaha controlled all the bleeding points on Celia’s brain. The dose of eighty grams of mannitol reduced the swelling of the brain. That, and the induced hyperventilation also eased the pressure.

The use of the mannitol—an osmotic drug—helped coax the blood into the tumor, de-irrigating the surface of the brain, like draining a swamp.

Dr. Tuffaha called for the fine malleable brain retractor. Gently, delicately, he retracted the right frontal lobe of Celia’s brain. There, before him, rested the meningioma, exposed, defenseless, ready for the knife.

He had reached the bomb.

It was no longer an image on an MRI, but a growth looking to choke the life out of Celia. He began dissecting the tumor, the part attached to the brain’s surface, and also cutting parts from the tumor’s dome.

The tumor had an intricate system of blood vessels. It colonized this territory and kept itself nourished, but once Dr. Tuffaha dissected the pedicle—like a taproot—of the tumor, the vascularity decreased immediately. It began to lose its parasitic grip on Celia.

Dr. Tuffaha encountered, and was able to preserve, Celia’s right olfactory nerve, her sense of smell, and, in time, he removed the tumor from her brain and cast it aside for Pathology to handle.

• The eagle rested and placed Celia in the feathers of her chest. They were infinitely soft and the smells were impossibly fragrant: wild roses, hyacinths, honeysuckle, jasmine, gardenia.

Celia heard the most ethereal music playing and when she looked up she was encased in a glass sphere with vibrant, electric colors. She began to

hear chanting, like the Gregorian monks, “Help Dr. Tuffaha. Help Dr. Tuffaha.”

Did he need the help? Was Celia in trouble? Was it almost over?

No, he didn’t need any help. He was the calm, steady beacon in that OR. The worst of it was over. Celia made her choice to stay on this side of the river and Dr. Tuffaha kept her anchored, grounded to this life.

• Dr. Tuffaha could sense the end.

There was no residual tumor remaining.

The tumor was out and he aggressively burned the meningeal attachment of the tumor.

The frontal lobe of Celia’s brain fell back into its natural position entirely intact. The heavy bleeding had stopped and, with warm saline solution, Dr. Tuffaha re-irrigated the field.

He used 4-0 Vicryl sutures and he placed, in the usual fashion, DuraGen atop the dura. He affixed the bone in position with three twelve-millimeter “Rapid Flap” discs. He sutured the fine musculature with 2-0 and 3-0 Vicryl sutures and used regular staples for the skin, thirty-eight in all.

He placed Bacitracin ointment on the scar, followed by a strip of Xeroform mesh. And, most importantly, Dr. Tuffaha fashioned a headdress so that whoever saw her first wouldn’t be startled by the scars. If it didn’t look pretty on the outside, how confident will they be that he had performed a pretty surgery on the surface of her brain?

• Celia woke in the ICU and loved her headdress, because she is, indeed, into pretty. But, above all, she needed to test her motor control to see just how successful the five-hour surgery had been. She asked Karen to fetch her harp.

Karen brought it and Celia put her hands on each side and began plucking.

It all came to her with the easy fluidity it always had. It being three days before Christmas, she played carols. She played “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” She looked out into the hall where a tall, male nurse pirouetted back and forth, moves taught to him by his three daughters.

Everyone laughed.

The next day, post-op Day One, Celia was discharged and she took her See Saving Celia on page 33

28

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music with her.

Many of Celia’s friends thought her story was just beautiful. So much so that it brought chills to their skin just thinking about it.

Celia has relayed the story many times to give people hope, to let people know there’s nothing to hide and even less to fear.

Still, there are others who find the story too fantastic. Oh, you were just dreaming. Maybe, but then again, there are few people who can see auras and perform healing touch. It could be that Celia’s brain has access to other areas of consciousness others will never fully understand or believe.

Celia, just a few months shy of her eightieth birthday, is finally retiring from nursing. It’ll free up more time for music and volunteering and, were it not for the resilience on both sides of consciousness, there would never be an eighty-first year of life. It’s her truth and you may believe it or not. She doesn’t care. She was some place other than here and lived to talk about it, thanks to Dr. Hani Tuffaha.

Dr. Tuffaha wrote in his report, “She tolerated the procedure extremely well and her assessment in the recovery room showed her to be fully alert, coherent, and with no focal neurological deficits.”

If Dr. Tuffaha could amend the report, he would have added, “I was quite amazed and happy to learn that Celia played her harp in the hours after surgery.”

The first chance Celia got she told him, with love, admiration, and gratitude, “What a great surgeon you are.”

“The great surgeon,” and he pointed to the sky, “is the One who uses my hands.”

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Saving Celia continued from page 28

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B A C K O F T H E M O U N TA I N

The Promise of Spring Photo by Nigel P. Kent

I

was searching for spring on the east shore of Canadice Lake, wishing for the magical appearance of green leaves and warmer days. Canadice Lake is a special place for me because of its feeling of timelessness and peace. When the world gets heavy on my shoulders, it’s where I go to recharge. ~N.P.K.

34

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Dr. Donald Golobek is highly experienced and specializes in elbow, knee and hip replacements. Dr. Robert Metts is dedicated to sports medicine injuries, back and neck pain and pediatric orthopedic care. Physician Assistant Todd Rudy provides a wide-range of non-surgical orthopedic and sports medicine services.

Don’t let pain stop you from enjoying life. Call Susquehanna Health Orthopedics at Wellsboro today.

(570) 724-2325 | SusquehannaHealth.org/Ortho