Musings from an overworked translator

Time to honor one of our own September 19, 2012

This is an enormously important message to the translation and interpreting community from Nataly Kelly. Peter Less, whose entire family was murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz and who went on to interpret for the Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials back before interpreting had ever been done before on such a massive scale, is 91 and now at the end of his long and illustrious life. He truly was one of the forerunners of our industry. He was honored by the American Translators Association some years back and attended the conference the very next year on his own simply to present a session on his experiences. I had the honor of escorting him to one of the events he was attending, leading him on my arm and struggling not to start crying simply due to the overwhelming honor of being in his presence. His health has been in decline over the past few months, and he has now entered hospice care. Please send this extraordinary man a message of thanks, as per Nataly’s beautiful appeal at http://www.natalykelly.com/#!peter/chzx

May God be with you, Mr. Less.

Musings from a hospital bed September 15, 2012

Well, not really. I was released yesterday afternoon. I had my appendix out on Thursday. I was in pain from 1 a.m. on Wednesday night, so I called my mother in the morning and she came over and took me to the emergency room at the hospital 0.2 miles from my house. No matter how old you are, when you get sick you still want your mommy there. I told the admitting clerk that I thought it was appendicitis, but the ER doctor thought it was kidney stones. He should know better than to second-guess a medical translator :-).

It was really cool hearing all the jargon I translate every day being used in real life and freaking out the staff by responding with professional jargon to their questions about pain. The surgical resident got a kick out of my responding “no pain on percussion” when he asked if I could feel pain while tapping on my back. The nurse blew several veins trying to draw my blood. I had central lines in both hands. I am sporting some nice hematomas. I got wheeled on a gurney for a CT, which (along with the blood tests showing elevated white count and no blood in my urine) revealed an enlarged and inflamed appendix.

I was wheeled into the operating room at 5 p.m. and – after being prepped for laparoscopic surgery – woke up in recovery at around 7:45 or so. I spent the night in the hospital (luckily in my own room so I was able to sleep more than I did the night before at home) and was released yesterday afternoon. It was my first overnight stay in a hospital, and it wasn’t that bad. I spent the night at my parents’ house last night and am happy to be home.

I was very, very grateful for my smartphone (even if did take a visit to the ER to figure out the outgoing server settings for my e-mail weren’t correct), because I was able to respond immediately to my clients’ e-mails. I was able to use the hospital guest WiFi the entire time. I turned down several job requests and notified one client that they should find someone else to translate the website I had accepted on Wednesday that is due next Tuesday. My clients deserve more attention to detail than I can give them right now. I will be recovering for the next few days, but have already stopped taking my prescribed pain meds because the pain is manageable.

But I am very glad I decided several months ago not to attend the BDÜ conference this year. I would have been flying to Germany right about now and would have lost lots of money on non-refundable pain tickets and hotel costs. I hope you all enjoy it without me. Wish I could be there instead of hobbling around my apartment.