Having no dogs, or kittens to show you,
How about a younger ole Texan?
Good Morning wonderful people of Gus!
Please accept my appreciation/gesture, feeling I have this Monday morning to be here again with you after having been granted permission to come into your living rooms/or work stations. As I mentioned I wrote this piece yesterday Sunday -- to be published today Monday.
Thank you I am thrilled to be here.
And please forgive me for not having pretty pictures of dogs or cats to show you this morning. That phase in my life of having a pet for companionship was passed down to my children some time ago. Maybe you`ve met Mr. Bentley. I introduced you to him some time back. He is my daughter`s house pet dog that once in a while comes by to visit me, but I feel more secure when he leaves.
I do have an African Grey Parrot that is crazier then me though. He talks more than some people I know, but I just have never taken a picture of him in his castle of a cage. So if I could cook or bake a cake, I would post a recipe. Sorry I can`t do either.
So I thought I`d show you the next best thing..... ME! I do this simply because its the way I feel this morning..A lot younger for a reason. Daylight saving time here in Wisconsin this time of year once again has nothing to do with it. I wanted so much earlier to tell you about it.
I just knew right away when I woke up this Sunday morning (as I write this), that I felt a bit younger. Maybe I have it backwards, I don`t know but looking at the large red hands of my clock it was almost 6:00 a.m.
I jumped out of bed and headed to the bath room as is my daily routine -- only the see in the living room`s brightly lit clock that it was only 5 a.m. I recalled that I had forgotten to change my clock an hour back Saturday night when I went to sleep. How about you? Do you have to turn your clock backward one hour where you live?
Bummer. I walked back and jumped back under the warm covers. I slept another hour and when I got up again it was light outside. I don`t understand. If I turned my clock backwards, doesn`t it means that it should be darker. I`m confused due to my own inner clock being thrown for a loss, but I felt younger. I don`t know why but I have an idea.
Ever since I went into the Cardiologist`s office October 14th, where I would find out the results of the last Echocardiogram done on my heart October 8th (the purpose for this visit) as to whether my heart had suffered lasting damage that would curtail my life in many vital and important every day activities.
If you are reading Ole Texan for the first time today I suffered a scare of a heart attack a few months ago in June. But I already wrote about that. This is not a repeat. I have been wanting to pass this information about the end result of all that. This is why I am feeling so young this morning:
O.K. I am sitting there all scared, overlapping my paranoia in the impeccably spotless Cardiologist waiting room for the arrival of my doomsday death sentence which admittedly I was expecting. And why not? I mean I had just had a heart attack for shit-sake I thought. I even admit that I was thinking and hoping that the Cardiologist did not enter holding a bible in his hand to perform last rites for me.. I was that scared!
I don`t even know why a bible came into my mind. But it did.
But I am very happy I was wrong. So very wrong on all counts.
Enters my savior into the room that I had already mentally compared to a spotless cloud.
He stretched his hand towards mine with a wide grin on his face. "You are a very lucky man", he told me..
Tell me about it I thought. All my life I have thought along those same lines. I have always known that I was indeed a very lucky man......Evidenced by my posted picture.
And I waited for him to continue not wanting to be rude and interrupt with my thoughts.
He obviously remembered that I had previously asked him to tell me the truth. I had asked him to tell me the amount of damage that my heart had suffered. I wanted the truth so that I could arrange whatever needed to be arranged if my time was now short.
He smiled as he put some hand pressure on mine as he held it.
"Your heart is now normal. There is no damage. In fact, I am taking you off of some of your medications that you no longer need".
So he took me off of a med that had given me some negative side effects since just after my release from the hospital. The Pravastatin pill as you may know is basically a Lipitor medication pill used for High Cholesterol Medications. He assured me that my Cholesterol was now under control so he took me off the 80mg prescription and lowered it to a 20 mg I am now taking.
He also lowered my daily intake of aspirin. Where I started out taking a 500 mg pill of aspirin, he took that away and prescribe a EC 81 mg from this day forth. A baby`s dose as he described my new aspirin daily intake.
My High Blood Pressure medication and Blood thinner pills I must take for life I guess. But I take that with much gusto. My system appear to have these two areas well covered and under control.
Standing there looking at me, smiling he waited for my response. I was totally numb struck. I recovered and took his hand in both of mine and thanked him. I thanked him as I fought off the lump in my throat for saving my life. I cannot think of anything else that he did for me, but saved my life. I told him that.
Our meeting ended as he set another follow-up appointment for six months hence from now.
When I walked out into the sidewalk of the hospital that day I wanted so bad to do few dance steps gangnam style, jump up and click my heels together. Ole Texan was that happy and lucky type guy. People were around so I just shuffled down the street to a bus stop to go home with the good news. And ever since, my good luck continues to hold.
So yes Gus faithfuls, I wanted to share my good news. I wanted to share this because I have had a very special goal to living. I am lucky in many many ways. Luck seems to just find me.
Take my picture above.
I was teaching in a classroom setting back when I was that young. Not only in heart and soul but all the above with luck. Yes luck.
I had never, prior to landing this job had training as a classroom teacher. I had none, nor do I have today any college degrees of any kind. I never went to college. I had no teaching license in Wisconsin when I was sitting in that picture.
I worked for over two years teaching ("ESL"), English-as-a-Second-Language and moonlighted in (ABE"), Adult-Basic-Education, preparing adult folks to obtain GED certificates...Now if anyone has done what I did back then ( and I mean teaching) I would say you are lucky -- very lucky indeed.
But with no formal education like me at the time...I doubt it.
Finally, I have tinkered with the idea of writing a diary telling about my experience of being a teacher/instructor -- an area that was my original job title back then. I started being a Job Preparation instructor. In that job my duties were to help folks prepare a decent Resume and prepare them on how to appear before a prospective employer and what to say and what not to say during a job interview. (However I do not elaborate on this job because politics were involved, a no-no here).
One last thing for all the Gus community.
My Cardiologist told me that I was lucky to have stopped smoking in 1994. Otherwise the news he gave me when we spoke might have been totally different. He even showed me pictures on his computer of what smoking does to a person who has suffered a heart attack.
I wish what I saw in those pictures on no one. Not even on my worst enemy if I had one. So again I ask you to stop smoking if you cannot kick the habit. If I did it cold turkey, so can you. Do it for your loved ones.
If you are in a time zone that does not practice the changing of time forward or backward, I hope you still feel young today. I know I do.