May 12th Carol and I began one of our trips south to visit friends and family. The special part of this one was our grandson Nick's graduation from LSU on the 16th. Our first stop was Charlotte, NC where we had a delightful dinner with a high school friend of Carol's. We settled into our motel room shortly before midnight thinking to get a leisurely start the next morning for our overnight stop in Tuscaloosa. About one am, our plans changed.
I got up to use the bathroom and promptly crashed face-first onto the carpeted floor, in pain and unable to rise. Carol called 911, and within minutes I was whisked to Carolinas Medical Center with a heart attack. I woke in Dixon Heart ICU with a stent in one artery that had been 100% blocked. After a trip out of ICU, then back because of some arrhythmia problems, I was moved to the cardiac care unit - next level down from ICU - and stayed there until Monday the 19th. Our elder daughter Laura flew down to share the drive back to the Hudson Valley with Carol. We arrived home Tuesday the 20th.
Arrived home to a lawn I couldn't mow, a benefit barn sale I couldn't help with, garden prep that wouldn't get done, and a profound sense of my own mortality.
I'm sure I've talked about aging in earlier posts, as makes sense for one in his seventies, but to experience it for the first time up close and personal puts a whole new wrinkle in it. I have to stop myself from second-guessing every ache and pain that is part of getting old, in light of my new situation. That's an unpleasant way to spend a day. I know this will change over time but for now...
I got up to use the bathroom and promptly crashed face-first onto the carpeted floor, in pain and unable to rise. Carol called 911, and within minutes I was whisked to Carolinas Medical Center with a heart attack. I woke in Dixon Heart ICU with a stent in one artery that had been 100% blocked. After a trip out of ICU, then back because of some arrhythmia problems, I was moved to the cardiac care unit - next level down from ICU - and stayed there until Monday the 19th. Our elder daughter Laura flew down to share the drive back to the Hudson Valley with Carol. We arrived home Tuesday the 20th.
Arrived home to a lawn I couldn't mow, a benefit barn sale I couldn't help with, garden prep that wouldn't get done, and a profound sense of my own mortality.
I'm sure I've talked about aging in earlier posts, as makes sense for one in his seventies, but to experience it for the first time up close and personal puts a whole new wrinkle in it. I have to stop myself from second-guessing every ache and pain that is part of getting old, in light of my new situation. That's an unpleasant way to spend a day. I know this will change over time but for now...
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Comments are always from "anonymous". Often I can identify the author by the content of the comment, but that much cogitation makes my 80 year-old brain tired. Please help out an old man and identify yourself within the text of the comment. Thanks for the comments whether or not you ID yourself. Tom