cfenoglio's blog

Everything was going as planned.

A few weeks into the third trimester, Elizabeth and Jose Villar went to her regular obstetrician appointment, hoping to hear more about when their twins would be born.

“You should expect to go full-term with your babies,” said the obstetrician, “but we may induce you a week or two earlier to guard against any complications since this is your first pregnancy.”

It is never easy to hear the words: “You have cancer.”

For Dana Letts, 81, the words created an image she will never forget.

“When you're diagnosed with cancer,” described Dana, “you're suddenly thrust into a very dark tunnel, disoriented, scared and unable to see any light around you.”

With all surgeries, especially when multiple surgeries are expected, it is always best to have a clear plan of action.

For John Wilkinson, 61, a retired chef at an Albuquerque restaurant, the best course of action proved to be ‘one step at a time.’

“I was referred to Dr. Mario Leyba by my doctor,” said Wilkinson. “Dr. Leyba is a caring and compassionate physician. He had a great plan for my health.”

For 72-year-old Gary Faas, who worked underground for many years mining for coal and sometimes gold, there’s no better feeling than being out in the open air – especially 12,000 feet above a drop zone!

A Vietnam veteran, the Albuquerque resident is an avid skydiver with more than 400 jumps to his credit. After recovering from three joint replacement surgeries in 2022, he is looking forward to jumping again soon.

It was during a hunting trip with friends when Albuquerque resident Jeffrey Jesionowski, 69, realized that he may have a snoring problem.

“I was in Illinois with two buddies hunting white-tail deer for five days,” Jeffrey said. “We stayed overnight in a hunting camp and shared a room with bunk beds for all of us. When I woke up the next morning, I looked around and saw that my buddies were gone. I found one sleeping on the bathroom floor while the other was asleep on the living room couch.

For Michael Archuleta, getting a good night’s sleep had been a hard thing to do for many years.

A nurse practitioner with a health insurance company, the 44-year-old Albuquerque resident started developing sleep issues in his 30s.

“I was just tired all the time,” said Michael. “It got to the point where I’d be talking to people and then I would suddenly doze off. Sometimes while I was driving, I would stop at a traffic light. If it lasted long enough, I would start to fall asleep in the car!”

Taos resident Dennis Salazar was just a young boy when he first rode a horse on his family’s ranch.

“My dad always had horses for us to ride,” said Dennis. “I think I got on my first horse when I was 4, maybe 5-years-old.”

Now 55, Salazar has ridden horses for many years as a member of the Taos County Sheriff’s Posse, an organization that puts on rodeos, rides in parades and sometimes helps the New Mexico State Police with search & rescue operations.

Sometimes accidents just happen.

For Ruth Ann Potter, 70, it didn’t matter whether Poncho, her big, black Labrador was to blame. What mattered most was that she had quick access to excellent medical care for her injuries.

“About three years ago my husband Doug and I were walking Poncho through our neighborhood in Rio Rancho,” Ruth Ann recalled, “when a rat ran in front of our garage door. Poncho took off and I started running and falling after him, as his leash was wrapped around my left arm.”

When Daniel Shaw, a 62-year-old science teacher at Albuquerque’s Bosque School, leads his students into the desert to collect data on North American porcupines, he often talks about the power of information: what did you observe; what did you find; what conclusions can you draw from the data?

When Daniel and his doctors discussed his long-time gastrointestinal problems, they used the same kind of questions: what are his symptoms; what treatments have worked; and what can be done in the future to alleviate his pain and side effects?

When Beth Kaczmarek and her husband Bryan Craig moved back to her hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Beth planned on delivering their baby in the same hospital where she was born. Their daughter Eloise, however, had other plans.

“We were living in Napa County, California when we decided to start a family,” said Beth, 38. “We had moved back to the States after living abroad and I was in the midst of a big editorial project.”