My Sonoma - Valley of the Moon. Our hospital

I was born in Sonoma Valley’s first hospital on Burndale Road.

My brother, Jim, was born at Sonoma Valley’s second hospital, at Buena Vista. I also had my tonsils and my appendix removed there. My sons, Ryan and Darin, were both born at Sonoma Valley Hospital at its current downtown location.

Over my lifetime, virtually every member of my family has been treated at, and spent time in, Sonoma Valley Hospital.

My earliest memories are of the one in Buena Vista. It was at the end of narrow and bumpy Castle Road. To me it was a spooky place in the dark woods.

I was 13 when my appendix flared up and Dr. William Newman, local family doc, performed the appendectomy there. The operating room had a big window that faced the north hillside.

The night following my surgery, I came out of the anesthesia to lots of shouting and swearing. It was sometime after midnight. I was in a room with three other beds. The commotion was coming from a guy who’d been in a car wreck and had a broken leg. He was intoxicated and the nurses on duty were having a hard time getting him to settle down.

The next day, the guy was splinted up and no longer in a combative mood. He was a talker, and whether I wanted to listen or not, I was trapped. I don’t recall all of his ramblings, but it involved his drinking and partying exploits. There was one thing I remember vividly. It happened on the second or third day of our rooming together.

The nurse stopped by my bed in the morning and asked if I had gone to the bathroom (No. 2) since my surgery. I answered no – it hurt to stand and get to the bathroom. She said, “We’ll have to do something about that.”

After she left the ward, the guy said, “You know what she’s going to do to you now – give you an enema.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

He explained the process. Very shortly thereafter, I found the will to get myself to the bathroom before the procedure was necessary.

Roommates are no longer among the amenities of Sonoma Valley Hospital, but they had both an up and down side.

Shortly after my appendectomy, there was a big campaign for a new hospital downtown.

My Dad, Mike Mulas, August Sebastiani, August Pinelli, George Nicholas, Homer Bosse, Tom Polidori, Louie Minelli, D.A. Pfeiffer, Rich Peterson, Judge Ray Grinstead, Dr. C.B. Andrews and virtually every doctor, lawyer, banker, insurance man, merchant, realtor, dairyman, vintner and farmer in Sonoma Valley stepped up to lead a Valley-wide campaign for the hospital on land generously provided by the Sebastiani family on Andrieux Street.

The whole town got behind it. It was a triumph of community unity, spirit and generosity, led by the generation of Sonomans who had come through the Great Depression and World War II. They understood that Sonoma just wouldn’t be a real community without its own quality hospital.

In  2013, I was invited recently to join in an effort to finish raising $11 million to finish out the hospital’s new emergency room and surgery wing. A $35 million bond, passed by the community two years earlier was almost enough to complete the job, but not entirely.

Gary and Marcia Nelson, and Les and Judy Vadasz, among others, made our fund-raising job easier with incredibly generous, multi-million-dollar donations. It took a lot more local donors and a year, but the $11 million was raised and the new wing opened in February of 2014.