A Father's Love by David Goldman Read Free Book Online Page B

Portuguese, and although Sean later picked up a few phrases, we made no real effort to teach him Portuguese.
    Bruna’s family members were quite generous. When we went out to eat, Ray and I usually quibbled over the check, both of us wanting to pay. “No, no. You are the son,” Ray said. “When you are older, then you will pay.”
    How true.
    In the summertime, we had numerous family cookouts, including my family members as well as Bruna’s. We were a happy melting pot. Our good friends Michelle and Dan Langdon came over occasionally, and my buddy Bobby Chang, and we enjoyed their company. Especially after a few drinks, Ray always sang my praises. He told Bobby, “David is like my son. He’s like my own blood.”

4
    Living the Dream
    I N THE EARLY FALL OF 2000, I WAS IN CALIFORNIA DOING A MEN’S catalogue shoot in the hills of Montecito, working at the home of Michael Bay, who had directed a number of highly successful films, including Pearl Harbor . During the afternoon, I enjoyed swimming in Michael’s infinity pool, but later that evening, my throat grew scratchy, and I got really sick, with flulike symptoms. Patrick, a friend and fellow model working on the photo session, gave me a vitamin C drink. I felt a little better and was able to make it through the shoot.
    The following week I had a job in Vermont for Parents magazine, so I took my mom, Bruna, and Sean along with me. The magazine loved having them on the shoot, and even included them in several of the photos. It was early October, and the fall foliage in Vermont was spectacular.
    Bruna and I planned to visit Brazil with Sean shortly thereafter. I was scheduled to go on an annual golf outing to Myrtle Beach with some of my friends, so it seemed like a good plan for Sean and Bruna to go ahead without me, and for me to join them later in Rio. But when I arrived back home from the golf trip, I wasn’t feeling well. I went to our family doctor, who gave me some antibiotics to combat the flulike symptoms. I started on the medication, but one morning I noticed a strange tingling in my fingers and toes. It felt almost as though I had an inflamed sciatic nerve. I thought perhaps I had pinched a nerve playing golf, so I went to a chiropractor. The chiropractor said, “This isn’t something I can fix. Something more is going on here.”
    I mentioned my condition to Bobby Chang, who had been along with us on the golf trip. Bobby was the head of the cardiothoracic division at Weill Cornell Medical Center, affiliated with New York Presbyterian Hospital. Bobby described my symptoms to some friends of his who were specialists, and they thought I might have contracted Lyme disease or something similar. Bobby suggested that I see Dr. Nancy Nealon, a neurologist friend of his in New York. I was feeling worse, so I agreed.
    I took a New Jersey Transit train to Penn Station in New York, then boarded the subway to Dr. Nealon’s neighborhood. By the time I got out of the subway car, I could barely shuffle along the street to the doctor’s office. My feet felt as though they were encased in cinder blocks. Arriving at Dr. Nealon’s office, I could hardly move or swallow. The neurologist began with some simple clinical exams. She then asked me to hold my arms upright as she tested me. She pushed both of my arms down using only one finger on each. I was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome. “This is serious, David,” she told me. “This syndrome attacks your central nervous system. It causes your own immune system to turn on you and could kill you. We need to get you into the hospital right away.”
    The neurologist made some calls, and the hospital admitted me that same day. The doctors immediately began treating me with high doses of immunoglobulin, a blood-based substance that looks almost like a thick hair gel, which they dripped into my system intravenously, blocking the antibodies causing the