The Emerald Rose

     The last couple of days have been rainy, overcast, and blustery, as has the news been.

     First things first, I’ve been a little slow on the trigger lately because of a little health thing I have going. As I’m sure I said in a prior blog they think I have a “blockage” in my left carotid artery (read as: in the neck, little sucker that pulses on the left side and sends the blood up into your brain). Anyway, I went to see a “cardiologist” who generally does these “Heart Catheterization, (basically because they still smelled money for testing in the health insurance policy) who casually asked me when I had my “heart attack.” Well kick my ass and call me a football, “I never had one”, says I. “Ah but you did, I see some damage here.” Holy Shit Batman!

      So yesterday I go for this catheterization thing. They pop into your femoral artery, in your groin area, insert a little camera thingy, thread it up through you to your heart, hit a little button and you get this really “warm all over” feeling as they shoot dye into you, then fifteen minutes of , “Hold your breathe, don’t swallow, and don’t move” as they shoot a centerfold spread for “Hot Arteries”, (the Playboy version for Cardiologists), then  in comes Doc #2, to continue the snake from my heart up into my neck and those arteries, more “warm all over”, and “hold your breath, don’t move, don’t swallow” pictures,…then they pull the snake back out and put in a “plug” made of collagen, (female beauty stuff that fills in wrinkles, etc. Guess that’s so I can compete in the “Mr. Artery of the year” contest or something), I have to lay still for two hours while it “sets” and can’t even lift my head. (Good time to review your tunes lists on your iPod, like I did. My wife flat refused to give me my Blackberry!)     

       So Doc #2 (the Carotid Guy) comes by and tells me “Yup, it’s at least 80% blocked on the left, the other one is only 14%, but we’re gonna have to do something with the 80%. I’ll talk to (Super Doc, Doc #1) and the other Doc’s and we’ll get back with you on the options. Have a good day!)

      Doc #1 (the Cardiologist) never shows up and about 3:30pm, after they are sure I can still walk, talk, and pee (not simoultaneously thank God!), they send me home saying “Doc #1 will call you this evening” So my wife drives me home, (ignoring my pleadings, and crying, and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and even blatant begging, to drop me at the Pub and come back later. They do that when they love you and think they know best for you, God Love’em!) So I go home switch into my “comfy’s” and crash to watch re-runs of CSI, Law & Order, and House. My wife has to go to work from 5-9  but she’s clearly concerned about my health. (The parting words of the nurse at the hospital were,”If you notice any bleeding around the incision or the plug call “911” immediately, because you will bleed out in less that fifteen minutes because that was a main artery we went in through.”) I told her I would be fine and had my cell, the house phone, a full six pack and no wish to die.) So she reluctantly went to work and I promised not to have more than one beer. 🙂

      About 7:30 pm Doc #1 calls and asks me how I’m doing. (He didn’t sound surprised when I answered the phone, so I guess he was pretty confident about his work, that’s a good sign) Anywho, he then apologies because he had five other cardiac things going on and a couple of emergencies and wasn’t able to get back to me before I left, so I says, “that’s fine how did I do?” He then tells me that indeed I have had a heart attack, “a while back”, and there was some damage to the heart, but not worth really getting concerned with “right now”, BUT my coronary arteries were pretty “clogged up” and I would need a coronary bypass to correct that situation.

     So Doc #1, Doc #2, and Doc #3 ( my regular guy) are going to get together and look at all the options and get back to me in a week or so with the alternatives and all that. So that’s where we are kiddies.

     I called and let my kids know (because my wife insisted,… I didn’t want to worry them needlessly because all they could do is blubber that they loved me (and I them) and worry. I’m the kind that says “Just get it done, if they ask what the three foot scar down my chest is about, I’ll tell them,….but later after I’m back in shape.” (I would remind all of you that round IS a shape other than  the typical male upside down triangular!)

     So there we are, all about me. But that’s not the end of the Story,…..

    So I’m off today, manning my cell phone and computer from “the Pit” here at the house, and my sister calls. She’s #4 of the five kids in my family( me being the oldest and #1, she’s a registered nurse and fancies herself at the self appointed “matriarch” of the clan, and loves being in every one else’s business. “Damn” I thought, “how’d she find out!”

     She says, “I’ll just come right out and tell you, Johnny, (one of my younger  brothers #3),well,…he died this morning at 9:30 in the local Hospital

     He collapsed Wednesday night in his apartment, his roomate found him, went into a coma yesterday evening, and died this morning of Cirrhosis of the Liver. (No one even knew he was sick, but the Hospital told my sister he was in the “veryend stages” of a very severe case of it. Cirrhosis is usually caused by hard drinking, which Johnny always did for literally decades since he was 18 years old, he passed away today at 57. And like the rest of our family, would listen nor consult with no one but himself.) He has been divorced for over 20 years, has three boys, one a Major in the U.S. Marine Corp, the second a Captain in the Marine Corps and the middle son owns his own mechanical garage. I’ll miss Johnny.

     It sounds hypocritical to say, but  if you knew our dysfunctional Irish family, we rarely get together except for the traditional “weddings, wakes, and funerals”. We do care about each other and if any of us were to reach out the others would be there to help, ….but that aside, we all lead, or have led, different and private lives, even when we all lived within four miles of each other. We saw each other last in 1998 at our Mother’s funeral. Can’t say “time flies when your doing life”,….but it does.

     But I guess it is the Almighty One’s way of telling me, “It ain’t all about you dude, get over yourself, and move on.”

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