Taylor Swift Pointed At Me
2023 was quite a year. Taylor Swift pointed at me. Oh, and I had quadruple bypass heart surgery. The two are, believe it or not, unrelated.
The year began as most years do; I planned to do a lot of things I’d never accomplish. Losing weight, exercising more, spending more quality time with family and friends, reading. Wesley moved to Florida to work for Disney, exponentially increasing my pride and anxiety. We had a lot of things to look forward to this year. We thought incorrectly that the pandemic was in our review mirror. We had a trip planned, tickets to see the aforementioned Dr. Swift, and several other things to look forward to.
On March 21, I had a cardiac catheterization to check out some pain in my chest and general fatigue I’d been experiencing. That day did not go as planned. We were scheduled to leave just a few days later to visit Wesley in Florida. A trip that never happened. Shortly after the procedure, my cardiologist entered my room and began tossing out numbers while drawing on a schematic of the human heart. He may as well have been speaking a foreign language and writing in Sanskrit. The bottom line was I had five blockages in my heart ranging from 60% blocked to a widow-making 95% blockage. I’d need heart surgery. And soon. He recommended not traveling and getting my pre-op work done in the next week and my surgery in a few weeks. Rebecca asked, “What if we just stay here?” My cardiologist said we could try that and see if someone could perform the surgery the next day. They could. So what began as a Tuesday before vacation turned into a life-changing and life-saving trip to the hospital.
The surgery went as good as it possibly could have. The surgeon took a vein from my leg and used it to bypass all the blockages in my heart. Apparently, before the surgery, while under anesthesia, I laid out and executed a perfect Seinfeld joke about not wanting a Junior Mint to fall into my chest cavity.
Wesley was able to fly home, so everyone was home to support me during this time. While I was scared, my wife and I took a one-step-at-a-time approach. This was happening; the other option was me dying eventually, so we just had to take each challenge as it came up and keep moving forward. I think I felt the most bad about the stress I put my family under. It must have been dreadful for them.
Recovery was difficult, but again, we approached each challenge as it came up and tried to succeed and move on to the next one. One thing that was very hard, was that several people I’d considered friends didn’t seem to concerned with my peril. Some of them didn’t even reach out to see how I was. And still haven’t. That was tough. But I persevered, physically and mentally. Day by day I got stronger. I was able to walk to the mailbox. Then to the end of the street. Then around the block. Then a mile…while I was in the hospital they asked me to set a recovery goal, some personal milestone to work toward, I said I wanted to see Taylor Swift with my daughter. We had tickets to several shows on the Eras tour and I was worried my new health situation would not allow me to go. Fortunately, my surgeon assured me I’d be able to go and we did! Our story even made the local news!
And then, Taylor Swift pointed at me.
I can’t say that 2023 was a great year. Much of it was pretty miserable, but thanks to the skill of my surgeon and my family’s support, I survived heart surgery and Taylor Swift pointed at me. I’ll take the wins where I can.