Author: Steve

Tiger Swallowtail

The yard is full of them.

It’s a basement guest suite.  Bedroom, kitchen, bathroom.  A desk to work at and unlimited high speed wifi.  Daylight through the window wells.

Roughing it.

The cardiologist told us that all the bypass arteries the surgeon put in my heart six years ago are all perfectly open and clear.  That doesn’t always happen.  He told us that statistically, at five years out, 50% of bypass arteries are already clogged again, so that mine were still clear was really good news.  He knew mine were clear because he was inside them at the cath lab at UC Health Hospital outside Longmont.  We were at the cath lab because I woke up Saturday morning with some chest pain symptoms that lined up perfectly with symptoms we’re supposed to be watching for.  When my chest woke me up, I popped a nitro pill and that made the pain go away.  Good, but darn.  No blaming that discomfort on indigestion.  We drove for a checkup to our favorite Colorado hospital, not far from Becky’s house and they took it from there.  Popped me right into the cath lab with an overnight stay to make sure that I sealed up properly.  Today we’re back to Becky and Brian’s to resume our visit. 

We’ve been wondering for years about how my grafted arteries were doing.  It’s like looking at a black box, wondering what’s inside.  We’re testing and guessing, but historically I don’t really show any symptoms until intervention is urgent.  We’ve been wanting our Texas cardiologist to go in and take a look just to see, but without something to suggest there is a problem, that’s not something they do.  We provided enough reason yesterday and got the great comfort that all my major arteries are fine.  The chest pressure/pain was apparently triggered by a really small artery that is closing up, and that artery is too small to do anything about.  Now that we know what we know, any time the chest discomfort happens again, pop a nitro and call it good.  Excellent!

Here is the heart artery diagram the doctor drew for us on the hospital board in our room.

It’s the entire history of my heart, blockages, stents, bypasses, and current condition.  He was that good.

Family.  Family you choose or that chooses you.  That was Bill and Marge.  Friends and family since 1968.  For all those years we would stop at Bill and Marge’s farm any time of day, any day of the week, and be welcomed.  The kids could feed the chickens.  We admired the gardens.  We watched the cows, pigs, and sheep.  The kids might get a ride on Bill’s tractor.  If we stayed very long, we got fed.  The farm was close to us, just outside Broomfield, Colorado while we lived in Lousiville, so we stopped there a lot.  Once in a while we got them to come to our house for burgers on the grill.  Later, Bill and Marge relocated to a farm outside Wheatland, Wyoming.  Visiting there, looking around, we couldn’t tell that we weren’t still at the Colorado farm.  They seemed that much the same to us.  Any trip north in the bus, even if we didn’t stop to visit, we could watch the fields for their farm and sometimes spot Bill out plowing or planting in the fields and honk the air horn to say hello.

Bill is gone now, and Marge is off the farm.  Their son Don works it, in addition to his own.  We drove to Wheatland for a visit with Marge today.  She lives in town at the senior housing.

Always good to see Marge and catch each other up on how our families are doing.  We watched for the farm from the freeway as we were driving back south to Colorado.  We saw Don out in the field driving the tractor plowing.  We honked a hello.