Heartbroken in Galveston

UTMB-Galveston

This year we had a great idea.  Megan thinks it was her idea, but, c'mon.

We figured that it would be fun to hang out at some exotic location with all of our kids and various other family members instead of giving Christmas gifts.  We were right about that.

We chose Galveston for the happening.  Actually, we chose Crystal Beach, and the house was great, the food was scrump-dilly-ishous, and the fellowship was superlative.  It's a pretty great group of people.

We arrived on a Thursday night and planned to leave Sunday morning.  Which we did.

As an added bonus, Sunday, March 3rd was our wedding anniversary.  Yep.  One year of wedded bliss.  Meg told me that she didn't want to do anything very exciting to celebrate this year, but I had a big surprise for her!  It was such a big, exciting surprise that even I didn't know about it.

Sunday morning happened to be my day to cook breakfast, so I rose early and began cooking up a simple, light breakfast of biscuits, sausage, white gravy, and eggs.  Just what the doctor (Kevorkian) ordered.

My Boy Gage

As fate would have it, while I was cooking, I felt the hammer thud of a heart attack.  I was pissed because I knew it would ruin my day.  I wouldn't even get to eat breakfast.

On a positive note, however, I had already tasted the gravy and it wasn't all that good, so I wasn't missing much there.

Next thing I knew, I was wringing wet with sweat, pale as Casper, short of breath, and I felt like Thor was having his way in my chest.  He's a jerk.

As I was being loaded on the ambulance, I looked over the crowd of my loved ones and I was sorry that I was putting them through this.

It didn't seem fair that they were so sad while I was looking forward to an exciting ride on an ambulance that was going to cross the bay on the ferry.

While I was happily bouncing along in the ambulance, Megan was racing behind us in the truck.  Somehow, her version of the whole thing isn't as carefree as mine because she thought the bouncing looked a lot like CPR.  She's a party-pooper.

In short order, I was whisked through the emergency room to the intensive care unit.  My nurse was cute.  Her name was Carlee.

In addition to Carlee, there were all manner of cute nurses who were busy like bees as I lay there in my fancy bed and backless gown.  There were beepers and buzzers and electrical cords and IV tubes going all whichaway.

Megan is still bitter that, while she was buying anniversary gifts in the hospital gift shop, I was getting a spongebath from a bunch of cuties.

And I quote, "And I didn't even get to watch!"

Leave it to her to put a negative spin on an otherwise great afternoon, but I think she was just jealous.

My Echo (Gender Reveal Pending)

And Carlee kept asking me questions.  Lots of questions.

Nowadays, apparently, hospitals are pretty concerned about our safety at home, so Carlee asked me if was getting enough food at home.  Uh, duh... I'm a fat guy in an ICU having a heart attack while on vacation... What's your best guess, sweetie?

Then she asked me if was being abused at home.  Keep in mind that I'd had a bucket of morphine by this point, before you judge me for saying, "If there's any abuse going on in my house, I'm the one doing it."

Thinking back on it, I'm glad that she didn't call the cops on me then and there.  Thankfully, I don't think she believed me.

The real kicker question, though, was this, "Have you been touched inappropriately?"

In a singsong voice, I immediately replied, "Not yeeeeet!"

The Ferry Ride Home

What can I say?  I'm an eternal optimist.

In case you're wondering, I've still not been touched inappropriately, but I'm not dead yet, right?

A few minutes later, I was taken to the cath lab where an otherwise polite doctor stuck a giant straw in my groin and passed a long tube into my heart where he shot a bunch of dye into my coronary arteries.  He saw that one of my main arteries was completely clotted.  He sucked the clot out and put a stent in the artery and my chest pain went away!  Glory be.

All-in-all, it was a pretty good time.

After spending two boring days in the hospital, they finally sprung me and we got to drive home.  I was plenty glad of that.

On the way through Lake Charles, we stopped at Steamboat Bill's and I had some Alaskan King Crab.  It was very yummy, and it was carb and red meat free, so shut up.

Never one to pass up an opportunity to give advice, I shall now do so:

Steamboat Bill's

1. When you're making white gravy, include some of the sausage.  It'll make it taste better.

2. Ambulance rides are fun.  Ferry rides are fun.  Riding in an ambulance while on a ferry is awesome.  The two events are synergistic.  If you ever get a chance, you should do it.  I'd recommend avoiding near death to do so, although, come to think of it, it did add to the excitement, so I guess you should make that decision for yourself.

3. Steamboat Bill's, in Lake Charles, Louisiana, is a terrific place to have one's first real meal following a heart attack.  I highly recommend it.

4. Sponge baths and cute nurses go together like peas and carrots, although your wife might not be too crazy about it.

5. If you ever get sick anywhere around Galveston, TX, go to UTMB-Galveston.  It's a great hospital with an amazing staff.  Even though they're Longhorn fans, I found that I wasn't able to hold that against them while they were saving my life.

I feel better now, though, and my Tigers are set to play the Horns this fall, so it's politics as usual now.

6. It's good to be alive.  Appreciate it.

The Curmudgeon

Harmony or Discord: Race Relations in America

As you may have noticed by many of my posts, I am interested in race relations in America.  I always have been.

In our current era, if one listens to the nightly news, one would believe that we are presently in the midst of a terrible racial crisis, that the races are at each others throats.

I'm reminded of an apocryphal story about an old man sitting at the gates of his city.  One day, the man was approached by a traveler and asked about the kind of people he should expect to find in the city.

The old man asked, "What are the people like where you come from?"

The traveler replied, "Oh, the people where I come from are wonderful.  They are kind and generous and understanding."

The old man said, "You shall find the same kind of people here in my town."

A bit later, another traveler arrived at the gate and asked the same question of the old man, whereupon the old man asked the new traveler the same question, "What are the people like where you come from?"

The second traveler replied, "You'd just not believe how terrible they are.  They're rude, they cheat whenever they get the chance, and they're stingy."

To which the old man said, "You shall find the same kind of people here in my town."

I have noticed that one sees what one wants to see.  I've also noticed that, as humans, we tend to personalize things to an unhealthy degree.  It's not unheard of for me to receive poor customer service of one sort or another.  Sometimes it's from a white employee, sometimes from a black one.  It's easy, because I'm white, to attribute poor service from an employee who happens to be black to a racial bias.  It may be easy, but it's not healthy.  More likely, they're just having a bad day, or, perhaps, they are just cranky all the time.  The likelihood that they care about me or my skin color is pretty low.

But, more often than not, I receive good customer service from blacks and whites alike.  They are generally cheerful and helpful no matter what their race.  All, whether black or white, are almost universally happy when I greet them cheerfully, and, if the mood strikes, with a joke of some sort.  We share a moment of humanity then go our own ways to meet our next task.

And, sometimes, we meet the extraordinary human.  Last week, as I pulled onto the highway after leaving work, I immediately noticed that my front tire was flat.  Never a good sign.

I pulled over and got busy changing the tire.  After about fifteen minutes of struggling with the broken mechanism which lifts the tire to its storage port under the bed of my truck, a man pulled up next to me and got out with an offer to help.  He saw the problem immediately because the same thing had happened with his truck last year.  He crawled under the bed and fixed the problem in short order.  He then stayed and helped my change the tire.

The whole time we chatted and enjoyed one anothers company and I felt as though I had met a kindred spirit.  He is someone who shares my view of man.

It shouldn't be noteworthy that he is a black man, but in today's climate, it's worth noting.  Honestly, it doesn't impress me that he is black because I think that humans are humans.  Some humans are kind of icky and creepy, and some humans are wonderful.

So, on a random weekday, in a random town in the deep south, a grouchy middle-aged white guy was blessed by a cheerful middle-aged (though somewhat younger) black guy.

That is the America that I see.

The America that I know.

The America that I love.

God Bless America.

TheCurmudgeon