A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to....

It's time for a new look, and a new beginning.  

Thank you, all those who inquired about my dropping off the face of the blogging world. For reasons that have become more clear in the past month or so, I simply did not have the psychic or physical energy to compose anything I thought would be of interest (did I ever?), so I just stopped.  I went "private" for a while posting tidbits of my life for my family, but I have removed those few posts and what you see, if you're interested, is for public consumption.

The funny (not ha-ha) thing that happened was that, in mid-September while I was in the office of an otolaryngologist having my vocal chords examined, I began to experience some rather frightening symptoms.  The good doctor told me he thought I might be having a heart attack and insisted that I allow one of his wonderful assistants to drive  me to the ER of a large hospital less than a half-mile away.  

Tests confirmed that I had, indeed, suffered a severe heart attack, and in the wee small hours of the next morning, a cardiologist inserted stents into two almost completely blocked arteries within my heart.  I spent the next three days in the CCU and another five days as an inpatient, under the watchful care of not only hospital staff, but my children, who came from far and near to be with me. 

I'm happy to report that the executor of my estate will have to wait a while to exercise his or her duties.  

I am enrolled in a Cardiac Rehabilitation program at a nearby hospital.  I exercise three days a week, and have lost nine pounds, so far.  Being on a low-sodium/low-fat diet hasn't hurt anything but my taste buds.  

I encourage those readers who may be of the female gender to familiarize yourselves and be alert to the warning signs of heart attack in women.  (Men... if you have wives, you should study these, also.) The symptoms may be totally unlike those of heart attack in men; mine were. Had I not been in the office of a trained professional, and this had happened to me at home, I very likely would have sat in my chair thinking I was having an esophageal spasm.  I don't know whether I would have survived.

Given all the circumstances, I am convinced that the Good Lord is not through with me, yet.

Tomorrow is also a day, thanks be to God.