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Speaking of health issues… My wife had a series of episodes over the past couple of months. Actually, it started a couple of years ago. I bugged her to go see my cardiologist. Well last Tuesday morning she finally made the call. The earliest she could get in was Thursday at noon. Tuesday night she had a full blown heart attack with chest pain, sweats, dizziness topped off by vomiting. I wanted to take to the ER but after she threw up she said she felt much better and would wait till the morning. Of course by then she was convinced she was OK and went off to work. Well you know where this is going. She just got inside the door and had another attack. Her manager put her in a co-workers car and rushed her to the ER in Belleville. They arrived before 8:00 a.m. It was after 8:00 p.m. when they unloaded her at Kingston General which is an hour east of Belleville. They wheeled her straight into the Cath-Lab. Within 15-20 minutes they were operating on her to remove a lesion which was blocking 90% of the left anterior descending artery. They also put in a stint to keep that area from collapsing.
The good news is, all her other arteries and 100% clear. The bad news is she now has permanent damage to the left side of the heart. It’s only working at about 60% right now. The doctors all say that with time and medications her heart should get back up to 70% maybe as high as 80%. But that’s as good as it’ll ever get.
She was in the middle of arranging her retirement. She was willing to work through to spring to help train a new person. She was also looking at a part time job starting this Christmas. She'd hoped to keep it so she would still feel useful and earn some spending money. Well that’s all out the window now. I doubt she’ll ever work again. Now I’m the chief cook, bottle washer, dog walker/groomer, house keeper as well as personal chauffeur and PSW. Not what I had planned at all.
It'll be a quiet but very thankful Christmas this year.
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