alive & 100%

post-Hurricane recovery life goes on and on, doesn't it, and on and on and on, including here. All porch furniture is crowded back into the living room area (it's not a separate living room as, except for bedroom and study/den, we've one room, that comprises living/dining/kitchen), such that it takes us back to the stress and trauma that was 7H from 10 Oct 2018 to mid-Aug 2019. This too shall pass, and I'm in no hurry, because it uses up my Time, which we octogenarians must measure out day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, realizing that every day is a beautiful day and enjoy. So, amen then. 

Fairly well done with the Park/Beck side, the HV contractor has taken up on the Bay side, where the scaffolding is up and now in use for cleaning and painting, including the porch of each unit. Porches had to be cleared for pressure wash, tape off, and painting. They came and did the pressure wash while we were at clergy & spouse (today the politically and socially correct term may be clergy & SO for Significant Other, IDK) luncheon, so it's commenced for serious. 

The contractor started with our building, in the photo above the leftmost and most southern and eastern building right on the Bay and facing Shell "Island", maybe they'll finish our building and clear us for takeoff before proceeding on to the next building.

Rain this moment, 63°F 93% humidity. We're both alive and 100% and it's a beautiful day.

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This Day in History: Monday, 24 Jan 2011 Cleveland Clinic campus hotel, northern winter at its most determined. Up before dawn for long shower using special soap and warned not to get it in eyes or mouth. Dress warmly as it's teen-or-twenty something outside, onto campus trolley with friends and loved ones for short ride to Heart Institute for earliest appointment. 

Picked up by wheelchair, goodbye waves and kisses and off to Do It. In prep room, "Take off everything but your birthday suit". Me, shooting to add lightness to the Monday dawn: "Shall I keep my birthday suit on?" Humorless retort: "Take off everything but your birthday suit and lie on the gurney". On gurney under blanket, prepped, blessed with oil and prayer, kissed goodbye, wheeled away through double doors and beyond to a long, wide, high corridor with sets of double-opening wide, high sliding doors on left and right, each set of doors to an OR. 

Parked against the left bulkhead to watch and wait, clutching my bottle of tiny pills against near certainty of searing angina, which never came and has never returned. Watch and wait. Medics in green and blue scrubs begin arriving and entering ORs on both sides of the corridor. Huge machines are rolled down the corridor and into my OR. Presently, a man in physician scrubs comes out of my OR, introduces himself as my anesthesiologist, gives me either a pill or a shot, I don't recall, to help me relax, and hooks me up for his drip. 

I had been worried my feet would get cold, but orderlies keep bringing out toasty warm blankets and covering me, so I'm warm. Whatever the doctor gave me helps, I guess, though I'm never the least bit uptight anyway because, after all, it was either This or soon oblivion and I've chosen This, where every day is a beautiful day. After waiting an hour or so while my OR is made ready, I'm wheeled in, the blanket is taken, I'm covered with a loincloth, and asked to shift over onto the operating table, which is stainless steel. I anticipate a freezing shock, but it's as toasty warm as the blankets. 

I glance around and see the team of medics who will perform my open heart surgery, including the team head who is chief of all cardiac surgery and who had met with us the previous Friday. In that meeting he'd asked if I had any fears. I told him I was afraid my feet would be cold. For confirmation, he asked if I wanted to have the surgery. I said Yes, I have no option. He said I think your option is heart failure. I said back in October my cardiologist told me I had two to five months to live, and I'm nearing the end of that Time. He said I agree with what he told you.

I slide from the gurney onto the operating table, the anesthesiologist starts my drip, and within three seconds I'm in oblivion. I hadn't realized this, but apparently, under deep anesthesia and on the heart & lung machine, one is as near dead as one can be while still alive. There is no feeling, no sensing, even the brain goes dark, not even any dreaming. Pity: all the wonderful dreams I had prepared for dreaming while under the anesthesia were for naught. 

T  

For my sister, Happy Birthday, Gina!