I last posted here in September...  but there's a lot missing from my recent fun.  Fast forward catching up.

Just before Halloween of 2012, my pulse started racing for no particular reason and nothing I did would bring it back down.  Emergency room with atrial fibrillation.  More meds, including blood thinner.  Blood thinner pretty much precludes the regular use of my beloved aspirin and slightly less beloved ibuprofen.  I had a total of five A-fib attacks between October 2012 and September 2013, decreasing in severity but increasing in frequency.   The last two I didn't go to the hospital for.  In October 2013, I had an ablation done - another overnight stay in the hospital.  That tamed the A-fib so far.  Pulse acts wacky from time to time, but we're talking seconds or minutes, not days.  Dropped the extra meds except for blood thinner, which is still a mediation for a potential stroke should I go into A-fib again.

My plan for 2014 to be the year I don't go to the hospital started off well enough.  I had never been hospitalized in my 53 years at the time - then a rapid succession of them in 2011, 2012, and 2013.

In mid April, I got a fever and flu-like symptoms.  Just a general run-down feeling.  I stayed home from work for a whole week and in that time I didn't send out any emails or anything, and my memory of the week is pretty sketchy.  That Friday my doctor told me to go to the ER.  Well, I ended up spending 11 days in the hospital - 6 of those days in an induced coma with tubes down my throat and viral pneumonia in both lungs.  I guess feeling "rundown" is bound to happen when you're blood O2 levels are at 53%.  Yes, 53%... when those numbers came up the ER doc (who I'm now on a first name basis with) said GTFO, check it again.

During the comatose period, I had several episodes of consciousness - and no memory of why I was in the hospital.  So when they pulled the tubes and finally let me officially wake up, I wasn't very cooperative and basically thought they were at best trying to keep me sick and milk my insurance, at worst flat out trying to kill me.  My wife was by my side through all of it - even when I initially accused her of being in on the "conspiracy".  The first 24 hours awake, I was in and out of a haze and wanting to believe that there was a chance I'd get out of this and I realized just how good my life was, and how much I wanted it back.  By the second day, the fog began to lift - I remembered being sick, I remembered the ER and the oxygen and the ambulance ride.  The third day they had me standing up and taking a few steps.  The fourth day I was up and walking around - although only with an escort.  Day five, I went home.

My lungs are good.  My primary doctor - a musician himself - gave me the green light to play the saxophone from the get go.  I'm now in two bands practicing on back-to-back Mon-Tues nights and busy as hell with it.   I got my life back in spades... my right shoulder is still messed up.  Rotator cuff muscles are very weak, motion is limited.  I can type and play keyboards and play saxophone - lifting the saxophone, or raising my arm over head - that's tough.  Taking physical therapy and doing daily exercises.  Doing yard work, landscaping - power washed and painted the front porch deck.  I'm not 100% but I'm not sure I ever was.

Maybe 2015 will be the year I don't go to the hospital.  I guess the best part about all of this was finding out how many friends I have all over the world.  My wife was using my phone to text and email while I was orbiting the dark side of the moon, and when I was lucid enough she handed it to me so I could read all the posts and responses.  It's strange to have 6 days of your life just gone.  Apparently it rained a lot.  I've known people who had pneumonia and were knocked out for a month... six days isn't bad.  I can't imagine what kind of atrophy my body would go through if it had been any longer.

The first couple days I was out, I ended up using a scooter cart for the first time in my life.  At Walmart.  I managed to crash into a shelf and knock a bunch of stuff down doing a U-turn....  which is I guess why I wasn't allowed to drive for a month.  I was able to go back to work, from home, after a week and then worked at home 3 more weeks until I could drive again.  None the worse for the wear, until I try to reach out with that right arm and grab my coffee mug and it won't.

Somewhere back in Feb I celebrated 25 years sober.  Well I've now been drugged six ways from Sunday... I think some of the stuff they used to knock me out was the stuff Michael Jackson died from... ouch.  But, I still haven't found it necessary to take a drink of alcohol since Feb 6, 1989.  My daughter recently celebrated 19 years.  I'm back, and all the more grateful.