Our End-of-Year Letter - unser Weihnachtsbrief 1997

his year there is no real Christmas spirit for us. Somehow everything is different. Even the weather isn't that wintry and we can't remember experiencing so many gray days in a row here. Many Things remained unfinished.

Clinton's attempt to improve health care has placed a documentation burden on doctors that seems to be getting out of hand and it's no longer fun. Dietmar is thinking about retirement, which is very unusual for him.

His father died in November. So we were in no condition to write the Christmas letter and it is now the 4th Advent.

Like every year, we went to the annual meeting of the Eastern Association for Surgery of Trauma, this time in Sanibel on the Gulf of Mexico. The children couldn't be there. Mark and Lisa were very busy with their training and Annemarei and Barrett were no different. So we spent the week with our friends, the Aprahamians, in sunny Florida, which is always a relief when you start to tire of winter. In March, like every year, we went to the WEST meeting in Snowbird in Utah and had a lot of fun skiing.

The long winter months without the children gave Heidi a special birthday wish. And that's how it happened. Annemarei and Barrett came from Baltimore and Mark, Lisa and Fritzi from Denver came to Brookfield for Heidi's birthday. We had a lot of fun together. Unfortunately we were only together for a weekend, but now summer was approaching and we had a lot planned.

As you may know from previous letters, the transition from winter to summer here is happening with breathtaking speed. Spring hardly has a chance to squeeze in between, maybe a week - but at most two and then at the end of May the temperatures are 30 degrees and it's summer. Since the green season is so beautiful, we like to go there I don't really like traveling anymore in the summer months.

In May we still had to go to Istanbul because the 10th anniversary was there Surgical Infection Society Europe should be celebrated. Dietmar was honored as the founder of the society. He was very proud.

However, the historic Bosphorus in the background called for modesty, which Dietmar expressed in his speech. The summer passed with terrace parties and a lovely visit: Gabi and Helge went on a golfing holiday in Brookfield.

In September we went on two larger lecture tours. First we went via Heidelberg to Jakarta in Indonesia, where we also had time to explore the old Batavia of the Dutch and discovered that the remnants of those happy/unhappy times will soon be completely gone. It was completely different in Brazil, where we also saw the remnants of the Dutch's exploration and exploitation activities in Recife and Belem on the Amazon, but where the memory was still maintained. We learned that the Dutch were relatively persistent in trying to gain a foothold in South America before purchasing New York.

In Brazil we met many friends who, like us, were invited to the annual meeting of the Brazilian Society of Surgery in Recife. Rio de Janeiro is a beautiful city. We had a hotel on the Copa Ipanema overlooking this magnificent beach with the huge waves of the turquoise Atlantic and the basalt mountains in the background. We made plenty of use of it all. In Recife the beach was equally unique with strong Ebb and flow and coral reefs that protected against sharks. Unfortunately, Dietmar had four major lectures, but Heidi had time to experience the country and its artist F Brennan.

We then flew into the Amazon jungle at the invitation of the University of Belem and were amazed when a sparsely populated, very beautiful country, seen from the air, spread out before our eyes. The Amazon itself was no less impressive. Nice and warm and humid! Instead of plant trees, mango trees graced the avenues of the relatively large city of Belem and two Boat trips to the Amazon Delta accumulated the impressions into a unique experience that complemented the warm friendliness of our hosts. We were particularly impressed by the early morning boat trip to the Amazon Islands, which orchestrated the spectacular departure of the parrot pairs every morning. They flew from the protective islands where the trees were in the water to islands with more food on the ground

The next few months were therefore filled with work, and now Heidi's mother is with us and we will spend Christmas without our children. On December 30th we all fly to Ixtapa in the sun of Mexico. Anna and Barrett – listen and be amazed – were able to free themselves from their university life and Mark and Lisa also have time. We are all really looking forward to the vacation on the Pacific beach, where we will make future plans until January 11th.

Lisa and Mark are leaving Denver, Anna has to decide whether and where she actually wants to become a neurologist and Barrett wants to do an “internship” with a judge.

Dear friends, this letter will probably be sent to you between Christmas and reach New Year. We hope you had a peaceful Christmas and time to reflect.

We wish you a Happy New Year and are already looking forward to seeing many of you next year either in Europe or the USA.

Heidi and Dietmar

Dietmar and Heidi (h4)

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