The previous two messages were in queue already, but this 
one is being typed under the handicap of a wound around my
wrist caused by my choice of cath insertion points (the
other possibility was the groin, with that much greater
chance of catastrophic bleeding). I'm not to flex my wrist
or move my fingers for several days; so I've been using my
right middle finger as a stylus and moving the whole hand by 
the shoulder and elbow (allowed); when doing Word Connect,
I move the phone against a basically stationary middle
finger, which works but not great. Violin playing of course
is also forbidden. Tomorrow, the bandages come off, and if I 
don't start spurting all over the place, I'll try to do 7.

According to my understanding, there was to be no solid food
after midnight, just clear liquids, so Lilli suggested vodka;
I mulled that over at breakfasttime and combined an ounce and 
half of tequila with an ounce of lime juice and one of simple, 
splash of Grenadine, spritz, rocks. It gave me enough calories 
and a better attitude: later on the Internet I read the 
conflicting advices that before this anesthesia-requiring
procedure one should have 1. nothing or 2. a normal diet.
There were opinions in between as well of course.

And then off to the scene of my former triumphs, where the
nursing staff was friendly but hadn't read my record (not a
surprise - my Mass Gen stuff is over a ream, and my Scripps
stuff is at least two. Interesting: there isn't any daytime
transport - the admitting staff has to push the wheelchairs
and gurneys (so my escort in was a wisp of a girl who couldn't
have weighed 100); at night, I think it's security, anyway the
guy who wheeled me out was large and burly and talkative.

The cardiologist reading the results from last week said my 
heart function is down to 10 (overhearing the docs fussing, 
it appears that it's actually 9, but who's counting, down
from 26 early in the year), and the Marine guy was talking 
about more stenting with 6 months' Plavix and aspirin (he's 
a big famous stenting expert); I nixed the option, as the 
people out here minimize the danger bleeding poses to me or 
realize that if I die from a heart attack it's a shame, but 
if my brain goes from hemorrhage and my heart remains intact, 
which is far more likely, it's a tragedy ("If Gladstone were 
to fall into the Thames, that would be a shame; if someone 
were to fish him out again, that would be a tragedy - 
attributed to Disraeli). Later I heard the guy ranting about 
me ("after all the effort we've taken!"), but how much of 
that is anything more than wounded pride I don't know. After 
a bit of hash out we tentatively agreed that I should look 
into open-heart, which meant there would be no point keeping 
me there after the exploration, so I was discharged the same 
day. I overheard the nurses trying to move heaven and earth 
and get me out of there by midnight, for whose benefit I am 
not sure.

The anesthetist got it right, more or less, so I was kind of
awake for the whole hour adventure (I heard the surgeon
actually trying to make a joke in the middle of it), but 
unfortunately I got worse pukies than ever before. In the 
recovery room I was given the full choice of the menu and 
thought about "grilled steak," "personal pizza, cheese,
pepperoni, or veggie," or the old standby of a burger (bun =
+2 servings carbs), but after mentally tasting these options
the queasiness got the better of me, so I had a nurse get me
some orange gelatin. It came diet.

The reading shows that most of the heart is compromised to 
the point of dys- to nonfunction, not just the 15% in the 
lower left that we've been aware of for centuries, so that's 
discouraging. 

They'd promised a CAT scan in the afternoon to prepare for
the possibility of open-heart in the next week or two, but 
it didn't happen until after 10, but I got back to Lilli's 
before midnight (nauseated as heck). She offered leftover 
spaghetti or leftover beef, but that didn't appeal, so I 
went to bed without any supper.

This report typed by my left hand with the assistance of
the middle finger of my right.
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