One of my wife's friends, Joy Harris, calls me "Nurse John", because of the years of nursing my dear wife, Esther.

She's broken her left leg (paralyzed by polio in infancy) ten times, her right leg twice, had two mastectomies and a carpal tunnel syndrome operation.

I've been there to nurse her -- bedpans and all. After Esther's first mastectomy, in 1981, she was kept in the hospital for nearly a week and a trained nurse drained the bloody tubes in her chest. After Esther's second mastectomie, in 1992, Esther was sent home after 2 days, and (untrained) Nurse John drained the tubes and wrote down the measurements.

When I first met Esther, she walked with a cane. But in the account, herein, of how a murder changed my education and career, I describe her first broken leg.

And I describe our going, in 1955, to Inter American University of Puerto Rico, San Germán, P. R., where I taught math and physics.

In 1958, when son Timmy had just turned 4 and son Chris was 10 months old, Esther fell and shattered her paralyzed leg. She was in traction 7 months -- 4 1/2 months in P. R., and 2 1/2 months in Presbyterian Hospital in NYC. (Eleanor Roosevelt facilitated the transfer.)

We had a maid most days, but I was a single parent for 7 months (as I was in later periods). Sometimes I took the children to class -- Timmy drawing on paper in the back, baby Chris up front in a stroller making faces at the students up -- while I conducted class.

Later, when I was on the faculty of The University of Maine at Orono, I helped Esther get her Master's Degree in Comparative Literature, assisting her upstairs on crutches and bringing up her wheel chair.

So Nurse John's skills developed over the years.

Paraphrasing the line of Sybil Shepherd, in that ad, "Esther's worth it!"