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Wednesday, March 25. 2009
Mending Hearts With a Smile
In about nine hours I’ll enter the hospital to wait for my Thursday Morning heart surgery. “What a drag it is getting old,” Mick Jagger sang some 40-plus years ago when he was young and I was younger. “Mother’s Little Helper” if you’re trying to remember the song.It’s about the housewives of the 1960’s when the big news of the day was the number of women taking tranquilizers on top of prescription methamphetamine to lose weight. That seems so quaint today, the current drugs of choice being anti-depressants. When one door closes, another one opens …
But, it seems like, who doesn’t need them, considering the state of things. But that’s a rant for a different day. Right now the drag of getting old is the open-heart bypass surgery that was foretold some 13 years ago by a kindly Indian cardiologist at Scripps Memorial Hospital. Don’t you just hate it when doctors are so damn right!
My friend Joe, no stranger to pain — a recipient of two heart procedures himself — told me the key to this whole business is attitude. The recovery is painful in the beginning but one should persevere, try to be humble and resist the urge to resist the therapy and be kind and thoughtful towards those who are helping you recover. All while suffering excruciating pain from the incisions in your chest and leg and most painfully, the split open breastbone, commonly known as your sternum. It’s hard to be cheerful when the Percocet hardly seem qualified for the job. Maybe they’ll prescribe Oxycontin … either or, it will be terrible pain.
I won’t be alone through this endeavor. Plenty of friends will be stopping by and at least one will be with me in the hospital for part of the evening tonight. This is how you know you’ve led a good life: the number of people who show up to visit you in the hospital, not to mention all the people who said they have started prayer chains and meditation circles for me, along with those who expressed a deep desire to visit.My lovely friend Robyn will be in L.A. for a Playboy golf tournament; it’s not likely she will have time to make the drive — San Diego is about 2.5 hours from that part of Los Angeles — but she would be a welcome sight were she to drop in.
“If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all,” they sang on Hee Haw. Robyn comes to visit, looking just so … desirable … and of course I’ve got big gaping holes in my chest and can’t even muster a naughty thought, let alone … err … well, you know, it’s a male thing.
What can I say? Some things never change …
My friend Claudia now lives in the area and she might come visit while I’m a resident of the fifth floor of the V.A. Medical Center. Claudia … °sigh° … my favorite Hooters Girl! She’s also one of my very favorite Cyber Girls! She looks much lovelier in person!But the list of people who care about me doesn’t begin or end with them; it includes, just off the top of my head: Dan, Eric, John, Ilona, Terri, Julie, Joe, Dave, Bill, Bill, Mike, Mike, Mike (god I know way too many Mikes), Paul, Ray, Mark, Jeffrey & Linda, Berger, Alan, Jerry, Suzanne — I know I’m forgetting a bunch of people and it doesn’t even include the friends who can’t be here, like Mel, Witchy and Miss March!
The great downside to living in Sandy Eggo is that there isn’t any family within 1,500 miles! That’s okay though. The great upside to being so far away physically is that it makes them so much closer in my heart. We talk on the phone, communicate by e-mail and our own family web site — I hope they come on here to read this and click the ads by Google; if you think of it, when you’re done reading this click some of the ads by Google — so we’re close.
Over the years I’ve gotten to know so many people who don’t get along with their parents and/or siblings I’ve become quite grateful in that regard. Thankfully, I don’t suffer that calamity in the least. Even with my sister Mary Lou, staunchly on the other side of the political and social spectrum (poor woman) who called to taunt me when President Obama was giving his press conference. She wanted to watch NCIS. Sheesh, but that’s not why she called; she was once again sending her love, so she can taunt all she wants. Besides, it was good-natured. We laughed!
We can laugh at our differences, my family and I. Sure, the debates get heated sometimes, but often enough we end up laughing it off. Sometimes I wonder if the long miles between us aids in the strong love that binds us. I like to think so if for no other reason than it’s a comfort.And at this time the emotional comfort is what keeps me smiling. They will read this and smile too and those who pray will say one for me. Those who don’t will think of me warmly and that’s a great comfort.
Yes, I’ll be having major heart surgery in about 24 hours, but I’m comforted in knowing I’ve lived life well enough to be precious and loved by so many. When the doctor tells me to count backward from 100, they will all crowd in my thoughts with a smile.
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