[Paddlewise] Hope you're doing ok.

>Hope your surgery went well and that you'll soon be back on the water.
>My wife is an RN on an open heart surgical team and she tells me that this 
>type of surgery has been around so long that it's just about routine now.
>It's still serious, but at least the docs now have a lot of experience 
>doing them.
>Get well and I hope to hear from you soon.
>Steve Holtzman

No problems with worrying here. Heck, in BC you are so glad to actually get 
the surgery finally, one is simply elated beyond belief (It takes a year 
sometime just to see a cardiologist in BC once you get some symptomology, 
let alone get definitive action). I remember corresponding with Jackie about 
my situation ages ago. My actual surgery was prolonged due to the heavy 
calcification deeply rooted. Well, they kicked me out of CVU pretty darn 
quick when I tried to yank the tube running down my throat just prior to me 
then demanding food!

I was glad to get discharged quickly too, from the heart ward: nights were 
awful with dementia heart patients scolding the nurses in the wee hours. It 
is also a little disconcerting being around a lot of older folks freaking 
out with pacemaker malfunctions, Code Blues all the time, etc. It may be a 
situation many of us will face inevitably one day (being old _and_ seriously 
sick in hospital or slowly expiring from illness in an institution, etc.).

I hope people in Paddlewise land are taking care of their bodies, getting 
out for real exercise, eating accordingly, and enjoying their paddling when 
they can with the days given them here on earth on our tiny watery planet 
where we try to function as intelligent, carbon-based life forms with some 
magnanimity and force of expression. You gotta give credit to guys like 
Andrew McCauley too - yeah, sometimes they die young (unfortunate for loved 
ones left behind), but at least they are out there, living the dream baby, 
and paddling with vigor toward a destiny head-on rather than hiding on a 
couch butt-down.

I increased my walking routine by 15" on Thursday just after my last post, 
rather than the one minute increment my physiotherapist told me to do, so 
literally baby-stepped in pain the last 7 minutes to the house, too stubborn 
to call my wife on the cell phone as we had pre-arranged in case of 
emergency. Now I've spent the last two days in bed with chest wall spasms 
every 60 seconds, drugged out on Codeine. Gotta learn to hold back and be 
patient. If some of us want to be _bold_ paddlers and _old_paddlers at the 
same time, patience then becomes a skill an aspiring and/or already veteran 
paddler needs to add to his or her inventory list or keep growing, both for 
paddling-related activities...and otherwise. Like duh as my daughter said. 
My leg where the veins were removed sure is sore and bloated; I can't 
imagine what it must be like for those of you out there who underwent even 
more bypasses or had damaged heart tissue to deal with post-event or 
surgery.

I'd like to thank everyone on Paddlewise for the well-wishing. I'll try to 
go about my recovery a little more discretely and quietly from now on. I do 
apologize if any one took offence with my references to God in previous 
posts here. Kirk likes these issues kept low-key or kept out. He is wise. 
However, I'm not a holy roller despite some exposure to Pentecostals and 
faith healers earlier; I am a man of simple faith under no illusion that my 
relationship with God just might be a anthropomorphic delusion. I fight to 
believe every day, (while it comes to my wife as naturally as breathing). I 
see myself as a creature in a cosmically fantastical universe and remain 
grateful for each day I'm given as a created being residential on an 
incredibly beautiful, sometimes harsh, but nevertheless wonderful planet. 
Despite adversity or otherwise, I've never been able to shake off thoughts 
off of a personal Creator who may love me and this world, and I have in fact 
remained spiritually steady during good times and severe crisis. Not a bad 
thing to add to one's inventory either, out there in the wind and waves for 
anyone who likes to push things a bit.

Doug Lloyd
Victoria BC 
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