Posted on 02/17/2010 6:29:18 AM PST by Borges
It has been nearly four years since Roger Ebert lost his lower jaw and his ability to speak. Now television's most famous movie critic is rarely seen and never heard, but his words have never stopped.
....................................................... Seven years ago, he recovered quickly from the surgery to cut out his cancerous thyroid and was soon back writing reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times and appearing with Richard Roeper on At the Movies. A year later, in 2003, he returned to work after his salivary glands were partially removed, too, although that and a series of aggressive radiation treatments opened the first cracks in his voice. In 2006, the cancer surfaced yet again, this time in his jaw. A section of his lower jaw was removed; Ebert listened to Leonard Cohen. Two weeks later, he was in his hospital room packing his bags, the doctors and nurses paying one last visit, listening to a few last songs. That's when his carotid artery, invisibly damaged by the earlier radiation and the most recent jaw surgery, burst. Blood began pouring out of Ebert's mouth and formed a great pool on the polished floor. The doctors and nurses leapt up to stop the bleeding and barely saved his life. Had he made it out of his hospital room and been on his way home had his artery waited just a few more songs to burst Ebert would have bled to death on Lake Shore Drive. Instead, following more surgery to stop a relentless bloodletting, he was left without much of his mandible, his chin hanging loosely like a drawn curtain, and behind his chin there was a hole the size of a plum. He also underwent a tracheostomy, because there was still a risk that he could drown in his own blood. When Ebert woke up and looked in the mirror in his hospital room, he could see through his open mouth and the hole clear to the bandages that had been wrapped around his neck to protect his exposed windpipe and his new breathing tube. He could no longer eat or drink, and he had lost his voice entirely. That was more than three years ago.
Ebert spent more than half of a thirty-month stretch in hospitals. His breathing tube has been removed, but the hole in his throat remains open. He eats through a G-tube he's fed with a liquid paste, suspended in a bag from an IV pole, through a tube in his stomach. He usually eats in what used to be the library, on the brownstone's second floor. (It has five stories, including a gym on the top floor and a theater with a neon marquee in the basement.) A single bed with white sheets has been set up among the books, down a hallway filled with Ebert's collection of Edward Lear watercolors. He shuffles across the wooden floor between the library and his living room, where he spends most of his time in a big black leather recliner, tipped back with his feet up and his laptop on a wooden tray. There is a record player within reach. The walls are white, to show off the art, which includes massive abstracts, movie posters (Casablanca, The Stranger), and aboriginal burial poles. Directly in front of his chair is a black-and-white photograph of the Steak 'n Shake in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, one of his hometown hangouts.
I’ve never understood why writers must literally wall themselves in with books. As if you must be surrounded by knowledge to write with knowledge. I’m surprised they don’t have text etched into their clothes.
Ebert recently made fat jokes about Rush Limbaugh. Too bad Ebert doesn’t have much empathy for humans who have gone through some difficult health issues.
And especially considering that Siskel used to make fat jokes about Ebert.
Roger is a filthy leftist.
As I read the piece it sounded like a systematic destruction of a man by radiation over a thirty month period. When faced with cancer, at what point does a person decide to opt for quality of life instead?
“Too bad Ebert doesnt have much empathy for humans who have gone through some difficult health issues.”
That’s why Ebert suffers the way he does.
regardless of his politics, a remarkable story about the human will to live, and to remain productive and engaged.
Stepehn Hawking is another.
I was watching a war correspondent video yesterday where he talked about meeting (and photographed) in Iraq, a 12 yr old Kurdish girl climbing over boulders, down a mountain, covered in freezing mud. And carrying on her back, her unconscious 4 yr old sister- she had carried the child 90 MILES seeking safety and help. Some people just go on and on. While others quit and die.
You haven’t had cancer I guess.
His quality of life is pretty damned good. Actually the quality of life even as the cancer gets bad can be pretty damned good. From the outside, people say things like what you said. What worries me is how long before people who have never had cancer begin to decide the quality is is just too bad to keep living.
Odd, I read the account and this is exactly what happened to my grandmother except she died when her carotids bled.
I went to college w/Ebert. He was 2 years ahead of me. He was the head of ADA and a girlfriend who had a massive crush on him dragged me to a couple of their weekly luncheons as a beard.
He was, then, totally full of himself and obnoxious. I begged off the forced forays into boredom after a month. I never understood her fascination and when I asked, she just said it was because he was *brilliant*. Ah, well, she and I were just 19.
However, I find myself sympathetic to his physical problems.
Ebert gained money and power and is, in his late life, alone with them and likely in massive discomfort all the time. I agree with him on nothing, but I will offer up a prayer for him, anyway.
Steak and Shake, back in the 60s, had great fast food. In the 90s, we made a detour to eat at the one I remembered from HS. Either they deteriorated badly or my memories were false. The food was terrible and I had heartburn for a couple of days afterward. But, I suppose for someone who can no longer eat real food, the memory is of ambrosia.
Poor Roger.
I don’t know if it’s about liberals/conservatives, but writers are also readers, and readers naturally collect the works they most admire. I have shelves and shelves of books, including books that I have read in paperback but later purchased in hardback.
Mr. Ebert and I don’t agree on much politically (if anything), but I admire the way he continues to plow ahead and refuses to be defeated by adversity.
I just lost someone dear to stomach cancer, and she never gave up, either, until her poor body couldn’t go any further.
God bless, Mr. Ebert - may you find eternal joy in Him.
He has my prayers.
“I dont know if its about liberals/conservatives, but writers are also readers, and readers naturally collect the works they most admire.”
Yes, obviously. I question not why they have books, but rather why they must write hidden deeply within a cocoon of them. I, for instance, though not a professional writer and not in on the secrets of their craft, store my books in various places around the house. Be they on shelves or in boxes, I can get to them when I need them. Meanwhile, whatever room I’m in, I can stare at my books when I tire of looking at other things.
Writers are most likely lazy and disorganized, and don’t feel like putting things back in their place. Or perhaps they’re cramped for space because they live in New York/LA, and their wives have relegated them to some small chunk of the whole living space.
You’re all class.
“Reference material.”
No doubt. Only I like to think about my entire house as reference material. It doesn’t have to be within arm’s length to be useful. Look back to my point about laziness.
“Or just plain pleasure reading.”
I don’t particularly enjoy mixing business and pleasure. Do writers really like to spend whatever time they need to spend typing, then relax with a good book in the exact same spot?
Thanks
No I haven’t but my daughter has and she’s opting for quality of life following one surgery to remove the renegade cells. No chemo, no radiation, a very brave choice IMO. And I fully support her alternative therapies.
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