A minor hitch in the program

[aadler]

Things had been going pretty well. Then they changed.

What a difference a weekend makes.

Friday evening, I started having a familiar kind of pain across my back, from one shoulder to the next. It was nowhere near as severe as what I had experienced toward the end of 2021, but it was exactly the same type. Susan wanted to call an ambulance again, I told her we could get there more quickly if she drove me. She did so, and during the ride I 1) took my third nitroglycerine tablet and 2) called the VA to let them know the situation and that I was on my way.

By the time we arrived, I was 95% recovered. By the time a doctor saw me, recovery was complete. All the same, they found the same kind of cardiac enzymes as before, so I was transferred (by ambulance) to the hospital that deals with such things, though it’s still covered by the VA.

Susan followed in our car. By then, it was later evening. And, while I was being checked over at the new hospital, she fell in their dark parking lot and injured her wrist and knee. The knee that had been responding so well to her pain therapy program.

I turned out to have re-stenosis of the same coronary artery that had been affected before, and a third stent was placed. Susan had to wait at home — after her own treatment — because she couldn’t walk without assistance. After I’d been monitored for another day, I was released, and by then she was enough recovered, barely, to come get me. Even so, for her next pain therapy appointment I had to push her inside in a wheelchair, which hadn’t been necessary before.

We’re dealing. I’m hoping Susan’s incapacity is only temporary, a matter of bruising and strain that will heal naturally. As for me …

I won’t say I’m shaken, but it does call for some reassessment. Before, a minor heart attack was something that had happened that one time; now, it appears to be something that happens to me. I’m going to have to put a lot more attention into personal fitness, and to setting things up so that Susan can deal if anything more serious lands on me.

I feel fine, and certainly don’t feel old (though my knees occasionally register a dissenting vote). Still, it would be foolish to ignore a second warning. Nobody lives forever; I was hoping for another 25, 30 years minimum, but it’s time to start arranging for eventualities that might not follow my preferences.

Among other things, that would mean accelerating our plans to move overseas. And, oh yes, I really need to finish the fanfic stories I’ve been planning to do ‘really, really soon’ for the last 19 years.

That’s how it is. And that’s where we are.