Won't Take Nothing But a Memory: Cristie Goes to Bern

There is a great back story to my trip to Bern, Switzerland this last August.

In reality, I invited myself, but it was in a joking manner. Never did I really think that they would invite me and I would actually go!

My blog post from 2012 tells the beginning of the back story (read it here). The back story ends when Johanna Anna Kremer Hovinga Strebel stopped off in Memphis in June 2014 on her way to a meeting (a congress as she calls it) in Milwaukee.

Me and Johanna at the
Tunica River Museum, Tunica, MS

Pat and I took her to dinner where she invited me to come to Switzerland for the 2nd Steering Committee meeting of the TTP Registry focused on Upshaw-Schulman Syndrome housed at the University of Bern. While taking Johanna on a whirlwind tour of the Top of the Delta (aka, Tunica) the next day, I accepted her gracious invitation in spite of my fear of heights, traveling to Europe, and being alone in an unfamiliar place. I knew this would be the trip of a lifetime and it was!

The highlight of my trip was having the opportunity to spend a few minutes on the first day of the meeting talking about Daddy.

Members of the Upshaw-Schulman TTP Registry Steering Committee are
from Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Norway, Japan, Czech Republic,
United Kingdom, and USA

I am sure my personal reflections were not that interesting, but I wanted them to know more about him as a person, not just a physician. They indulged me and seemed happy with the gifts I brought:

A copy of my "Natural Beauty" photo taken in my favorite swamp near Tunica in the Mississippi Delta. My father was born and raised in the Delta and I now have a weekend home there myself. My two brothers and I still own the family farm near the small town where Daddy was born. So, it is a special place for us.

Reinhard Schneppennheim, Hamburg, Germany,
arrived late so sent a picture from home in his Bama
hat with his 16 year-old son

An Alabama cap. Daddy went to the University of Alabama to college and later to Johns Hopkins University for medical school. He was a passionate Alabama football fan. All of my brothers, as well as myself, my nephew, my mother, and my grandfather also went to Alabama. Everyone put the cap on at the meeting in Bern to remember Daddy.

Yoshi Fujimura, retired original member of the
steering committee, donned his Bama hat
his colleagues gave him

And, of course, something "Elvis" (a mug from Graceland). Elvis is synonymous with Memphis which is where Daddy practiced medicine for 45 years and where I live now.

The remainder of my trip was spent touring Switzerland, some days with Johanna and her husband Niklaus, and all days with my newfound friends from Oklahoma, Sara Vesely (one of the TTP Registry advisors from Oklahoma City) and her mother Marianna Vesely. They were so kind to let me tag along and I loved being with them and sharing our adventures together.

I will not be so bold to invite myself to Bern again, but I do hope to stay in touch with Johanna about the progress of the registry and with the others as they continue to identify the best treatments for patients with Upshaw-Schulman Syndrome.

Here are some photos I took on my once in a lifetime trip to Switzerland!