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In response to the July 1 column, I received a most touching note from Rolf Nissen, M.D., who provided an epilogue to what the column had talked about. I have received permission from Dr. Nissen to provide you with the note he had written to me dated July 3, 2014. Here it is, reprinted in total. Perhaps this is my adult life equivalent to “What Happened Then”:
Dear Mr. Mumford,
I was surprised when I saw in yesterday’s Tribune “Memories of Sid and my dad.”
I did not know your dad, but I did know Sid. I met him in July 1958 in the library of Trumbull Memorial Hospital, where I had just become chief resident.
Sid was in a wheelchair and we played a lot of chess. We became friends and in 1960, after I opened my office, he became my patient. Sid had serious health problems due to the Quadriplegia he had suffered in a diving accident. We stayed friends for the rest of his life. We worked together fighting the bureaucracy to get approvals for an electric wheelchair and later a special van he could drive. He was able to drive to work and at one time all the way to Florida. And he flew with a nurse’s aide as a companion to the Philippines to pick up a new wife. He adopted two girls. He kept on teaching, supported himself and paid taxes. I did encourage him to write his life’s story, but he never got more than two or three pages done.
A pity, since most physicians know very little about quadriplegics, and Sid had the intellect to write a good story.
Thank you, Mr. Mumford, for renewing the memories of my old friend Sid.
Rolf Nissen, M.D.
Sid died at age 66 on Jan. 7, 2001.
Postscript: The Warren Rotary Club provided a Hudson Jet sedan with special hand controls to that young man who monitored the parking lot at Trumbull Memorial Hospital and who so graciously lent his electric cart for duplication.
Mumford is a Warren resident. Email him at editorial@tribtoday.com