Packing!

Oh YES! Here I go again.

This coming Tuesday I'm flying to Italy for about ten days. The Amalfi Coast, Naples, the Isle of Capri. If that sounds like fun, then you never observed my struggle with a suitcase. It's not the suitcase that daunts me. It's all the other insoluble problems related to packing. . .

For instance:

What's the weather gonna be like?
How many changes of stuff will I need?
Do I take levis, khakis, or corduroys?
Something more formal, too?
Will it rain constantly?
Will it be chilly and dark?
Sunny, warm, and sweaty?
Will we be marathon-walking?
Is it possible to stay downwind of fellow travelers?
Howcum I thought this trip might be fun?

The list goes on! Never mind that I go through this crazy cycle every time I take a trip longer than one day away. I hate the approaching flight as if it were Doomsday. Then, soon as I board the first plane I'm all excited, filled with the anticipation of new places, new people, new fun. I know I'm crazy. But knowing that doesn't seem to help me with packing.

So! Today I began my NEW APPROACH to travel. I laid out an ensemble for each day. . .the stuff I'll wear on the plane. The stuff I'll wear for each day's adventure. The stuff I'll wear to supper and into the night. The stuff I'll wear on the flight homeward. A simple, orderly process for once!

I actually laid the stuff neatly out on my bed and went over it carefully. Only when I was completely satisfied with the layout, did I realize that not even half that much stuff will fit into a sensible suitcase. It was at this point that I remembered the last time I went to Europe: I never wore half the stuff I took anyway.

Ahhhh! But which HALF goes with me? Which stays home? Imponderable!

At this point in the packing-planning-process I take some small comfort from the realization that, at best, most European travelers get a little stinky by the end of the first week. Maybe a bit earlier. In fact, I've noted that most Europeans I've gotten shoved too close to are a little gamy themselves. Maybe all the time! (No wonder the United Nations doesn't run smoothly)

In their favor, I've noted that many Europeans don't seem to mind a little BO now and then. It's the Americans I've crowded up too close to that seem so fastidious. It's they who wrinkle their noses. (I wrinkle mine right back at them!) A little manly cologne could help. . .although the cologne bottle must be added to the items already cut in half.

Only one time did I find a quick solution to packing for a European trip. My flight left early one Sunday morning. I'd had a really busy Saturday. Half my stuff was still at the cleaners, because I had forgotten to pick it up before early closing time. That trip I wound up with more toilet articles than articles of clothing.

And to my surprise I didn't miss the stuff I couldn't take. All the way across the Atlantic I kept telling myself stuff like: "Never mind. You can buy any stuff you need." But it developed as the days sped by that I did quite well with about a quarter of the clothing articles I had planned to take with me. I'm a skinny, non-perspiring sorta guy. In fact, planning my packing is one of the few things that makes me sweat.

On that half-a-suitcase trip, I had plenty of clean underwear and socks, for instance. And SOAP! And shaving gear! All I had to do was let food-spills dry over-night and whack the particles off the front side of my clothing in the morning. I finessed that trip like a seasoned traveler.

Perhaps too seasoned. But one of the virtues of BO is that few people can smell their own.

It was my most comfortable trip ever.
Nobody crowded around me that much!

Groundhog Day and Other Stuff

Okay! Who knows the line of poetry that follows the one below?

"In the spring, a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove. . . ."

WHAT!? Nobody knows? Here we see another failure of the American school system. Both the public and private schools have disappointed us again. But for now, I'll set aside the wailing and finger-pointing, and proceed with my comments on Groundhog Day. (I'm already more than a month late with this posting!)

But first: here's the complete couplet:

"In the spring, a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove;
In the spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. . . .

There, SEE: You knew the answer all along. Or maybe you didn't. . .but no matter! The lines are from Alfred Lord Tennyson's Lockley Hall, a long and woefully wailing set of couplets dedicated to the various delights of Love, found, lost, and imagined. Very Victorian. But then, so was Tennyson. A British Poet Laureate, no less. He lived and wrote his verse in mid-and late-19th Century England.

As a high-school boy in Senior English, I was forced to read a bunch of critical commentary about Lord Tennyson. I also waded through seemingly endless pages of his cloyingly sweet poetry. I confess: my suffering was so acute I thought the poetry must be good.

But when I read American critiques of his work, I discovered that American poets of his time made fun of him, claimed his stuff was silly and sentimental, ridiculously ornate, and bombastically patriotic. Which is honestly what I had thought. But then, as a high-school boy, I thought that was what poetry was supposed to be.

Never mind: the English monarchy, the English public, and the English military of that day liked being simultaneously bored and praised.

And Tennyson was good at that. He was at his best-worst -- from an American high-school boy's point of view -- in his "Charge of the Light Brigade," wherein he chronicled the supposed feat of a bunch of 600 nutty British cavalrymen, who followed idiotic orders and rode into three sets of cannons during the Crimean War. THREE SETS OF CANNONS, left, right, and center. He had all the horsemen bravely blown to bits. Very Romantically Victorian. But upon further research, I discovered that only a small percentage actually suffered wounds and/or died -- a finding even more spectacular than their crazy charge. Apparently the Russian cannoneers were even more inept than were the British cavalrymen.

A little something Tennyson never mentioned in the poem? The spirited gallop was hell on the horses. But I digress.

I really wanted to talk about Groundhog Day and Punxutawney Phil, Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, and how early springtime drives young men a little crazy where women are concerned. (And maybe I will manage to tie this wandering piece together at the end.)

First, about Groundhog Day. The whole thing's a delightful hoax. The idea is built upon the fantasy that IF Punxutawney Phil -- the celebrated Groundhog -- emerges from his burrow and sees his shadow, then we are all doomed to six more weeks of grim-winter. Never mind that if you count off the weeks on any calendar you will discover that six weeks and a couple days expire between Groundhog Day and the first day of spring, anyway. Never mind! Punxutawney Phil is like the rest of us. He must have work to do.

BUT! Go ahead, I dare you. Betcha big-bucks. Count the weeks between February 2nd and March 21st. Then send me your money. Or don't. Because the truth is those of us who winter across the band of states including New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and points west are pretty sick of winter by the time the second day of February rolls around. By that time, an unseemly and maddening mixture of warm days and hard freezes have pretty much converted the snow to a crumbly-black slush. Skating-pond-ice has become untrustworthy. Road conditions have become treacherous. And we all have begun to feel a little bit crazy and closed-into our homes. A person can ski, toboggan, snow-shoe, snow-machine, and snowball-fight only so long. Exceed the limit and madness inevitably follows.

By the end of January, snow angeling seems much less angelic. Sidewalks have become dangerous. Snow-shovels and blowers have lost their tenuous appeal. We've grown seriously tired of hauling-on boots and heavy outdoor clothing. The season gets us beaten-down so badly that ridiculous pass-times like ice-fishing become ever-so-slightly appealing. And anyone who acts all robust and winter-loving strains our patience.

And YES! By February, most of us are counting the days 'til the vernal equinox. We doubt we can make it through six more weeks of lousy weather. But we have little choice when gainful work holds us close to home.

Beer-sale-figures escalate precipitously. But even utter drunkenness falls short as a solution. What we need is some sort of spiritual celebration. The sillier the better. Punxutawney Phil may be ugly and ungainly. But that's his major appeal. You just can't look at him without laughing. Whoever came up with Groundhog Day was a genius. In fact, he might be the same guy who came up with beer!

Which completes my discussion of Groundhog Day, the celebration.

Here begins my discussion of Groundhog Day, the film: starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. I would say it's an unlikely love-story. Andie's so gorgeous. Bill's. . .not. Still, he brings an irresistible charm and understated humor to most of the roles he plays. He's bright and appealing. Sometimes he's outrageously funny. In G-Day, poor Bill is doomed to live the same day over and over until he figures out how to win the love of Andie MacDowell. Or maybe more important: he has to relive each SAME-DAY until he learns to make his every-day worthwhile. Herein -- despite the zaniness of the story -- lies the really serious message of the film.

While all his Groundhog Days appear largely the same, we watch Murray master the problems of this same day. He gets better at his life: makes friends, saves a life, masters jazz piano, makes new friends and becomes central in their lives, encounters and solves small problems, and finally wins the lovely Andie MacDowell.

Despite it's fun, the film always makes me wish I could GET-BETTER -- more skillful and artistic -- at living my own life, one day at a time. Of course, that's the moral of this subtly simple story. Life is short! Make something really generous and good out of your days. Live each day as well as you can.

A good message for me. I'm at that advanced age where I remember the good and easy days of my life. The days when, though I paid attention and worked hard, I had things all my own way -- and knew it. I was seriously good at my life. . .the Master of My Days. These were the glory days: when my wife and I loved each other more every day. When we renovated our river home and made it beautiful. When we cultivated a gorgeous expanse of perennial garden. When we made our days caring-about and teaching students. When we made every day beautiful together. When we each were something very special to each other. The days when we were lovely and loving. When we made love every night.

Nancy's gone. But I remember Nancy-Time with such sweet satisfaction these days. . .because we lived it so artistically and well.

And that, I suppose, is the reason these endless POST-Nancy-Time, dark and wintry days seem so empty and loveless by comparison. They're much like those early and loveless days of the film Groundhog Day: fun sometimes. But mostly gritty, arduous, and unpromising.

And that makes me think of Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day. How he eventually took advantage of each new-OLD-Groundhog Day and made it worthwhile: learning stuff, improving himself, making friends of the people he encountered, building caring relationships, making something better of his life. And he did it one-same-Old-Groundhog Day-at-a-time.

And that's the message and promise of Groundhog Day. The film and the celebration carry the same challenging and uplifting message. A new spring's coming. That demands more creative energy. That demands trying harder. Never mind mastering our days. In fact, that means we must master ourselves. Only then do our days get better.

For each of us, the struggle to grow, to become a more loving and generous person never ends. Tennyson almost got it right -- for each of us. It's not just a young man's fancy that in springtime

"lightly turns to thoughts of love."
An OLD man's fancy does too.

Nobody Gets Too Much Love Any More

The words that follow and complete the opening line of that old Bee Gee song tell us: "it's high as a mountain, and harder to climb."

Certainly true in my current life. But don't think I'm whining. Few people've had the life I've had: prolonged good health, a fine career, extreme "comfort" -- if not great wealth. . .and the love of a wonderful woman I worshiped for most of forty years. Not bad! I'll take it. . .and slide off grinning like a bandit! At least most of the time.

During the final phases of her life, my sainted Gramma used-to confess her age with a pesky grin and add the word "young." As in "79-years-YOUNG!" She never complained about her longevity. She never whined about her cranky joints and often-dyspepsic-stomach. . .or about the growing length of time it took her to complete her daily chores. She stayed busy, often humming a Methodist hymn. And in the final phases of her life, she maintained a sort of smiling grace I took for granted. I'm a little bit wiser now. I now know it's true that she meant her life to be an example for me and the others she loved.

She died in the seventh month of her eightieth year. And until lately, I never quite understood the depth of her creative energy and fortitude. She was one tough and caring lady.

I'm thinking about her today because last night I watched a movie that both broke my heart and lifted me.

I'm not a movie critic. I just know what I like. And what I like is often something that reflects my own life, the way I've tried to live it. . .the good luck I've enjoyed and the joyful love I've experienced.

I say at the outset that Hollywood gangs-up on the unwary. The people we meet in films are gorgeous. Their struggles are touching. Things nearly always work out just as we wish our own struggles to work out: happily ever after. Ahhhhh, those brave and rewarding sunsets.


So! The film we watched was "Love and Other Drugs." Ann Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhall -- or however he spells it. If you haven't watched that film, I recommend it. But then, depending upon your own life and dreams, you may not like the film at all. It's about a handsome young guy who wins-big selling pharmaceuticals. He meets and falls in love with a young woman struggling in the early stages of Parkinson's Disease. He has no idea what he's in for in the beginning. He simply thinks he's won a prize. I think he has, too.

As the Hathaway character advances through the stages of her disease, she drives him out of her life. All the reasons for this aren't clear. Perhaps a really good relationship is frightening because the challenges are so great and the stakes so high. And the pay-offs so great. Perhaps there are moments -- moments we hide -- when we fear we can only go on together when we are at our very best. And we doubt we have the discipline to live the good and the testing times with grace. Perhaps such marriages last because we learn over time how to imagine we actually deserve the wonderful days we experience. And perhaps we actually DO grow into the strength such good marriages demand. Maybe we really do try hard, learn and grow. That's surely something good to hope for and work hard to achieve. After all, all of life is learning.

So I have to imagine that Hathaway drives Jake out because she doubts her capacity to face her death with dignity. She doesn't want him to see the weaknesses she fears he will come to see in her. But Jake has his own doubts. . .about his own strengths. There is a brief scene in which Jake meets a grief-stricken survivor of a Parkinson marriage. And this grieving husband assures Jake that as much as he had loved his wife, or perhaps because he loved her so much: he is not certain he could, or would make the same choice again. Perhaps he would have left her to die alone. At one point, he opines, that leaving her seems to be exactly what she would have preferred.

In some brief, yet key scenes, we see the progress of Hathaway' disease, and how it ravages her. She struggles to open safety-top pill bottles, for instance. Still, when she finally drives Jake out, he regretfully leaves. Yet, we see that mixed-in with his apparent heartbreak and regret is considerable relief -- and the whole sprinkled with guilt. Jake's young and inexperienced. He permits her to drive him away. And, as we elderly know full-well, our unfinished business remains tucked within us, no matter how far we may choose to run. Better to face life head-on while we have youthful strength and energy and perhaps a powerful will borne of ignorance.

Never mind how the film ends, except to say it ends at a triumphant point. Nevertheless, I identified strongly with the characters and the situation. More important, I realized from my own experience what sorts of terrible things would surely follow that triumphant point. The film both terrified and lifted me. . .moved me to emotional turmoil and tears.

Nearly four years ago, my wife died of breast cancer that finally moved to her liver. Nancy was a health educator who took good care of herself. She was brilliant and skilled, clever and funny, strong and brick-house built. A green-eyed-ravishing blond beauty with great teeth, she smiled when she drove a tennis ball down my throat. The three years of her terrible dying, and the four since her death have tested me over and over again.

This ordeal came to Nancy and me when we were twice the ages of the characters in this movie. We'd been married thirty-seven wonderful years during which I never loved her less. . .I always loved her more. Every day. Never mind why. You would have to have known Nancy to understand. She was truly that good.

So now I'm an aging widower -- now closer to eighty than seventy. Just before she died, Nancy earnestly said to me: "Find a woman you can love who loves you. Be happy" Not knowing how to respond, I promised to do as she wished.

Need I say I have since discovered two things: first, all the good women within my age-range are firmly attached and deserve to be. And second: it appears that whatever I once was, whatever it was that drew Nancy to me and held her is long gone. I say this with good humor. In 1960, I saw the film "Gigi." Early in the film, the gracefully aging Maurice Chevalier sings a delightful song entitled "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore!" Trust me; fifty years later I have come to understand the song quite well. Enough to say with good grace and humor that I've been loved long and well. If necessary, I feel quite able to finish-up the final phases of my life alone.

"Sorry, Nancy! My love stays with you!"

I have my memories and a few more good things to accomplish. . .not to mention my kids and grandkids. I hope to live long enough to find out what good things may happen in their lives. . .and how I might yet have a hand in their good fortune.

Years ago I heard it said: "The older a man gets, the faster he ran as a boy!" Yet, the greater part of grace is seeing oneself clearly. The few fine, unattached ladies I've seen have not seen me. Or if they have seen me, they felt no need to express interest. Never mind: I prefer to think of them as victims of their own good judgment!

Still, regarding my present Joy and Sorrow, I point to the wise words of Kahlil Gibran, who in his poem by that name so wisely said: "The deeper that sorrow carves into your being , the more joy you can contain." And further on he assures us: "When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight."

Wise man, this Gibran.

The Bee Gees got it right. Perhaps, it's true that "nobody gets too much love anymore." But then I've been uncommonly lucky. More than half my life, I've been well loved.

Still, I have to laugh. Incurable Romantic that I remain, I have moments when I imagine that any minute now, some gracefully-grown-old Ann Hathaway is waiting for me right around the next corner.

Pardon me, please!
I'm in a hurry just now!

Over-Walked&Tired-Out!

This is what I get for having my heart reamed out last November, then undertaking an extensive and meticulously careful Cardio-Rehabilitation program. These professional medical-types: they approach their work with a combination of caring and competence: as if a little edgy exercise comes with the grim likelihood of another coronary "incident"-- and maybe a negligence law-suit lurking ominously in the background. Over the passing weeks and months, I've come to the solid conclusion they know what they're doing. Just as important, could be they like us, their slightly bumbling clients.

I never shoulda told 'em about my recent difficulty that landed me in Henry Ford Hospital down west of Detroit.

But I did. So this Wednesday and Thursday I got way too much attention. Took my blood-pressure so many times -- on alternating arms -- that my fingers finally got numb. Never mind the readings stayed well within my established range for my treadmill and AirDyne half-hour programs. I even did well on the Upper-Body-Exerciser (which is a heart-breaker by any measure).

I always begin and end my sessions with some yoga and related stretches. To my surprise, today's forty-five minute session wore me out completely. In fact, they hadda take my blood-pressure TWICE. Wouldn't let me move until it finally came down to like 130-over-60. Karen acted like she didn't hear me when I asked the first reading. That sorta earnest quietness makes a guy think. And feel a little uneasy.

And what I thought and felt was how much these people know, how much they care. They're young: in the prime of life, intelligent, well-trained, and gently caring. We're prob'ly their parent's age. So they treat us with a caring fondness. They don't have-ta care about us. Still, it's clear that they DO. Caring about people is who they are. That much I read in their behavior.

This morning was the first day back for Karen, an especially lovely person, fetching and attractive -- the sort of person who always greets us with a warm smile, as if she's waited all week to see us again. I missed Monday this week because I was out of town -- and at Henry Ford Hospital, though that wasn't a part of my intended mission. And yesterday was her day off.

Her mother had died, after a long illness the weekend since I last saw her. So I had written her a nice letter, expressing sympathy, noting that I had recently lost my own mother ten years ago. I wanted Karen to know I had some small insight into what she might be feeling. As I entered the lab, I simply handed her the card and letter, then went about my exercise program. So I hadn't realized she had read my letter until we were removing and cleaning-up our monitors at the end of our session.

Karen approached me, and warmly thanked me; gave me a really big hug. Made us both kinda tear up. Believe me: I never woulda made it as a lumber-jack or a brick-layer or a cop! And certainly not as a physician. On the one hand, I could not KNOW enough. On the other hand, I would certainly FEEL too much. I'd always get emotionally involved with the trees, the buildings, the victims of crimes. It's all right to do something well. It may be too exhausting to care all that much.

For instance: I loved everything about teaching. . .except the evaluation portion. Grading people's work is a tricky business. "VeryGOOD! C-plus!" is the standard joke among teachers. I always liked to provide sensible evaluative criteria, to teach the students to judge the value of their own work. Isn't THAT the major gift a teacher can give a student? "Know how to judge your own work. Work hard. Do the best you can possibly do." Teach that. And make your own presence progressively less necessary. Teach yourself out of a job, as we use-ta say.

So I maybe care too much about learners these days. But I can't help it. I no longer teach. . .which leaves me with too few people to care about and do stuff for. So when people do things for me, I nearly always feel touched. Or maybe the more correct word is "teched," because these days, being around people who are nice to me both touches me and drives me nuts.

What makes me borderline crazy is when people are purposefully generous to me, and I have no way to help them in return. I mean: thanking people who are committed to helping you -- every time you're with them -- must soon come to sound habitual and empty.

That's why writing Karen that letter mattered to me. It was the ONE THING I was finally able to DO that might be helpful to her!

Today's been a good day so far. ReHab went well this morning. Then I came home, changed into warm exercise gear, and walked the roads for nearly two hours. The weather was the best so far this spring: 60 degrees, warm breeze, greening fields and lawns. People out and about.

So I'm a little over-walked and tired out.
But I somehow feel brand new!

Coming Home to Ourdocsin

I'm a little confused. Feels like I've been away a long time.

Part of my writing-time has been taken up with yoga and light-weight-workouts. But the major portion of my time has been monopolized by a rigorous Cardio-ReHabilitation program I've recently undertaken.

Five months ago I had a health crisis that resulted when a prescribed endoscopy and an angioplasty hit head-on. BIG CRASH! Since then I've been preoccupied with a carefully monitored Cardio-ReHab program at Covenant Hospital. Three mornings a week I report to the laboratory attached to my local hospital, strap-on a heart-monitor, and try to keep my heart within a prescribed "normal" range while tromping merrily along on a treadmill, pedaling ferociously on an Airdyne stationary bike, and whirling the handles of an Upper Body Exerciser -- a half hour on each of the first two, and fifteen minutes on the UBE. I've had to patiently work UP to those figures. I've worked hard. But I'm slowly regaining my old strength.

Trust me! A guy could have a heart-attack doing all this kinda stuff.

Actually, NOT SO!

We experimental white mice all wear a monitor attached to four electrodes -- two measure heartbeat speed and regularity beneath each collar-bone, and two more keep a similar record from near my two lower floating ribs. This monitoring process produces a running picture of cardiac performance on a tv monitor that one cautious Exercise Physiologist watches like a hawk. Three other EP's try to enhance the performance of my group by whacking the backs of our legs with switches and poking us in the butt with pointy sticks. A fine sado-masochistic time is had by all. This program is just the sort of suffering I've always enjoyed.

I think I may be doing well. Only once, so far, has one of the EP's -- over-seeing my cardiac stream on the computer screen -- shrieked and made alarming faces, while simultaneously yanking me off the bike. But I didn't feel anything amiss. Spooky! All this alarm. . . and as far as I could tell, my heart was performing as I always thought it had.

Little do any of us know?! I thought I knew better than she what was going on in my chest.

But NOPE! When I made her SHOW me the source of all her alarm, there they were: Pulmonary Ventricular Contractions -- PVC's: ugly little pointy-blips, pelting down like angry rain-drops all over my customarily "regular" heart-beat patterns. And I couldn't FEEL the irregularity. Strange. You'd think a guy could FEEL his heart racing pell-mell along, as it panted and flipped around inside his chest .

But NO! "No sense, no feeling!" as my Sainted Gramma frequently opined while watching my antics when I was growing up. Only this time, Gramma is long gone. . .having died at approximately my current age. . .probably from flashing PVC's. I never knew exactly what took her -- her death certificate said "Heart Disease." But it might be that my "antics" had some woeful impact that shortened her life.

I'm told these PVC's run in families. Gramma died in 1959. And owing largely to improved medical procedures, I have already outlived her by almost seven years. Clearly, this is a better time to be alive. . .and an easier time to stay that way. But I digress.

About these PVC's: this recent departure from accustomed heart regularity surprised and worried me. All my life I've exercised vigorously. In early middle-age I trained-for and ran marathons. Over the more-recent years of my aging I've become a vigorous long-distance walker. Four or five days a week, before my recent set-back, I walked at a vigorous pace, no less than an hour out, an hour back. Sometimes as long as two hours out, two hours back. And in fact, I never experienced -- that is, FELT -- the PVC'S or any discomfort associated with them. Possibly there weren't any such symptoms. . .though they may well have developed over time as I aged.

Until my new doctor found a strange sound in my heart, and authenticated her worries with a heart-catheterization, I thought my heart was sound. I should have expected she would find something troublesome. I'd been experiencing an occasional sharp pain beneath my left shoulder-blade near the end of my walks. And over the past year I've been returning from my walks feeling tired. All this discomfort, I rationalized, were simply the result of my inevitable aging process -- a process I was determined to ignore. Or at least NOT surrender to. Many aging athletes, look for excuses to slow down or miss a workout. Not me. I'm too much of an idiot to malinger.

Compulsive athletes of all ages train themselves to ignore symptoms, explain them away, or defy them. As would any other NUTTY person. But my wife's recent death and the relentless-creep of my aging process have perhaps increased my nuttiness. I'm less intelligently-careful nowadays. It's not enough for me to maintain. I feel an impulse to improve! (Who knows? Dead may be better!)

So anyway, my new doctor pressed me to have a variety of tests and exploratory surgical procedures, so she could better understand the degree of my physical deterioration, though she smiled as she said "physical health" instead. She's the glass-half-FULL sort. Still, she had, no doubt, already reckoned from our introductory interview that my mental health was beyond repair. So she scheduled a whole bunch of tests and surgical procedures she hoped would develop a baseline for her "study" (as she said) of my physical health. . .which she resolved to improve.

I got a surprise when I saw what she had seen on my most recent EKG. The heart catheterization she then ordered revealed that all three major arteries on the left side of my heart were blocked about 98%. So she had my heart-guy roto-root them and place some stents. The before and after pictures astonished me. BEFORE, those arteries appear as piddly-little strings all full of blockages. AFTER, they appear large as my index finger, engorged with flowing blood. What'll they think of next?! These days they can fix anything.

So, my eyes popped out when I saw the improvements in that AFTER-picture, and I thought: "Hmmmmnnnn!? A marathon in my future?" But my surgeon -- apparently reading my so-called mind -- cut THAT thought short, with: "Nope. . .we have to do considerable work before your heart FUNCTIONS as well as it LOOKS! (Good thing he doesn't even know about my destroyed knee replacement, and the sadly-worn condition of most of my other joints. )

He put me to work immediately. Cardio-Rehabilitation has taken over a large chunk of my every day.

I work three days with monitored supervision at the hospital, and I work at least three more days at home, using one of those chest-strap monitors and an automatic blood-pressure gizmo. I work methodically, INTO and OUT-OF my home regimens. Whether or not I'm "throwing off PVC's" -- as my OT's so colorfully put it -- I have no way of knowing. Can't feel 'em. But I AM feeling progressively stronger as the weeks roll out. And I've regained most of the strength that slipped away from before and after the angioplasty. Soon I want to improve.

I've also overcome a more-serious surgical mishap that occurred in November. I'm especially thankful. . .because this past Thanksgiving month I very nearly didn't survive. One of the exploratory surgeries was one of those lovingly intrusive endoscopies we all enjoy so much. As I said above, he removed a bunch of benign polyps from my lower bowel.

Once he removed the polyps, he cauterized the hole, which left one large scab on my bowel. Five days later, I had the angioplasty, and the stents required the blood-thinner, Plavix. The Plavix washed away the scabs in my bowel, and I lost a frightening amount of blood.

Worse, my heart-guy and my bowel-guy disagreed. One said I definitely needed the Plavix to seat my new stents correctly -- which was true. The other dug his heels in, saying they should take me off Plavix. . .until my bowel healed. Catch-22.

Few people have TWO choices about how they will immediately die. We chose a third option: three critical days without Plavix -- which we hoped would stop the bleeding, while we replaced some of the lost blood. For a brief scary period it seemed like a case of "IN-one-end-OUT-the-other." But I retained much of the new blood and got out of danger.


So that's my Long-Version excuse for not posting to my blog. The short version: I haven't written because my days are filled with Cardio-Rehabilitation tasks, yoga, and regular light-weight workouts. Plus, for a long time I was too dizzy to think and write. But now, the OLD dizzy is gone. My NEW dizzy compulsion is to reclaim my former good physical condition. My home-work-outs are longer and more rigorous. I'm determined to regain my solid physical condition, or at least leave a well-conditioned corpse.

And I plan to do this while posting to my blog.

My daughter and her guy, and my two rambunctious grand-children (five and seven years of age and filled with explosive energy) are providing what care I need -- which is not much. I'm well able to take care of myself.

ONE Worst Thing: Tara is a super-good cook. I've regained my lost weight and MORE. Currently, I'm working-on getting thinner. . .a chancy process, given the current condition of my heart.

TWO Best Things: Cardio-ReHab is strengthening my heart. And this house is once again full of family noises and stories I plan to tell you.

Life is good! I'll tell you about my new family in one of my future blogs.

Meanwhile: I'm back to ourdocsin!
And I intend to post several times a week.