"Man forgives woman anything save the wit to outwit him." - Minna Thomas Antrim

This will be short. My brain isn't completely back and I'm not sure I should be doing even this. So if I say something really, really stupid....
oh, never mind.

I reported to the hospital at 10 a.m. yesterday for the electrophysiology study, a procedure that checks out the electrical part of my heart's function. Two weeks ago we learned that the plumbing part is messed up, and I got a stent and new meds as a result. During the testing leading up to that procedure they discovered an arrhythmia, so yesterday's procedure  was to nail down the specifics of that irregularity.

I was prepped, drugged, and taken in to a special room designed just for these studies. The plan, after the dr. had done some tests, was to implant a "loop recorder" that digitally records every beat for up to two years. Every few months you go into the cardiologist who can put a sensor next to your heart and download all the data, then make a diagnosis.

One of those preliminary tests led him to conclude that I didn't need a loop recorder, I needed a pacemaker. So that's what I've got. Amazing piece of equipment and technology. It sits just below the skin of my upper chest, and the dr. fed electrical leads through a vein and into the chambers of my heart. They have little barbs on the end that grab the inner walls of those chambers and act as conduits when the pacemaker senses that my heart isn't beating like it should. I have to be very careful for the next two weeks - can't raise my left arm above my shoulder - until scar tissue has fully enveloped the barbed ends of the leads, holding them firmly in place.

Like the arterial blockage discovered during the angiogram two weeks ago this comes as quite a surprise to everyone, including the dr. But it also answers some questions about things that have happened, including a bike crash two months ago. And two months from now I should be back in the gym, back on my bike, and doing everything else I have in the past, just without the risks of a serious cardiac event I didn't know I was under heretofore.

Pam has done a super job of taking care of me. Lousy way to spend our 41st anniversary, but she defines "low maintenance wife."

At 5 p.m. we were at 117 degrees, a record for this date. At 6:30 it's cooled way off to 114 degrees. This pattern is supposed to continue through the weekend with temps over 114 every day.

If I wanted to practice polygamy (I do NOT!) I would be making the case that if it's discriminatory to prevent same sex marriages the same should be true for polygamy. In each case it involves consenting adults who understand all the ramifications and implications. Am I missing something?

Is my brain going to be cleared up enough to write a sermon tomorrow?? Sure hope so.