A diplomat thinks twice before saying nothing..

I'm baaaack!
And it has been a very interesting 48 hours.
We reported to the hospital at 2:00 as ordered and after about 45 minutes of prep I was wheeled to the special room used mostly for cardiac procedures. It had THE biggest flat screen I've ever seen. I'm guessing the diagonal measurement must have been something close to 6'. I asked one of the guys if they could get the Olympics on that, and got a slightly sheepish "yes." They've set up a slave TV in a room down the hall and run a cable to this monitor.

The rest of the room was equally big and impressive. The three techs spent another 15 minutes or so getting me and the equipment ready, and then the cardiologist came in. He didn't talk to me but went right to work. The tech was right when he said the prep would take longer than the procedure. I couldn't see what the dr. was doing because there was a very big, white, remote controlled "thing" over my chest that reminded me of an Xray machine. It moved slightly during the procedure. So all I could do was listen to their conversation, and I was very surprised to hear the dr. decide to put a stent in on of my arteries.

He left, the techs did some more stuff, and then the big white thing rolled up and out of the way. Then they showed me the video of my procedure on that huge monitor. Turns out the white thing was some kind of video Xray machine.

How can someone who has great cholesterol numbers, who has never smoked, and who works out pretty aggressively six days a week have a 90% blockage in one artery and lesser blockages in several others? According to the dr.'s PA who came to see me this morning I'm in a small percentage of the population that has no symptoms of coronary disease until the heart attack strikes. And the absence of any of the usual causes can be laid at the feet of my father, who passed on to me a faulty set of genes. Yep, he had the same thing happen years ago and now has four stents. No obvious causes, no apparent symptoms, just several significant blockages.

I'm home now, after staying overnight in the hospital. Really, really sleepy for some reason, but otherwise just fine. The food was outstanding, the nurses and staff all very competent and friendly, and my room, even in the oldest part of the hospital, very nice.
BUT NO ESPN ON THE TV!!!
What???

I go back to the cardiologist in a week or so to find out what comes next, and how he tracks the rest of those blockages so intervention precedes heart attack.

While not watching ESPN I finished "The Fiddler's Gun" by A.S. Peterson, which I had on my Kindle. I recommend it. Set during the years around the opening of the American Revolution it follows a girl raised in an orphanage who runs away, becomes a sailor by posing as a boy, and gets caught up in lots of adventure. I know it sounds corny or worse, but it's surprisingly good, and not - as you'd suspect - a book written for 13-year old girls. In fact, while there's nothing at all explicit it does have a couple of passages inappropriate for pre-teens, IMO. I like historical fiction because I learn as I'm entertained, and I'm going to download the sequel, "The Fiddler's Green."

At Pathway we don't have second hour during July to give our teachers a break. So we're a week away from starting up our classes on August 5th. All the schools here start the first week of August, so everybody is back from vacations and church ministries get back into full swing.
I'm eager to start the series we're going to do in the adult class. We'll be looking at the OT Tabernacle - its structure and the powerful symbolism it contained. But I've got some surprises; we're going to have fun!