Waiting...For A Call From The Hospital

Today I’m expecting the hospital to call with test scheduling. I need to get a CT Angio Chest, which will tell whether or not I have any coronary artery blockage. If I do, that trips the wire and surgery here I come. Otherwise, “we may wait some’ said Dr. Bavaria, my surgeon. This is not great. It’s more uncertainty. Oh well.

We had just moved to Long Island in early 2004 when I found out about my AS (aortic stenosis.) The move went sour pretty quick. I hated Long Island. The winter of 2004 was one of worst they had seen in years…cold and wet. Moving to Long Island looked like a good idea on paper. We would be closer to New York City and right across the bay from our summer house on Fire Island. But it didn’t turn out well. The house was one problem, The basement flooded all the time when it rained. I couldn’t set up my toy trains or my workshop. The roof leaked one day. Living in suburbia was another shock. I really felt isolated. I had no idea I was such a city boy. I became seriously depressed. I started selling off prized trains from my collection in a panic.

Then I got the news about the heart problem. How on earth would I handle this with our medical care based back in Pennsylvania. I thought? I pleaded with Dan to move back to Philadelphia. He resisted this idea at first, but finally he came around and we decided to put the house up for sale less than six months after moving into it. We managed to find a buyer the day before the contract with the realtor was to expire. We made a few trips back to Philadelphia and finally found a nice house about a block from where we used to live. I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard after we moved in: “There’s no place like home.” In retrospect, the move was a mistake, but at least we tried it and don’t have to live with the burden of wondering “what if.”