 | A WRITER'S WIT |  D. Koontz |
I'M BACK! I signed off in May and meant to return much sooner, but I got embroiled in a couple of imbroglios. First of all, I have been without a washer for six weeks. Don't ever buy one from a big box store that begins with "L." Second, I was anticipating my ablation procedure on June 20 and began resting up. EARLY! RJ
HISTORY OF AN ABLATION
I’ve battled A Fib @Afib_Disease #AFib since 2003, living through (if you want to call it that) episodes in which my heart speeded up to 130-140 beats per minute. For hours. Sometimes days, intermittently, until additional drugs and rest could coax the heart rate back to a normal one. When the heart is in A Fib, the upper two chambers of the heart beat fast while the lower two, unable to keep up, sort of quiver, inviting blood to pool, coagulate, clot, and possibly cause a stroke (thankfully, meds like Warfarin and Xarelto “thin” the blood to reduce the chances). In addition, I take a cocktail of four other medications to maintain this thin margin of being in A Fib or not in A Fib. The biggest trigger for me (although there does not need to be a trigger) was stress, inner stress I often wasn’t even aware of until it was too late, and there I was under attack inside my own body.
June 17, 2018 Austin, Texas
I can’t believe the hour has arrived . . . almost. Here in Austin for my ablation on Wednesday. We've flown down direct from Lubbock—only a slight delay and the flight takes but an hour and five minutes! In some cities that’s a driver’s daily commute. No wonder Doctor Gallinghouse makes the trip twice a month from Austin to Lubbock—easy peasy.
As we approach the cab queue, the first driver in line waves to us and smiles. His skin is the color of wintered pecans, and his teeth almost iridescently white.
Midtown Holiday Inn, we say once we are inside the cab, and the driver hands us his phone—white but smeared with constant use—and asks us to type in the address. Lucky for us I have memorized it so that when I enter about half to it into his phone, the address pops up and I tap it. Then as we take off from the airport into Austin, I wonder if I have selected the correct address. “We might wind up at Big Lots,” I say to Ken.
“Check your phone,” he says, and I do, opening my map app. Yes, I believe once he hits IH-35 that we are on our way. The fare winds up being $34.70 and Ken gives the man a fifty and tells him he's earned it. We had gotten stuck in slowing downtown traffic and for a neophyte, seemingly, he did well, weaving in and out, using the frontage roads here and there. I haven't been listening to the music he is playing until I hear the word Jesus and then I imagine he might be a seminary student. He has a Mother Mary decal glued to his glove box.
I read a more detailed account of what the ablation will be like—eight to nine hours flat on my back after the procedure is over. Possible palpitations. Pain because of the “heart burn.” But . . . I’m ready to go through with it because I’m tired of living half a life. I want to swim again. I want to do a National Geographic trip with long hikes. I want to do writing and photographic field trips. I want to get out of town longer than a couple of weeks. I want to live and live forever! Come back in a week when I continue this saga of conquering A Fib!
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-13 New Jersey
June 17, 2018 Austin, Texas
I can’t believe the hour has arrived . . . almost. Here in Austin for my ablation on Wednesday. We've flown down direct from Lubbock—only a slight delay and the flight takes but an hour and five minutes! In some cities that’s a driver’s daily commute. No wonder Doctor Gallinghouse makes the trip twice a month from Austin to Lubbock—easy peasy.
As we approach the cab queue, the first driver in line waves to us and smiles. His skin is the color of wintered pecans, and his teeth almost iridescently white.
Midtown Holiday Inn, we say once we are inside the cab, and the driver hands us his phone—white but smeared with constant use—and asks us to type in the address. Lucky for us I have memorized it so that when I enter about half to it into his phone, the address pops up and I tap it. Then as we take off from the airport into Austin, I wonder if I have selected the correct address. “We might wind up at Big Lots,” I say to Ken.
“Check your phone,” he says, and I do, opening my map app. Yes, I believe once he hits IH-35 that we are on our way. The fare winds up being $34.70 and Ken gives the man a fifty and tells him he's earned it. We had gotten stuck in slowing downtown traffic and for a neophyte, seemingly, he did well, weaving in and out, using the frontage roads here and there. I haven't been listening to the music he is playing until I hear the word Jesus and then I imagine he might be a seminary student. He has a Mother Mary decal glued to his glove box.
I read a more detailed account of what the ablation will be like—eight to nine hours flat on my back after the procedure is over. Possible palpitations. Pain because of the “heart burn.” But . . . I’m ready to go through with it because I’m tired of living half a life. I want to swim again. I want to do a National Geographic trip with long hikes. I want to do writing and photographic field trips. I want to get out of town longer than a couple of weeks. I want to live and live forever! Come back in a week when I continue this saga of conquering A Fib!
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-13 New Jersey
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