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Sunday, October 19, 2008

Anna's NPR Interview: A Thank You to Megan Sukys of KUOW

On Friday (Oct.17th.) we received a visitor at the Aerie. Her name is Megan Sukys, and she is Senior Host for “Sound Focus” on KUOW 94.9 on your FM dial. When I looked her up on their website, this following line stood out to me:

As Senior Host for Sound Focus, Megan explores the Northwest culture through conversation. She believes that the stories we tell guide our future actions.

I like that approach and I was thrilled when Megan contacted me, after the TNT (thank you!) ran my blog post on the first Seattle screening of Under Our Skin. She was interested in my daughter Anna’s story. After years of typing my wee fingers to nubs, someone in the west coast media was interested in talking to us about Lyme disease and Anna’s decade-long struggle for both respect and treatment in the State of Washington!

Megan pulled into our driveway in a very cool, funky beetle-bug that runs on alternate fuel. With her own flair she had a few, very tasteful, red and blue stripes with stars painted on the bug’s white background, going from stem to stern. She stepped out of her car and locked her eyes into mine as she introduced herself with a warm handshake. That gave her a second check-mark in my tally of esteem.

She was just a little early, so I had a chance to show her our wee corner of Northwest paradise and began telling her a bit about my twenty-seven year-old incredible daughter, before Anna came slowly walking down the hall to greet us. It was immediately apparent why Megan makes a good interviewer. She was warm and interested, without it being a media mask. When I looked-up her biography on the website, it told the story of a little girl who loved to talk and ask questions…so much so that her mother bought her a little tape-recorder and microphone! She is, as Joseph Campbell would say, following her bliss.

We set up comfortably in the living room, having tea and just talking for about an hour, all three of us. She explained that this segment of the program would be just over eighteen minutes. We knew she was more interested in the human story than the long, complicated story of Lyme disease and its surrounding politics, so I suggested she do the actual interview with just Anna. Time for Mum to be…mum! I can hear my fellow Blog-Squadders laughing, knowing how hard that might be for me.

I was amazed at the tiny piece of equipment she carried for recording, dwarfed by the microphone. The Digital Age is amazing. Megan (with that lovely broadcasting voice) led Anna gently through with her questions, stopping and starting as my daughter’s short-term memory, and abstract-thinking, waxed and waned with Lyme.

We’d like to thank Ms. Sukys for her time and interest in Anna’s story. We’d like to thank her for following her bliss and being excellent at her job, as well as being a warm and wonderful guest at the Aerie, our home. Thank you so much Megan!

If you would like to hear this interview, tune-in to Sound Focus this coming Tuesday, Oct. 21st., at 2pm. That’s KUOW 94.9FM…or you can tune-in through cyberspace….

http://www.kuow.org/program.php?current=SF

Let’s hear it for National Public Radio!

6 comments:

Mizu Sugimura said...

3 cheers for National Public Radio!
3 more cheers for Anna!
And 3 cheers for Anna's lovely mother!
Hip! Hip! Hurrah!

Kim Thompson said...

Wow! What a cool experience on so many levels. Can't wait to hear it on Tuesday.

Please include the cheerleading section to include me, too!

Awesome!

Lorraine Hart said...

Thank you, as always, for your very loving support my friends. It means the world to us.

Stephanie Frieze said...

Congratulations, Lorraine! I know how tireless you've been in trying to get the word out about Lyme and Under Our Skin.

Public Radio is my nearly constant companion, particularly KUOW. I have a seat reserved to hear the interview and hope that it will be archived on the KUOW site.

Stephanie Frieze said...

Lorraine, not only did I listen to the interview right after work at 2, I got to hear it again at 9 as I got ready for bed. To hear Anna's voice express the struggle she's faced was moving. I do wish that the interviewer had emphasized that Anna continues to struggle with the effects of the disease and that she hasn't yet reached her happy ending.

Lorraine Hart said...

Thank you Stephanie; it's true we are still in the middle of the fight. We thought this short interview made a very good human introduction...and we have bigger plans in the works, within a two-hour radio show. You know I'll be singing about it in the 'hood as soon as I can.

More has happened in the last two years...than the past thirty, in Lyme research and education. Unfortunately it had to take years for many...we hope to save others from this journey. Stay tuned!