It was her only chance of getting back safely anytime soon. Jessica Everett, a genetic counselorat Perlmutter Cancer CentersPancreatic Cancer Centerat NYU Langone, encourages people in this category to look into possible screening options. We said our goodbyes and Adrian and I walked downtown to see what had happened. She needed me to take her to the hospital for an X-ray. How other people live is pretty much all I think about. Who is she? She was Tom Hanks's assistant and there was work to do. In other essays, Patchett extols the enduring influence of John Updike, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth on her own writing; meditates on her friendship with Charlie Strobel, a priest in Nashville whom she calls a living saint; and tries to capture the flavor of her odd-couple relationship with her second husband, Karl, immortalized in the title essay of an earlier collection, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. As a medical doctor on staff at the Nashville hospital where Raphael was treated for advanced pancreatic cancer, he plays a crucial role in These Precious Days., Finally, theres that essay. In some ways its not unlike putting together my own life. Her kids were in school by then. I met Sooki Raphael for a few minutes in Washington, D.C., around three years ago, and maybe even more than that now. For Patchett its Snoopy: Snoopy taught me that I would be hurt and I would get over it. How it happened is told in the title story ofThese Precious Days, Patchetts second collection of essays. Someone wound the clock and suddenly the second hand, so long suspended, began to tick again, pushing us forward. There is no sense in putting that burden on yourself. I presented him with the studies from Johns Hopkins. People were dancing, laughing, and so she went outside. Don't have an account? The artist said that the painting was a respectable copy from 1899 and sold for 25 francs (about $2,574 today). He watched as she went through multiple rounds of chemotherapy while still working and taking care of her family. She moved to Nashville, Tennessee when she was six, where she continues to live. The next morning, we went to the bookstore early and picked out presents for everyone in her family. The meeting led to Patchett asking Hanks on a "lark of the highest order" if he would narrate the audio version of her novel The Dutch House the ensuing . No one could keep up with her. My husband is a doctor, and I was telling him about this one night. We didnt know each other, and for the most part our correspondence had come after this defining fact. Click here to dismiss this module permanently. In fact we were so exactly in the middle of history that we had no way of understanding what we were seeing. You might not see how everything threads together as you read along, but when you look back from the end of the story, the map becomes clear. It becomes a path into the woods. For a time, the mother in this novel went to India to work for Mother Teresa. With each day, I felt some piece of scaffolding fall away. By the time individuals walk into the clinic with symptoms like jaundice, weight loss, back pain or diabetes, its often very late in the stage of the disease., RELATED: Increased Thirst and Dark Urine: Researchers Reveal Two New Signs of Pancreatic Cancer As Cases Increase Over Last 18 Years, Detecting Pancreatic Cancer Early Is Crucial. She told me that she had to put Sooki on a leash when she was little because she ran so much. It was a straight-line wind, a freak occurrence that came out of nowhere. Thought-provoking commentary and opinion on politics, books and the arts. We repeated these facts, we made them a mantra. She once caught bats for the City of New York. This one is good for your liver. This will help all your internal organs. You are beautiful. I feel like I could pop into Trader Joes and have them replaced with those happy little stickers they hand out to well-behaved childrenit undermines my confidence in the sophisticated nature of the whole process just a bit. When was she first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer? Wednesdays chemo hit Sooki on Friday afternoon. How Much Is A Raphael Painting Worth? You cant kill yourself because youre afraid of being an inconvenience., Lets wait and talk about it on Sunday. Telephone poles were down, and electrical wires snaked across the asphalt. I tried to enjoy it but it was difficult to breathe. Everything filled in. I worried about her dying. For them the mystery is solved by the act, and I understand that; its just not the way I work. Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process. The ones Tom Hanks approved of were handed to me. I cant tell you how grateful I am. And it's such a funny thing. A year and a half had passed since I had picked up his book in my office, and this was where it had taken me: Tom Hanks was willing to read The Dutch House. I said, I have access to every article of clothing I own and I couldnt pull myself together to look as good as you do going to chemo.. When the event was over and more pictures had been taken and everyone had said how much theyd enjoyed absolutely everything, Tom Hanks and his assistant and I found ourselves alone again, standing at the end of a long cement hallway by a stage door, saying good night and goodbye. I leave the house at 6:30 am every weekday morning to make it down to the bottom basementfloor 2Bat UCLAs Westwood Medical Center by 7:30 am. There was no reason for her to tell me this. And so she meets Sooki Raphael, Hanks' assistant. Surely there would be a story there for one of us. I never cry, and yet I had plans to do nothing else for the rest of the day and maybe the rest of the week. I like myself here, she said softly. Did Tom even know that Sooki and I were friends? We talked about singing and touring and about the Opry. There was no hesitation on the canvases, no timidity. She picked up and sailed off to the Caribbean when someone needed an extra boat hand. All that was left was the wall around what had been their garden. He has me repeat my name, birth date and area of radiation each time before I enter the room. Yoga and meditation for an hour in the morning was augmented with yoga and meditation for an hour at night. She could be a nun. Sister Nena picked up a piece of bread and swiped it through the olive oil in the saucer between us. we asked. Sooki was desperate to be helpful. I didnt say, Your death. Sooki had strength and courage. I had interviews scheduled all day on Tuesday, Sooki had chemo on Wednesday, and my friends were leaving for California on Thursday. It has to be one of the most extraordinary stories of lockdown how Tom Hanks's assistant Sooki Raphael, undergoing treatment for recurrent pancreatic cancer, came to be living in the basement of the American novelist Ann Patchett and her husband Dr Karl VanDevender. Of course I want to go. Daughter, husband, sister, friendnone of the people scheduled to visit her could come now that the world was on lockdown. A tremendous explosion rocked the house, something far beyond thunder. And this is how Sooki became part of something bigger than herself, pure art destined to express the beauty and mystery of the world that she could see more than most of us can. Heres how the story came about: Patchett was invited to interview Hanks while he was on a book tour. I had just finished my latest novel, and on a lark of the highest order, I sent him an email asking if he might record the audiobook. Still, she said, I cant help feeling like I should have done more with my life.. Plenty of nuns were married before., You never know. Then she looked at me, her face suddenly brightened by a plot twist. And what about the women who cleaned that house, who fixed those children their dinner? Id been in touch with Sooki once or twice when there was talk of a bookstore in Santa Monica, and now I pinned my hopes on her as she dug into Toms schedule at Playtone, his production company. Ive heard writers say that they write in order to discover how the story ends, and if they knew the ending in advance there wouldnt be any point in writing. She painted. I need to find a Belvedere martini.. Lets go back to the hotel. As I was agreeing, there she was again. Shed called me from outside the airport. She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a year after we met. My whole life Ive wanted this time. She was the bat squad. Reading about other peoples hallucinogenic experiences is like listening to other peoples dreams at a dinner party. She made wedding cakes that tasted as good as they looked. Heres to more time to explore color and enjoy all the peoplelike youwho make life colorful. My friend told us we should wear eye masks and cover ourselves with blankets. She walked to the hospital for chemo and then walked home. You have to remember.. We found a diner down the street from where I would be speaking. The CA 19-9 had gone from 2,100 to 470. Youre detoxifying all your inner organs.. Now that things were going right I felt the jolt of just exactly how wrong they could have been. I had come late to pandemic shopping, but fortunately the staples I relied onchickpeas, coconut milkwere still plentiful. I told her, of course, that she would stay with us. At her first meeting with Hanks, Patchett also met his personal assistant, Sooki Raphael, whose unusual evening coat, its huge peonies . Hell make sure you get everything you need. Later that day we sat side by side on our yoga mats, Sookis head wrapped artfully in a scarf. And so I just relied on a book to get me through. Walking backward is an excellent means of remembering how little you know. I now knew that shed had a Whipple at Duke and twelve rounds of FOLFIRINOX followed by twenty-eight days of radiation over five and a half weeks at UCLA. Get Access to Print and Digital for Arent we talking about doing this together?, Oh, I said. It was normal in October, three months postchemo and radiationgreat newsbut then started rising. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson lost their friend Sooki Raphael to pancreatic cancer earlier this year. She was teaching at Bennington, in Vermont, and this was the first day of classes. 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