Decision Made

Let me be clear right from the start here. I am not dying any time soon so please don't get too excited just yet.

It has been a little longer than two months since I went in for routine surgery to insert a couple of stents and then things went sideways fast. Since then my recovery has been up and down, mostly down.

Without getting into the boring details I will just say that the doctors keep telling me that I'm doing great but I know that I'm not. I may not be good at many things but the one thing that I have always been in tune with is the rhythm of my body. I know when something isn't right which is why I have gone in for two stent surgeries. I knew something was wrong and I was right.

For the past month and a half I have been on a parade of lab visits, cat scans, doctor visits to review, and then rinse and repeat. I told my GP yesterday that I have seen her more this year than my next door neighbor. She is a nice kid but geez already. Here is the thing that continues to frustrate me, nobody knows why I don't feel right.

Oh, they all have theory's but at this point it seems like they are just guessing. My cardiologist, and the team there, are walking on eggshells with me and that bothers me. I think they are afraid to let me amp up because they already almost killed me once and they don't want to finish the job and have Linda sue them.

I should have been sent to cardiac rehab a month ago and they keep delaying sending me. I asked if I could start going on walks to build up my stamina and they squinted their eyes and said that maybe I should just take it easy for a while.

I've lost about eleven pounds since the surgery and have really made an effort to change my diet to eliminate sugar and salt only to see my A1C barely drop. A major disappointment. My GP is at a loss as to why it didn't go down, especially since she has been on my ass to lose weight for three years.

Now she wants to run more tests to see if I might have an issue that my dad had that went undiscovered until it was too late to help him. It was a one in a million issue for men and the chances of my having it too are even higher odds. Doctors told him that it wasn't hereditary and isn't passed down to his children so I'm not sure why we are wasting time checking on this.

Before the surgery I read up on plaque to find out why this keeps happening to me and it turns out the two biggest causes for plaque build up are anger and stress. If you know me you know that this is not a stunner that I would be in this position. So once I was home I decided that I would look into a few things that would help me make a spiritual life change. I bought a bible and started to read it, cover to cover. I looked into tai chi and meditation as options and after five weeks I decided none of those was going to work for me.

I have nothing against any of them but my issues are so deeply ingrained that trying to make major changes to my personality at seventy two was going to be like spitting into the ocean hoping to raise the sea level. An impossible task and a waste of time. I applaud anyone that can make a major change at this age and wish them well.

So, after many sleepless nights, or nights dreaming about dying and leaving Linda with a mess to clean up, I decided this morning on a course of action.

I'm going to stop living my life being afraid. I'm done worrying about doing yard work that might kill me because it is too strenuous. I'm going to just do those projects around the house that I want to do and not worry that they might kill me. I'm going to start going for walks to build up my stamina and not worry about keeling over five blocks from home with nobody to help me.

I took an online test to see what my predicted death age would be and it said I would live until I was eighty three. I think that is a minimum based on family history so I am going to live my life with vigor and enjoyment until my heart does finally give out. Linda and I have waited for thirty plus years to finally not have anyone or anything we are responsible for and we are going to finally go on vacations together and take long lunches without worrying about rushing back home to let the late dogs, or our late mothers, out.

Clearly I'm on the back nine of life and I don't have my whole life in front of me to waste. This course of action goes against my doctors wishes so if I have the big one while doing what I want and I don't have the chance to say it, let me just say it has been a great ride and I have loved every single minute of everyone being in my life.

I have no plans on going anywhere in the near future but like my status with Linda for the past forty eight years, I am day to day.