High Hopes

     In 1960 when I was a mere child of 12 years, I took my first airplane ride (in a prop-jet) from New York to Florida.  This trip was a gift from my grandmother to me.  Grandma Rae lived with my Aunt Miriam, Uncle Sammy, and my two cousins, Ruth and Leona.   So Grandma asked if I wanted to join them on this month long summer vacation. Who goes to Miami Beach in the summer?  We did!   We stayed in a place in called the Netherlands Hotel.   Now this place no longer exists as it was part the South Beach revival - but even in it's heyday, the Netherlands Hotel was never going to be confused with the Fountainbleu.  
     It was pretty run down but right near the beach, clean, safe, and I assume, cheap.  As a kid I had a great time (first 'older' boyfriend and first 'real' kiss).   But the other claim to fame of the Netherlands Hotel was that the Frank Capra feel-good movie A Hole In The Head, staring Frank Sinatra and Eddie Hodges was filmed there. They called the hotel "The Garden of Eden" which believe me, it was NOT.  The movie came out in 1959 and is about an impractical widower tries to hang onto both his run down Miami Beach hotel and his 12-year-old son.   And the very popular, Oscar winning original song from that movie was High Hopes.
                                           High Hopes - YouTube Video  
Kind of a sappy song but at the age of 12, I loved it.  Back at school, there was a talent show and what did I sing?  You got it - High Hopes.   So when I recently heard this song being used as the background on a TV commercial for I can't remember what product, it brought back all these wonderful memories of that month in Miami.   All the grownups on that trip have passed on, but my cousins and I are still close and we share the memory of that very rare family vacation.   The song being played often while we were there is one of those memories.

     High hopes is what I have for this CCSVI treatment and while the movie had a happy ending,  I'm not sure that my dream will end as happily.   More and more I've read about people who have not shown improvement after the procedure was done.   We know that only 2/3 of people improve, so this is to be expected.  And I'm aware that I may very well fall into that other one- third, but yet, I find myself singing High Hopes in my head.   Can't get the damn song OUT of my head as a matter of fact.

      Hope is the one thing we as MS patients very rarely are given.  So I'm embracing this glimmer of hope.  If you're watching TV and hear this song, think of me and send some good thoughts my way - I figure the more high hopes floating around in the Universe the better.