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A case of basal artery thrombosis
Marek Edelman Social activist
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One day, they brought us a good looking boy. He had one eye here and the other here.

[Q] His name was Kopka.

No it wasn't.

[Q] It was Włodek Kopka. Never mind.

He was this professor's son. So they brought him but it was strange, it does sometimes happen with hyperpituitarism with a hyperactive pituitary gland with one eye here and the other... but this boy was as strong as an ox and suddenly his eye did this. So we decided that he had basal artery thrombosis but this should have been treated by a neurologist. How were we supposed to treat something like this? How? Who could treat this? The greatest doctor is an internist because he looks at it, and although it's neurology, that, too, used to be a part of internal medicine. However, neurology is the kind of thing where nothing can be cured so if you pass something over to the neurologist, it means that he's already resigned to failure because no neurological condition has so far been cured. So we began treatment. Our treatment was very unorthodox and inappropriate. We did everything back-to-front. But after three, four days his eye began to improve and after a couple of weeks it was back to normal. He was on the resuscitation ward for all of that time because we were afraid that as soon as he'd get up he'd develop a blood clot in his brain, but he managed very well. While he was there, he fell in love with one of the nurses, he didn't marry her but it was a very great love and they made the most of it in that resuscitation room because when there were no other patients, it was just the two of them alone together and so they had a great time. His name began with a B, he was the son of a professor. I saw him, he was a handsome boy, and he was normal, healthy. We had a colleague working with us whose husband was the greatest neurologist in Łódź and he came to see the effects of our handiwork. He said: 'You're not neurologists so I'll keep quiet because if he'd come to us, he'd have died long ago.' So this was the sort of thing that happened with us. Unfortunately, you need to take big risks.

Więc któregoś dnia przystojny chłopak taki... przywieźli do nas i ma jedno oko tu, a drugie oko tam.

[Q] Kopka.

Co?

[Q] Kopka się nazywał.

Nie.

[Q] Kopka Włodek, oczywiście. No nieważne, nie ma znaczenia.

Nie, to syn tego profesora to był.

[Q] Dobra, nie ma znaczenia przecież.

Wszystko jedno. No i przywieźli... jedno oko tu, drugie oko... no coś dziwne, no zdarza się czasem w nadczynności tarczycy, w nadczynności przysadki takie coś, takie kuku na muniu, że jedno oko, drugie, ale coś chłop jest zdrowy jak byk i nagle ma takie oko. No i wymyśliliśmy, że ma zakrzep tętnicy podstawnej mózgu, ale neurolog to ma leczyć. To powinnien leczyć neurolog. No ale jak leczyć taką rzecz? No jak leczyć? Kto to może leczyć? No, największym doktorem jest internista, bo on patrzy na to, a że to jest... Neurologia kiedyś też była kawałkiem interny, ale neurologia jest taka rzecz, że się nic nie daje wyleczyć, więc dać neurologowi do ręki to znaczy, że on jest z góry zrezygnowany, bo żadnej choroby neurologicznej jeszcze nie wyleczono. Więc zaczęliśmy leczyć.

No, leczyliśmy bardzo nietypowo, tak jak nie trzeba. Wszystko na odwrót. Ale po trzech, czterech dniach to oko zaczęło się wstępować i po paru tygodniach oko było normalne, on leżał cały czas na 'R', bośmy się bali, że jak dostanie tu zakrzep w mózgu, ale on sobie bardzo dobrze radził. Zakochał się tam w pielęgniarce, nie ożenił się, ale miłość była wielka i się bardzo tam kochali na tej 'erce', bo jak nie było chorych, to oni byli we dwójkę tylko, więc im się dobrze powodziło. On się nazywał na B, syn profesora. I ja go widziałem jeszcze to piękny chłopak, i nic, normalnie zdrowy. To był... U nas koleżanka pracowała, która miała męża, największego neurologa w Łodzi i przyszedł ten neurolog zobaczyć efekty naszej pracy i powiedział: 'Wy nie jesteście neurolodzy, to ja się nie odezwę, bo on by u nas dawno zginął'. Takie mieliśmy numery. Trzeba dużo ryzykować, niestety.

Marek Edelman (1919-2009) was a Jewish-Polish political and social activist and a noted cardiologist. He was the last surviving leader of the 1943 uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. Following the Second World War, he took an active part in domestic and international politics, dedicating himself to fighting for justice and peace.

Listeners: Anka Grupinska Joanna Szczesna Joanna Klara Agnieszka Zuchowska

Anka Grupinska studied English at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. She wrote for Poznan’s underground publications and was herself one of the founding publishers of the bi-monthly Czas Kultury. She spent 1988 and 1989 in Israel compiling reminiscences of Holocaust survivors. From 1991 to 1993, she held the post of Cultural Attache at the Polish Embassy in Tel Aviv. She moved back to Poland in 1996 and now writes books on Jewish subjects, mainly dealing with the history of the Warsaw ghetto. She is also a freelance journalist for Tygodnik Powszechny. Anka Grupinska is the director of the Centropa Foundation project in Poland (oral history project) called “The Witness of the Jewish Century¿, presents her own radio programme, “Of Jews and of Poles too¿, and teaches creative writing and oral history in Collegium Civitas and SWPS in Warsaw.

Anka Grupinska ukonczyla filologie angielska na UAM w Poznaniu. Wspólpracowala z poznanskimi pismami podziemnymi, wraz z innymi zalozyla i wydawala dwumiesiecznik "Czas Kultury". W latach 1988-1989 przebywala w Izraelu opracowujac wspomnienia ocalalych z Zaglady. W latach 1991-1993 pracowala jako attaché kulturalny w ambasadzie polskiej w Tel Awiwie. Od 1996 mieszka w Polsce. Anka Grupinska specjalizuje sie w tematyce stosunków polsko-zydowskich. Publikuje ksiazki (m. in. Wydawnictwo Literackie, Zydowski Instytut Historyczny, Twój Styl), artykuly prasowe (m. in. "Tygodnik Powszechny", "Rzeczpospolita"), realizuje projekty wystawiennicze. Jest takze koordynatorem miedzynarodowego projektu "Swiadek zydowskiego wieku" (archiwizowanie pamieci o zydowskiej przedwojennej Polsce), prowazi autorska audycje radiowa "O Zydach i o Polakach tez" i uczy warszawskich studentów sztuki czytania i pisanie tekstów literackich.

Joanna Szczesna, dziennikarka "Gazety Wyborczej", autorka - wraz z Anna Bikont - biografia polskiej noblistki "Pamiatkowe rupiecie, przyjaciele i sny Wislawy Szymborskiej". Od lat 70-tych zwiazana z opozycja demokratycznaw Polsce, wspólpracowniczka Komitetu Obrony Robotników, wspóltwórczyni prasy niezaleznej w Polsce: redaktorka "Biuletynu Informacyjnego KOR-u", Agencji Prasowej "Solidarnosc" i "Tygodnika Mazowsze".

Joanna Szczesna is a journalist writing for Gazeta Wyborcza. Together with Anna Bikont, she’s the author of Pamiatkowe rupiecie, przyjaciele i sny Wislawy Szymborskiej (The Recollected Flotsam, Friends and Dreams of Wislawa Szymborska) a biography of Wislawa Szymborska, the Polish winner of the Noble Prize for Literature. Since the 1970s, Joanna Szczesna has been involved with the democratic opposition movement in Poland, active in the Worker’s Defence Committee (KOR), the co-founder of the independent press in Poland: editor of KOR’s Information Bulletin, Solidarnosc Press Agency and Tygodnik Mazowsze.

Joanna Klara Agnieszka 'Aga' Zuchowska, urodzona 20 stycznia 1938. Ojciec zginal w Katyniu. Po wojnie zamieszkala w Lodzi. Studia ukonczyla w 1960 r. a specjalizacje z chorób wewnetrznych w 1973 r. Doktorat obronila we Wroclawiu. Pracowala z Markiem Edelmanen przez 15 lat. W 1982 r. wyjechala do Algerii. Wrócila do Polski w 1985 r. i mieszka obecnie w Lodzi.

Joanna Klara Agnieszka 'Aga' Zuchowska was born 20 January 1938. Her father was killed in the Katyń massacre. After the war, she moved from Warsaw to Lódz. She obtained a degree in medicine in 1960, qualifying as a specialist in internal medicine in 1973. Dr Zuchowska worked with Marek Edelman for 15 years. In 1982 she left Poland for Algeria where she remained for the next three years, returning to Poland in 1985. She currently lives in Lódz.

Tags: Łódź, Włodek Kopka

Duration: 3 minutes, 5 seconds

Date story recorded: December 2003

Date story went live: 24 January 2008