She was a nurse practitioner and knowledgeable about medicine, and she knew who were the best doctors. She chose one in New York and made an appointment for Ruby. It turned out Ruby was suffering from anemia, but one that could be controlled with a weekly injection of a medication called Procrit. Since Adraenne was unable to make the trip to New Jersey from Brooklyn, where she lived, to give Ruby the weekly injection, we turned to our next-door neighbor for help. Blake had been a medic in the army before he retired, and was well trained in giving injections. He was only too glad to oblige, and every Sunday morning he would be at our door, often bringing a cake that his wife, Hildegarde, had baked for us, or perhaps a pot of her delightful chicken soup. Those Sunday mornings became a social event, with sometimes Hildegarde accompanying her husband. Eventually, I learned to give the injections myself, and they seemed to be working. Blood tests showed that the hemoglobin count was rising, and bit by bit it reached a normal level.
