In all my years as a journalist, I’ve never really had a chance to “enjoy” my work. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not talking about working as a writer and editor for a living (my dream job) or my current position at Saratoga Living (covering my hometown), but rather the writing itself. Because I do so much of it over such a short period of time, I don’t really have the time to kick back and re-read the stories I publish—nor would I ever feel comfortable doing that after hours. (I’m not vain enough to do that!) In fact, I’ve done it very rarely throughout my career. The last time I really sat down with a piece of my own writing in its published form was several years ago, when I re-read an entire magazine that I’d published for Beckett Media, counting down the top 50 musicians of all time, a project I’d spent months writing and revising. About halfway through, I was hit with this intense sense of pride and crumpled over in tears. I lost it. It was like I finally realized how much of myself I put into it.
Now, I’m not the type to get too sentimental, especially nowadays when I’m locked in my home office for most of the day, with little by way of connection to the outside world, but the simple act of writing the following words fills my heart with such pride, and I’ll enjoy this story long after it’s published on the website: Major Paul “Tucker” Jancsy of the New York Air National Guard and Delta Airlines, whom I profiled when he was lying in a Saratoga Hospital bed in the ICU on a ventilator—and then updated you on, when he was taken off the ventilator and sent to the COVID ward for recovery—is being released from the hospital today at 2pm.
Friends and family members have been asked to gather—properly socially distanced, of course, and preferably wearing face masks—by Saratoga Hospital’s ambulance door 15 minutes beforehand, to welcome Major Jancsy back to the outside world. The event will be live streamed by his wife, Sara. NewsChannel 10 will also be there to cover Major Jancsy’s release.
According to Sara, her husband is “recovering from COVID and the process of rehabilitating from the virus and a ventilator,” but he’s been in good spirits. Being bedridden for as long as he was, he dropped 40 pounds and had to do rehabilitation to get walking again. But he’s regained some of that weight back, and has been talking a blue streak since the day he was extubated.
Although he’ll be finally home, Major Jancsy and his wife will now have to spend the next two weeks in mandatory quarantine—ironically, apart. “We will quarantine together alone,” says Sara. But he’ll be home.
Update: Major Paul “Tucker” Jancsy walked out of Saratoga Hospital at 2:13pm to a massive crowd gathered to welcome him home. “I can’t believe how many people are here,” said Jancsy, who was surrounded by his wife, family, friends, first-responders and more. (Watch Paul’s homecoming here.)