A SERIOUS REALITY CHECK

Folks-

After the recent deluge of material, you may have noticed my absence during the last two weeks or so, so allow to me to explain. 

Long story short, I'd already figured my meds for diabetes and hypertension needed adjusting and I planned on getting that looked into anyway, but a weird feeling of pressure — pressure being the important term here, as opposed to "pain" — in my chest awoke me very early on the morning of Tuesday the 12th, so I checked myself in at Park Slope's Methodist Hospital to see what was the matter. It turned out that my meds of late had failed to properly regulate my conditions and the feeling I'd experienced was my body making note of that fact, so what was intended to be an observational period of perhaps 24 hour ended up stretching out for several days as the doctors did assorted jiggery-pokery in figuring out what was needed to set me right. 

During all of the assorted testing and such, it was discovered that there was some very minor blockage in a portion of my heart that could be handled via medication or I could instead just get a stent inserted and that would keep the passageway clear on a permanent basis (provided I'm more diligent in taking better care of myself, which I will be). I opted for the stent and I had the procedure last night, which was extra-awesome to a FANTASTIC VOYAGE fan like me (it's my all-time favorite science-fiction movie) because I was wide-awake and coherent for the entire procedure — though the insertion point for the manipulator wires and the fiber optic camera was numbed with a local — and I got to watch the whole thing happen live on the video monitor. I was utterly fascinated and I felt no pain whatsoever, so I advise a policy of "no fear" should you ever be confronted with this particular option got heart procedures. And the whole thing was over in about twenty minutes, after which they kept me overnight for observation. Oh, and the doctors (and a close friend who also happens to be a doctor and a damned good one at that) all told me in no uncertain terms that I caught the heart problem very early, so I was smart to head in when I did. 

And, for the record, I feel perfectly fine and spry and though there's a lot more to the whole several-day adventure, but let it suffice to say that if your body tells you there's something "off," listen to it and don't be a macho shithead. Life's too much fun to miss out on and there are a ton of friends/loved ones who would be devastated if you went permanently tits-up for something that could have been taken care of during a hospital stay of a mere few days. (My friends who I consider family came out of the woodwork with support, so much so that I practically had to turn some of them away with a firehose.) Make sure you're around for as long as you can be. No bullshit.