able to thank. the emergency medical technician who got michael out of that taxicab then got me out of that taxi scab, both of us on stretchers. i wish i knew his name. or the napes of the strong men in that neighborhood who rushed from their houses, they rushed in there to help lift our stretchers out of that taxicab. i ve thanked my brilliant surgeon dr. david helfet many times and i ll never start thanking him. he like many friends in showbiz sent me an e-mail joking about how he can t bring himself to say, break a leg tonight. living among the medical community as i did for weeks was a huge revelation to me. i d never been hospitalized before. i had never seen the extraordinary daily kindness and heroism of nurses up close. i had never depended on them. for weeks i was completely dependent on them. i had only one real day and night of pain in the hospital after surgery, and it was a