Been A While

 I hope your Christmas celebrations were more fun than mine.  

It's been a while, so let me sum up.  Back on 12/19/2025 after walking the dogs around the parking lot across the street, as I did nearly every evening the weather permitted, I came into the house and realized I was having a real problem catching my breath.  I put it down to the increased humidity and cold out there, combined with a seasonal respiratory issue - no infection, just a seasonal collection of mucous in my head that did not want to leave.  

I tried laying down in bed, but it got worse.  So I told myself I'd sleep in my recliner.  I did get an hour or so of sleep, but things weren't getting better, despite the decongestant.  Then I thought "what if it's a problem with the furnace?"  I calmed right down.  I'd replaced the batteries in all of the smoke/carbon monoxide detectors just a month before, and standing outside didn't seem to make a difference.  I yelled down the stairs to my wife, confirmed she was still alive and breathing.  I sat down.  And it wasn't getting better.

So I grabbed my car keys and drove myself to the emergency room.  Initially they thought it might be walking pneumonia, and hit me with a dose of antibiotic - Ceftriaxone, J0626, 2 grams, or 8 units, via infusion.  And they added a syringe of Lasix too.  

So to that point, I was thinking "well, OK, you're probably just lucky to get off with a minor annoyance."  My wife got to the hospital and gave me the expected what for I deserved for taking myself to the hospital while letting my exhausted wife sleep.  My son and his wife left the following day for Florida to visit her family for Christmas.  And on Sunday afternoon, they did a "one more check" with an ultrasound of my heart, since I seemed to be doing much better.

Silly me.  When three doctors come in to talk to you about the results of an ultrasound, you know that the inclined plane wrapped around a cylinder is headed your way in the ugliest of fashions - yep,I was screwed.  "We don't do that kind of surgery here, we'll need to transfer you to Southdale" was one of the unpleasant bits of news.  

So come boxing day, when everyone was looking to return the Christmas Presents they didn't want, I got a quadruple bypass.  Perhaps the most traumatic part of it was that neither of my children had ever seen me without a beard -- but the medical staff did say I could do that part myself.  Given that I had absolutely no qualifications to do much more than lay still on the table, I guess I'm good with that.  

One thing they did skip over on the pre-surgery briefing was that oh, hey, you're going to find a number of pretty ugly scars scattered around as they borrowed arteries/veins from my leg and arm to fix the partially clogged bits near my heart, so those are healing.  I'm going to cardiac rehab three times a week to rebuild muscles and get back into some shape.  I'll be starting work again in about a week, as I didn't qualify for any sort of paid leave, so I got that going for me.  

Other than that, still here, just a few more scars. 

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