The 2006 Travels of Richard n Shirley

The trip to Dallas began with my having an upset tummy during the night and then we got to meet Miss Diarrhea in the morning. We got up at 5:30 and finally left at 6:20. Made it to the hospital without incident and had no problems all day.

First up was a chest x'ray to see how the fluid on the lungs was doing. Then it was on to the lab for a blood sample to check on the kidney and liver functions. A couple of my meds can interfer with either and this was the check. Last but not least was the appointment with the surgerical team and hopefully a release from them.

These doctors are so darn young. Anyway, the lungs are clear, the blood test verified the liver and kidney are doing fine and a look at my incessions confirmed that they are healing nicely with no complications. Everything that could go right was going right. And I got a refill on my pain meds and a refill in two weeks. Works for me. I probably wont need the refill but I will need to keep the meds for the next two weeks. My overnight sleeping is my main pain maker. If I could get better at sleeping, then the pain would go down. The other problem is the drive to and from the hospital. All that causes me to have chest pain. The good part of this is its two weeks till I go back. By then I will be in week seven and I should be over this. Time will tell.

We will be back to meet the cardiolgy team and go over my meds. Hopefully, that will be my last trip to Dallas.

I must confess that I was very apprehensive about going to Dallas and having surgery. I really felt that I would enter the hospital and not walk out of there. As it turns out, I probably got the best surgery available with the latest procedure. The flip side of this is I really had no other choice. My angina had reached a point that my activity level has down to nearly nothing. Shirley and I talked about this and we both felt that I was slowly dying daily. The more I did, the more angina I suffered. Taking a shower caused angina, turning over in bed caused angina, any exercise I did caused angina. And it was getting worse. While in the hospital, my heart rate raced to 120.

I feel very fortunate to have been given a second chance at having a life with quality and endurance. This is my second operation of this type. Back in 1990, I had a double bypass. This time it was a repair of that plus a third artery blockage. I will tell you that the first operation was a piece of cake. This time was no cake walk. The pain level this time is much higher and this will be my last operation to correct any blood flow in the heart.

Let me finish this with choices. We make them all our life and some have consequences. i smoked for 46 years. My choice. With this choice came a heart attack in 1985, the bypass in 1990, another heart attack in 1999 and this triple bypass in 2005. My other related problem was a near blockage of the carotid atreries in 2004 which required surgery. I had a minny stroke from that which affects my memory some. Again, its choices.

I have been given another chance to live with my choices and this time I have chosen to have a better, healther life. In the years I have been given I will be healther, more physically active and a better steward of my being.