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Where's my warranty? -- 06/10/10 |
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Hmmm, has my warranty expired? Am I past my prime? Am I wearing out? *sigh* In order to be approved for surgery, the hospital requires that the patient's regular physician has to sign approval for the procedure following a physical exam that includes an electrocardiogram. So, before my heel surgery I had to visit my general practice doctor. I had assumed that a nurse/practitioner would administer the cardiogram, take my pulse and blood pressure, and check my height and weight. Nope. It was a full physical exam that (even after approving me for surgery) also sent me out for a blood workup to check my cholesterol levels ("very good!" was the verdict) and to have my hearing checked by an audiologist (I have high frequently hearing loss in my right ear -- which I've had for more than thirty years) and I have an appointment next week with a pulmonary specialist (to check for possible sleep apnea, etc.) but the one that had me concerned was today's appointment. After the old turn-your-head-and-cough routine my doctor had told me that she was pretty sure I had a hernia. Yeah, so this afternoon was my appointment with a surgeon to confirm. Well, as you probably have guessed, he agreed that I do have a hernia and that I should have it repaired. It was too late to do the scheduling this afternoon, so tomorrow morning his office will call me to set up surgery. It will probably be about three weeks from now. So I do not think I will be running in any races in August. I had a temptation to refer to the poetry of the senior Oliver Wendell Holmes... specifically to "The Deacon's Masterpiece" -- which you may know as the tale of "the wonderful one-hoss shay." However, although that well-built shay did suddenly fall to pieces all at once, the analogy doesn't really work for it made it through a full century whereas I am a mere sixty-seven. And I'm merely falling apart in a few places... Of course, there was that song we would sing during musical assemblies in grade school -- "My Grandfather's Clock" -- and, come to think of it, isn't that a bit of a macabre tune to be teaching to little children? Think of a room filled with little children enthusiastically bellowing out "but it stopped short never to go again when the old man died." Ah, but I'm simply going in for repairs... and hope to get in many more miles just as soon as these repairs are completed and I'm back on my feet (with my feet in my running shoes). After all, the repair work has been done on my heel. This year's tooth project is getting near completion. (The actual titanium posts will be put in on the 21st and then I have to wait at least six weeks to confirm that they are okay and then my general practice dentist can install crowns on them -- since those two teeth were extracted in January, you can imagine that I am really eager for the process to be complete.) So by the time I have recovered from the hernia repair surgery, I should be ready from top to bottom to get back into a good program of physical conditioning.
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