The whole idea of this blog was to get me to write.

The total lack of regular postings throws that out the window, but please, dear readers, rest assured it's not because I don't think about it. the hard part is, there are so many things I can think of that need doing right now (or at least, before i go to bed), all of which preclude sitting down at the computer and writing for any length of time.

but i'm going to try, because i actually like it, and because i *really* like to come back and find comments from others who read my stuff!

and i'm going to try because a lot has happened since my last post. a VERY lot. the short version is, John had (and is recovering from) quadruple bypass surgery in March.

go ahead, read it again. it bears repeating.

and no, it wasn't planned. it wasn't an emergency in the sense of "he had chest pains so we went to the hospital and they kept him for surgery that day", but it was unexpected.

and it still has quite a lot of intensity about it, enough that i'm sure i'll shed a tear or two before finishing this post. (which is why I've decided not to post the whole story at once.)

the last Saturday in February, I woke up around 5:30 because I could hear him in, well, I guess "distress" is the best word. i got up and came into the living room (he had fallen asleep there the night before) to see what was up. somehow, and i really don't remember how, he walked back to the bedroom with me, all the while trying to tell me what was up. he managed to speak enough to tell me that his chest hurt, but also his wrists hurt and were sore to the touch, and that was all i could get out of his communication.

for those of you totally unaware, John is 17 years older than I, and not in perfect shape. so the occassional shortness-of-breath chest pain wasn't out of our experience. and then there's the fact that I basically did not have a clue what was going on, and asked him if he wanted to go to the hospital, and he said he didn't know, either.

the oddness of the symptoms totally threw us both off, and as a result, we did nothing then.

that's me. first aid and rescue training from the Brownies on thru adulthood, and we did nothing.

(yeah, i admit, I've beaten myself up about this a little. the voice is hard to shut up sometimes.)

what he did do, once the pain had subsided, was look up his symptoms as he understood them, and try to figure out what to do next. He is and was uninsured (long story, but sucks), so we got him an appointment at the local free clinic(Thursday), and they sent him for some tests at the hospital the next week (another Thursday).

The main test was called a "myocardial perfusion", and it apparently sucked as far as John was concerned. Once the results were read by the cardiologist, they wanted to keep him that night for another test. John told me that part, but until the cardiologist talked to me, i didn't understand that they *really* wanted to keep him that night. They scheduled a cardiac catheterization for the next Monday, because that was as soon as John could commit to returning for the test without totally abandoning doing payroll for a company of almost 200 people to a new person who was mostly untrained.

that's all I can write for now. this is harder to relive than I thought it would be. take heart, if you're affected thus: he is back and getting better every day.

blessed be,
L