M
mabell
This would be worth going online and watching...Williams really nailed a lot of the things I remember about the symptoms, surgery, and recovery. Also he has a very positive attitude. Letterman on May 13. Cheers, mabell
This would be worth going online and watching...Williams really nailed a lot of the things I remember about the symptoms, surgery, and recovery. Also he has a very positive attitude. Letterman on May 13. Cheers, mabell
Robin Williams made his first interview since his valve surgery on Letterman last night. He looked great for someone only 8 weeks out of surgery. He joked about his cow valve but also read a heartfelt academy awards type thank you to the doctors and care givers by name. He and dave talked about their heart surgeries and Robin had a picture of his zipper chest. The rest of the time he was his normal crazy self.
I stayed up to watch the show last night. My husband and I were howling with laughter. The guy is just too funny! I think it was very good for my husband, too, to be able to laugh so "heartily" about the event... I'm not sure we can ever appreciate what the support family goes through.
I could not believe how well he was moving around. I commented on this to my husband and he said, well, the guy is worth a few million, I'm sure he has trainers and therapists working on him. I suppose that might have helped. Or he just knows what kind of moves he can and can't make and exaggerates the ones he can. I really was amazed though... 8 weeks out. Not the kinds of moves I'd want to be making!
The YouTube clip does not include the whole interview. I don't have a way to record anymore, but wish I could have. Robin made some great comments about surgeons, about the wonders of technology and when Dave said something about "you know, people think it is just a terrifying thing", Robin said something like "well, not really, these things are done so often, and these doctors are so great you just want them to hurry up and get in there and fix things". And he made a joke about finding the wrong doctor who hasn't done very many and 25% of them haven't made it through.
He also, unfortunately, made a negative reference to warfarin, calling it rat poison. But we have to remember that he's a comedian and when you talk about taking something derived from rat poison, well, you're bound to have many great joke opportunities. Hopefully it will just get a great laugh and go over most people's heads. Apparently he had a cardioversion for some serious A-fib (and OMG, his demonstration of what A-fib felt like was so hilarious....husband and I were squeaking for air) and was put on warfarin for awhile.
He talked a lot about having shortness of breath and gave some anecdotes.
He won't resume his tour until September. He was on stage with friends (a few of you mentioned this) last week I guess... well he got SO tired after 20 minutes that the audience was yelling "please get off the stage". He joked that he first thought he was just doing a bad job, but then came to find they were all just overwhelmingly concerned about him and wanted him to step down for his health.
He was, exceedingly grateful several times. Talked about how you start to really appreciate the smaller things in life..... he really was genuinely moved about the largess of the experience several times. The new lease on life.
He's a gem. It would be nice to get him to be an advocate for early testing (think of all the kids' lives he might save who would otherwise drop over on the sports court) or something.
And I LOVED his T-shirt!!!! Let's get some!!
Ah well.... I'm just looking forward to stealing some of his cow jokes!! What a funny man!!!
Marguerite
I don't like David Letterman. He just isn't that funny (and I'm a card-carrying liberal!). I don't like his timing or arrogance.
Anyway! I notice that CBS runs full versions of his shows at http://www.cbs.com/late_show/video/
But, the more current shows are not yet listed as available. Like the one from 5/8 is the most current. So I guess next week, the Robin Williams show from 5/13 will be available. Wynton Marsalis was amazing too, so everyone should check in next week!!
Marguerite