To Haiti on a medical mission

Dr. Eduardo P. Dolhun

Neighborhood physician Dr. Eduardo P. Dolhun is with a team of doctors in Haiti treating earthquake victims. Here is a portion of his first dispatch from the front:

“Within a matter of minutes we were presented with a wide assortment of severe illnesses, all of them traumatic and now nearly six days old.

“The first patient was a 78-year-old woman who had gotten her hand crushed by a fallen concrete slab in her kitchen. She was preparing dinner for her children and grandchildren. She was calm and patient, as we slowly removed the gauze that had not been changed for five days. The dried blood and puss had fused the dressing in a patchy assortment of wet and dry areas, with bubbles percolating up from the wet areas, indicating anaerobic bacterial (bacteria that cause gangrene) infection. One is able to diagnose this type of infection with the nose: It has a distinctive and unforgettable odor.

“As we methodically unwrapped and gently cut away the bandage, we had time to get to know her and also to prepare her for the probability that she would likely lose the entire hand, adding to the loss of her five fingers.”

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Zen and the art of the public bath

The communal baths at Kabuki Springs & Spa.

By Donna Domino

“There’s a very special energy here,” says Kathy Nelsen, longtime director of the Kabuki Springs & Spa, explaining why the cultural fixture has endured for nearly 40 years. “The communal baths are really what differentiates us. We have some of the only ones in California and the U.S.”

Nelsen, who has carefully nurtured the Kabuki’s distinctively spiritual environment for the last decade, says another thing that sets the Kabuki apart is a deep respect for the body. She describes a recent women’s night to make her point.

The simple secrets of lasting love

By Brooke Welch

For the last six years, I have been working at Toujours, the petite lingerie
shop on Sacramento Street just around the corner from Fillmore. I’ve been a salesclerk and bra-fitter, but also a therapist and a shoulder to cry on.

Perhaps the best perk of working in a classy little neighborhood lingerie shop is the opportunity to meet lots of people who have loving, lasting romances — not just relationships, not just marriages, but actual romances — the kind we all long for and dream about, the blushing, giggling, toe-curling, hot, satisfying relationships that last.

In my first year in the shop, I met a man who was shopping for his wife. He had a smile on his face as he handed me a simple cotton gown and fleecy robe and said, “Wrap it up.”

“What’s the occasion?” I asked. He answered, “We’ve been married for 25 years, and our anniversary is coming up.”

“Wow,” I said, “what’s the secret?”

A skirt with a past — and a future

What was once Ednah's became Louise's, then Barbara's, and now Melissa Barber's.

By Barbara Kate Repa

When retrieving the dry cleaning recently, I ran into an old friend: a brightly colored skirt, freshly cleaned and snaking down the automated trolley at Perfect Cleaners on Fillmore.

The unusual combination of colors, the nubby silk fabric and the jaunty scalloped waistband all were unmistakable. It had been my skirt before I donated it to the Victorian House Thrift Shop a few months earlier.

I had gotten the skirt years before from a friend, Louise Baldridge, who was in her late 80s when we met, but still spry and spirited and quick with a story — many of which involved one of her three former husbands.

“I always loved the rascals,” she said.