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| Another day, another backless gown. |
This came into sharp focus over the past month. First, Ray had another heart attack. This was #5 (#1 with quad bypass and a couple stents was at age 50, for which he always thanks his mother’s genes). Thankfully, we know the drill by now and got him in post haste.
This time, he needed a couple new stents (the cardiologist called himself “the plumber”). He also had a new glitch this time—atrial flutter. So they had to put the cables on and jump-start his heart back into normal sinus rhythm (a different cardiologist for this one, who called himself “the electrician”), which worked like a charm. After a few days in the Big City heart hospital, Ray came home wearing a monitor for a couple weeks and feeling good but tired.
(Sidenote: We learned that cardio nurses get a big kick out of police and hospital shows that zap dead people back to life. She told us there’s no zapping someone back from a flatline.)
The next week, I was picking up a laundry basket and felt a pop in my lower back. I couldn’t straighten up, I needed a cane to get up or down, I hobbled around like Quasimodo, and I whined. A lot. I loaded up on Advil and ice packs until the following week, when I already had an appointment scheduled for my annual Medicare checkup. If you’ve never had one of these, they’re pretty funny. They start with a “wellness check,” a series of questions to test your mental health and memory, and to try and figure out if you’re a fall risk. You can’t imagine how badly I wanted to blink my eyes like a stunned doe or make up silly answers just for fun.
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| Meanwhile, waiting back at home... |
At my age, they forego certain formerly-routine checks—no pelvic exam or pap test needed, you dried up, non-reproductive old prune, and that last home colon test will hold you for another year or two. So after the wellness quiz, the wafflemaker (a mammo), a dexa scan, lab work, peeing in a cup, and an ultrasound of my thyroid to monitor old nodules, I was released on my own recognizance with Prednisone and muscle relaxers.
(Sidenote: Prednisone is my very favorite drug. You take it for a couple days, then one day you’re walking up the stairs and realize nothing hurts—not your back, not the arthritis in your feet, not your stiff “knitters thumb,” not the shoulder that you landed on falling off your bike—uh oh…should I have reported that as a “fall risk”? Yes, the steroids can make you a little cranky and wired, but the irritability is far outweighed by how clean your house gets.)
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| The BEST therapy. |
Now I’m scheduled to go back in a couple weeks for a thyroid biopsy, because of course one nodule is .08723 mm bigger. If they test you enough, they will find something.
Somehow, in the run-up to all this, Ray put in a beautiful veggie garden, and we lived without water for a day and AC for a week, while a crew put in a new sewer line from our house out to the street, something that was long past due before we bought our 1904 house eight years ago. Our yard is now fragrant and gorgeous, dotted with hanging baskets of flowers in every color, the orioles and hummingbirds are back, and we’re settling back into our spring peace.
We’re eternally grateful for our “maintenance and service team,” which includes our daughter, who dragged all her children to our house to dog, bird, & house sit during Ray’s upgrade; our son, who trekked down once we were back home to help with lifting and pulling chores we both have to avoid for a while; our daughter-in-love, who kept me company all day in the heart hospital while Ray got his tune-up; and so many other family & friends who brought us food, sent cards and flowers, drove us to appointments, filled in on drums for Ray at our Little Town watering hole while he’s on the DL, checked on us, and let us recount ad nauseum our harrowing medical tales.
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| Blue iris. |
Ray and I know well that each hospital visit, each doctor’s appointment, every effort to eat more salad and move every day is just us buying time. No one, regardless of genetics, healthy habits, longevity supplements, yoga, inversion tables, or prayer gets to wiggle out of PO. The warranties will expire. But I’m also grateful for the reminder that every moment we’re still humming along is a gift and a wonder.
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