Still beating

 I don't know if anyone has noticed my fairly long absence, but here's my excuse.
In the wee hours of September 24th, I went to the emergency room with chest tightness and pains running down both arms to my inner elbows. It turns out it was a heart attack, and it was determined that two of my coronary arteries were more than 90% occluded, with another at 60%-plus blockage. It was decided I should undergo open heart surgery for a triple bypass, which was performed on the 29th. 

My pre- and post-op hospital stay was about as good as one could expect under the circumstances, with a lot of wonderful nurses, CNAs, and other professionals looking after me around the clock. There were a couple stinkers, too, who had no compassion at all for my fragile mental health at the time, but let's not dwell on them. 

I was discharged on October 5th (I think; time has become even more nebulous to my autistic brain than it normally is) and, after a brief readmission for pains that turned out to be from an injured left rotator cuff (probably sustained some time before the cardiac event and exacerbated by being strapped to the operating table for five hours), I've returned home for the long, slow recovery period.

It's been rough, to say the least. You've got to be very careful how you move, what you lift (not very much!) and how you lift it (T-rex arms, no extension outward from the body, lest you put strain on that surgically repaired sternum). I sleep in a hospital bed set up in our living room, because I need the lift features of it to get up and down more easily. I'm on a couple dozen (exaggeration, but it feels like it) medications to keep my arteries clear and everything running smoothly while I heal.

The easiest part of the new normal is eating better, which I've wanted to do for years but never quite had the motivation to do it more than half-assedly. Not that it was all garbage, but now I'm on low-saturated fat, low-sodium, Mediterranean-ish regimen, and it's really pretty good. I'm down 15 pounds from my peak weight already; another 15 and I'll be around the size I was when I graduated high school. Silver linings, and all that. 

Enormous credit is due to my wife Lori, who has been caring for me since I came home. As if that's not enough, she's enthusiastically on board with the heart-healthy diet, and has dived head-first into the internet in search of new recipes and recipes to make old favorites in healthier ways. I literally and sincerely don't know what I'd do without her. She is the absolute best. I look forward to the day when I can relieve her of so much of the workload she's taken on, but as she frequently reminds me, my job right now is to get better.

The moral of all this, I suppose, is to take care of yourself, get checked out, and take those blood tests that show high cholesterol and triglycerides seriously. Don't let your doctor dismiss it as no big deal because you're still relatively young -- especially if you have a family history of heart disease. My maternal grandfather had his first heart attack of many at forty-five. My maternal uncle had quadruple bypass surgery at forty. I just turned fifty years old this past summer. Just six years ago, I had a clean stress test that showed no abnormalities. I thought I had escaped the family curse. I was wrong. Don't shrug at the warning signs, no matter how insignificant they may seem when you're young and hale.

Crazy thing is, I'm still thinking about writing and creating. I have ideas percolating for my Unlikely Heroes project. Unfortunately, my old stalwart laptop is a big heavy brick, which I can't lift, so I'm relegated to a sleek little Chromebook. It's great for browsing the net, but unfortunately extremely limited for creative stuff like writing and editing. I just can't get used to Google Documents; I want my old versatile Libre Office back. So, for a while at least, I'm probably going to be on the shelf as far as any major projects. Blog posts are still viable, and I'll likely resume my BX Monsters series and some other lightweight musings soon. 

That's about all I have to say at the moment.