In the next segment Patti opened. “About two years ago, after a show, a woman from the audience actually came on the stage to say that Karen should stay after her arm amputation. After the program I learned the woman was one of my schoolmates, a best friend from grade school who I hadn’t seen since I was in fifth grade. A day later I introduced that woman on the show. I want to run two clips of her. The first of her after the show, the second is of her on the program.”

The first clip ran and the picture came back to Patti. “This woman is one of the three best people in her field which is a heavy technical one. She is an engineer. She plays music with a Christian Coffee house band. When she was here she realized she had some things in her life she wanted to change. I want to now show you a couple of clips from the time she was on the show.” The clips were run and Patti came back.

“Now I want to introduce you to Diane Feldman.”

Diane came out on crutches, her left leg in a brace.

Patti hugged her and she was seated. “Diane, welcome to the show again. How have things been with you and your family.”

“Well. Let me start with the obvious. I’m on crutches. I promised I would stop some of the destructive behavior when I was here. I did. But there is one thing that we forget. If we abuse our bodies long enough, hard enough, we will eventually pay the piper. We got through the last two years with the crutches in the closet except three times which was a track record. My younger son was visiting a museum and fell on a step. He broke his leg. He was on crutches for eight weeks. At least that wasn’t aggressive behavior. I was just a missed step. My older daughter started having problems walking about a year ago and they found a bone chip from a previous injury in her ankle. She was on crutches for nearly six weeks. It was from previous abuse. And two months ago I started having problems walking. They did surgery two weeks ago to get the loose pieces of cartilage out of the knee. It is getting better and I should be off them in a few days. Two years ago I would have argued with the doctor that I didn’t need the crutches after a couple days to prove I was tough. I didn’t do that this time. I am properly caring for the knee.”