HelloAngel
ONE love, blood, life
By Julie Rowe
2005.05
I wondered what her story was when I first saw her in the line outside GM Place in Vancouver, though I didn't realize then what an ordeal she'd been through. Later that night, I saw a sign go up on the floor outside the ellipse bearing the stunning message, "I Just Ditched My Wheelchair. Will You Dance With Me?"
I knew that there was no way Bono would pass that up. He didn't. A few songs later he had the sign onstage with him, displayed for the audience to see, and moments later its owner joined him. Imagine my surprise when I saw the girl who had caught my attention earlier that day. I had to find out who she was, how she got onstage and what her sign meant.
"I have Systemic Lupus Erythematosis (SLE)," Ramona Satar of Kelowna, B.C., said. "There were a combination of things which weakened my immune system and brought on the disease. In July 2002, I collapsed from it and was hospitalized."
The lupus caused pain in her joints, exhausting fatigue and severe bruising, yet Satar had to battle with doctors just to get validation of her illness—they kept telling her there was nothing wrong. Finally, they acknowledged she had SLE.
"When I was in emergency, I was in Kelowna," Satar said. "My family had to start a lawsuit to force them to take care of me, because the doctors were content to let me die." For a time, Satar believed she would die.
Satar spent more than two weeks in Kelowna General Hospital, where she was eventually treated with chemotherapy that horrifically burned her skin. But that wasn't the worst of it. "At the hospital, they measured my dose incorrectly for my height and weight at that time. They gave me too high a dose of [one of the chemotherapy drugs]."
That caused Satar to have a stroke that severely incapacitated her, confining her to a wheelchair. Satar needed to be transferred to a different hospital after the stroke, but met with resistance and indifference from the hospital staff. "Most of the medical staff at the hospital in Kelowna had written me off and were convinced I was going to die so they saw no need to send me for better treatment in Vancouver, although it had been noted that the plasma exchange machine, which is what I desperately needed, was in Vancouver General Hospital," Satar said. "I had been told by the doctor that I had only 12-48 hours to live and he said I had to prepare. I was left to tell my mother what was going on. It was by far the worst day of my life. My doctor asked if I'd like him to pray for me and he burst into tears. That was the point when I thought I would die."
But, thankfully, Ramona was more fortunate than many patients, she had an ace in the hole—friends and a loving family determined to fight for her when she couldn't fight for herself.
"My mom called my family and friends to the hospital," she said. "My boyfriend at the time urged my aunt to put some kind of pressure on the doctors to send me to Vancouver for treatment. She was the one who got the ball rolling and put the idea in their heads that if they didn't start moving to airlift me to VGH, there would be hell to pay."
Finally, the hospital in Kelowna agreed to transfer Satar to Vancouver.
Twelve more weeks of hospitalization followed, including more rounds of chemotherapy, and with it, a lot of suffering.
So how does all this connect to U2 and Bono?
"I was 10 years old when I saw Bono at Live Aid, when he danced onstage with that girl—I've wanted to be that chick ever since," Satar remembered.
Satar was fourth in line for tickets for the Elevation Tour but her other favorite band, Depeche Mode, happened to go on sale at the same time. Having money enough for only one concert, Satar chose Depeche Mode because she figured U2 would always be back again.
"They sent me home for Christmas with the wrong medication, and it caused me to relapse," Satar said of her slow recovery. But something else happened during that Christmas at home. She asked for the Elevation Boston DVD for Christmas and was sick with regret at missing the tour. She decided then, "I didn't care how hard I had to work—I was going to be there for this tour. My physical therapist asked me, 'What are your goals for this?' I said, 'You have to get me well enough so that I can survive a trip to Vancouver, standing in a line-up all day—I refuse to be in handicapped seating.' My physical therapist said, 'But they do have that there.' I said, 'Yeah, in the third tier!'"
"From then on, I worked with that goal in mind, in the pool, in the gym," Satar said. "When I found out about the new album, I really put on steam. I freaked out. I knew a tour was coming up." She was determined not only to get out of the wheelchair and walk again, but to dance with Bono.
"I lost three years of my life," Satar said. "I was a make-up artist. I worked for Sebastian, for L'Oreal Professional, and I went all over the world." She said one of the things that bothers her the most is that the illness and the poor treatment caused her looks to suffer as well as her health and career.
"I used to look really good," she said. I've tried so hard to just get back to how it used to be. I still feel like I'm 26, because it's like my life just stopped, but the reality is that I'm 29 now."
Satar even wrote a letter and sent it to the band in Ireland, telling U2 about the situation and how it had inspired her. "It took a lot of prayer and a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to this point, but really it's all because of U2," she said. "It was just for this, just for U2." Satar is quick to give the band credit for her hard-won recovery but after meeting her, I'm pretty sure Ramona would have gotten herself out of that wheelchair with or without U2.
After all that, though, Ramona didn't think she and her sign would even get in. "Some people were so mean in the line," she said. "They said it wasn't fair, that the sign was too big. I didn't want to wreck anyone else's experience so I promised to put it up for only a few minutes. One of the women near me on the floor grabbed it from me and threw it down. After all I had to do to get here, it really hurt the way people treated me." Satar is quick to mention that not everyone was unkind. "I found that for every one person who didn't want me to bring that sign into the venue, there were three that were in total support of me. I especially remember two girls named Angela and Shae, along with all of the girls they came with, who were such a supportive group. They really held me up."
Finally, the moment she had dreamed of for years was at hand. Bono gave the signal and moments later, Satar was onstage. "Security did a good job of getting me, but then they kind of plunked me down hard in a heap on the stage, so I had a hard time trying to stand and to walk right then, but Bono helped me."
Then something really unexpected happened—Satar's pants fell down, showing a little more skin than she had bargained for. "I was like, 'My pants are falling down, Bono!'" Ever quick-thinking, Bono helped tug her pants back up into place and then reached down to tie Ramona's sweater around her waist. "He said, 'You look beautiful,' and I think he said something about 'it pays to advertise.'"
"I was nervous, so I started talking to Bono a little while we were swaying," Satar said. "I said, 'Thank you for this, you're very sweet,' and he said, 'So are you.' That man smells absolutely heavenly, by the way. I don't think I've ever swooned before in my life, but I did then. He's so cuddly."
Satar said nothing could top her first U2 concert but, "I would have just died if they had played 'Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses,' it's my favorite song."
After the show, Satar had a lot of bruises from security hitting her against the barricade when they brought her out. "My body is so sore, but I don't care," she said. "I'd do it 100 times over again to dance with Bono. I couldn't have prayed harder for this."
2005.05
I wondered what her story was when I first saw her in the line outside GM Place in Vancouver, though I didn't realize then what an ordeal she'd been through. Later that night, I saw a sign go up on the floor outside the ellipse bearing the stunning message, "I Just Ditched My Wheelchair. Will You Dance With Me?"
I knew that there was no way Bono would pass that up. He didn't. A few songs later he had the sign onstage with him, displayed for the audience to see, and moments later its owner joined him. Imagine my surprise when I saw the girl who had caught my attention earlier that day. I had to find out who she was, how she got onstage and what her sign meant.
"I have Systemic Lupus Erythematosis (SLE)," Ramona Satar of Kelowna, B.C., said. "There were a combination of things which weakened my immune system and brought on the disease. In July 2002, I collapsed from it and was hospitalized."
The lupus caused pain in her joints, exhausting fatigue and severe bruising, yet Satar had to battle with doctors just to get validation of her illness—they kept telling her there was nothing wrong. Finally, they acknowledged she had SLE.
"When I was in emergency, I was in Kelowna," Satar said. "My family had to start a lawsuit to force them to take care of me, because the doctors were content to let me die." For a time, Satar believed she would die.
Satar spent more than two weeks in Kelowna General Hospital, where she was eventually treated with chemotherapy that horrifically burned her skin. But that wasn't the worst of it. "At the hospital, they measured my dose incorrectly for my height and weight at that time. They gave me too high a dose of [one of the chemotherapy drugs]."
That caused Satar to have a stroke that severely incapacitated her, confining her to a wheelchair. Satar needed to be transferred to a different hospital after the stroke, but met with resistance and indifference from the hospital staff. "Most of the medical staff at the hospital in Kelowna had written me off and were convinced I was going to die so they saw no need to send me for better treatment in Vancouver, although it had been noted that the plasma exchange machine, which is what I desperately needed, was in Vancouver General Hospital," Satar said. "I had been told by the doctor that I had only 12-48 hours to live and he said I had to prepare. I was left to tell my mother what was going on. It was by far the worst day of my life. My doctor asked if I'd like him to pray for me and he burst into tears. That was the point when I thought I would die."
But, thankfully, Ramona was more fortunate than many patients, she had an ace in the hole—friends and a loving family determined to fight for her when she couldn't fight for herself.
"My mom called my family and friends to the hospital," she said. "My boyfriend at the time urged my aunt to put some kind of pressure on the doctors to send me to Vancouver for treatment. She was the one who got the ball rolling and put the idea in their heads that if they didn't start moving to airlift me to VGH, there would be hell to pay."
Finally, the hospital in Kelowna agreed to transfer Satar to Vancouver.
Twelve more weeks of hospitalization followed, including more rounds of chemotherapy, and with it, a lot of suffering.
So how does all this connect to U2 and Bono?
"I was 10 years old when I saw Bono at Live Aid, when he danced onstage with that girl—I've wanted to be that chick ever since," Satar remembered.
Satar was fourth in line for tickets for the Elevation Tour but her other favorite band, Depeche Mode, happened to go on sale at the same time. Having money enough for only one concert, Satar chose Depeche Mode because she figured U2 would always be back again.
"They sent me home for Christmas with the wrong medication, and it caused me to relapse," Satar said of her slow recovery. But something else happened during that Christmas at home. She asked for the Elevation Boston DVD for Christmas and was sick with regret at missing the tour. She decided then, "I didn't care how hard I had to work—I was going to be there for this tour. My physical therapist asked me, 'What are your goals for this?' I said, 'You have to get me well enough so that I can survive a trip to Vancouver, standing in a line-up all day—I refuse to be in handicapped seating.' My physical therapist said, 'But they do have that there.' I said, 'Yeah, in the third tier!'"
"From then on, I worked with that goal in mind, in the pool, in the gym," Satar said. "When I found out about the new album, I really put on steam. I freaked out. I knew a tour was coming up." She was determined not only to get out of the wheelchair and walk again, but to dance with Bono.
"I lost three years of my life," Satar said. "I was a make-up artist. I worked for Sebastian, for L'Oreal Professional, and I went all over the world." She said one of the things that bothers her the most is that the illness and the poor treatment caused her looks to suffer as well as her health and career.
"I used to look really good," she said. I've tried so hard to just get back to how it used to be. I still feel like I'm 26, because it's like my life just stopped, but the reality is that I'm 29 now."
Satar even wrote a letter and sent it to the band in Ireland, telling U2 about the situation and how it had inspired her. "It took a lot of prayer and a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to this point, but really it's all because of U2," she said. "It was just for this, just for U2." Satar is quick to give the band credit for her hard-won recovery but after meeting her, I'm pretty sure Ramona would have gotten herself out of that wheelchair with or without U2.
After all that, though, Ramona didn't think she and her sign would even get in. "Some people were so mean in the line," she said. "They said it wasn't fair, that the sign was too big. I didn't want to wreck anyone else's experience so I promised to put it up for only a few minutes. One of the women near me on the floor grabbed it from me and threw it down. After all I had to do to get here, it really hurt the way people treated me." Satar is quick to mention that not everyone was unkind. "I found that for every one person who didn't want me to bring that sign into the venue, there were three that were in total support of me. I especially remember two girls named Angela and Shae, along with all of the girls they came with, who were such a supportive group. They really held me up."
Finally, the moment she had dreamed of for years was at hand. Bono gave the signal and moments later, Satar was onstage. "Security did a good job of getting me, but then they kind of plunked me down hard in a heap on the stage, so I had a hard time trying to stand and to walk right then, but Bono helped me."
Then something really unexpected happened—Satar's pants fell down, showing a little more skin than she had bargained for. "I was like, 'My pants are falling down, Bono!'" Ever quick-thinking, Bono helped tug her pants back up into place and then reached down to tie Ramona's sweater around her waist. "He said, 'You look beautiful,' and I think he said something about 'it pays to advertise.'"
"I was nervous, so I started talking to Bono a little while we were swaying," Satar said. "I said, 'Thank you for this, you're very sweet,' and he said, 'So are you.' That man smells absolutely heavenly, by the way. I don't think I've ever swooned before in my life, but I did then. He's so cuddly."
Satar said nothing could top her first U2 concert but, "I would have just died if they had played 'Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses,' it's my favorite song."
After the show, Satar had a lot of bruises from security hitting her against the barricade when they brought her out. "My body is so sore, but I don't care," she said. "I'd do it 100 times over again to dance with Bono. I couldn't have prayed harder for this."
. You've certainly shown courage and dignity. Best of luck!
