Oops, Fill In Info on the Ominous Hint Yesterday.

Well Suzanne asked, by email, and I realize, for anyone actually following this blog, that I shouldn't drop hints like that, about the heart health, without filling in. I guess it is just getting to be old news for me, and I'm fatigued about "spreadin' the news."

But in a mega-walnut shell, I had another episode a few days after they let me out of the hospital proper (after the shoulder surgery). I hadn't been sleeping well at all, and on the fourth night, at 2 or 3 AM I decided to take one of the pink versions of Xanax that the doctors here had given me in case I needed them to sleep. Anyway, I was only familiar with the white dose and the blue dose, so I ended up taking more than twice what I usually need to take.

I woke up during the early morning hours with the A-Fib, and instead of just resting till it was better, I kept an appointment at 9:30. My A-Fib triggers seem to be exactly the same as my brother Jerry's: get shocked or disturbed out of sleep (not enough sleep) and poof, there it is. So I went to the heart doctor next that morning, to say, "see, here it is again!" He decided that I have should have a change of meds (an additional one) after all. He told me to take two and go to bed (seriously), I fell deeply asleep for a couple of hours and I woke up feeling rested, no A-fib.

Then the next day, I got to reading the side effects, online. Scared the crap out of me really, "this stuff can kill you." So I've negotiated with the doctor now to only take the additional medicine as a rescue measure. Otherwise, I was supposed to take a $150 a month medicine every day for the rest of my life (or until I got a pacemaker). You know, the docs just do what they have to do (in good conscience, or whatever), but they don't make any allowance for well, "maybe this thing too, shall have its day, and pass." They can't, because they don't always, and sometimes can't follow people who decide not to take their prescribed meds for whatever reason.

All I need to do, in my opinion, is to get myself into a productive and happy (healthy) life, and all will be fairly well, again.

More pix tomorrow. I am planning to go over to Wat Po for a visit and to buy some junk to bring home (honestly). I wish I had more pictures of people to show, but of course, you can't go around just taking pictures of people. In this situation it makes me look like I think I'm at a zoo, or something. One picture or two I would really like to get is of all the nuns around here. Honestly, when they walk past you in your peripheral vision, they are nothing so much as like the nuns who taught me in elementary school. Not all of the black veils (if black) are plain, though. Some are studded in various way, or bordered with really sparkling rhinestones. And there is one country where they wear the most exquisite colorful scarves (very expensive looking), and so elegantly (think of Benazhir Bhutto), except Pakistan's not the country in question. It is amazing how all the ladies from the same country are able to style their head scarf in exactly the same way. It seems like 10 or 15% of the visiting patients here are from Islamic countries, especially Oman and the UAE.

Bye for now,

John