I'm not sure this qualifies as an adventure, but maybe.
On 12 August 2012, I declared a hiatus from participating in open mics, thinking I had grown too fat - meaning after maybe a dozen steps I would run out of breath. I thought a healthier diet and exercise would whip that right off.
It didn't. On 28 August, I admitted I wasn't making much difference and my breathlessness might be getting worse. Lindy took me to Kaiser and I surrendered.
Whoo! I didn't know.
I had fluid in my lungs. My blood had about half its expected ability to carry oxygen to my body. My ventricles were beating at twice their expected rate, and my atrea even faster than that. My potassium was down, my sodium was down from their expected levels. If there were other problems, I've forgotten.
Kaiser tackled my heart rate, anemia, and fluid in my lungs first. A transfusion helped with the anemia. A process I didn't understand involved saline IVs and a catheter. I surrendered a lot of fluid, a lot, including the fluid in my lungs, apparently. The doctors experimented with several drugs, I think, and several dosages, and brought my heart rate down to more nearly normal.
Apparently the damage to my atrea is permanent though. They will never work quite right again, and may go into fibrillation again - the wild beating. (Whoever I told that the word is fibulation, I was wrong. I apologize.)
That freed the doctors to work on my potassium and sodium levels. They did, and won.
The cardiologist experimented some more with drugs and dosage, and found a gentler way to control my heart rate. She kept me another day to make sure,
Kaiser let me come home, but I have to go back for follow-up appointments with my primary care physician, my cardiologist, and a urologist. Oh, and a class for taking this condition - congestive heart failure - seriously, and following directions about medications, diet, exercise, and seeing my doctor.
Hmpf! Still, that's what's so, and I'll live with it.
So now I'm back to getting my strength and endurance back. The doctors say that will take time. The good news is that I can walk - well, toddle - about the apartment already.
And so now to find a way back to poetry-land again. My first creative act was to write this. I have, so maybe I've found the trail-head too.
I hope to see you soon, and with new poems.
