…and down the stretch they come!

Well, it’s officially official. I get to wake up at the crack of early tomorrow morning and head into the hospital where they will intentionally surge up to as many as 2,500 volts of electricity into my body in order to get my finicky and ill-behaved heart to beat in a consistent and steady rhythm again. Having been a drummer for over thirty years you’d think this would be a sure thing right? Unfortunately this has not proven to be the case.

For those of you who don’t know, I had surgery about four years ago to address this pesky and somewhat annoying issue of heart disease. I have what is known as Advanced Dilated Cardiomyopathy. Basically it’s a condition where the heart's ability to pump blood is decreased because the left ventricle is enlarged and weakened. This causes a decreased amount of blood pumped out with each heart beat. Some people inherit this wonderful disorder genetically, some through alcoholism or smoking and some folks like me are lucky enough to develop it because of thyroid issues. YAY! Well, let’s just say that unlike like a few more patient areas of my personal health issues, this one seems to be clinging on to the edge of the cliff vying for more attention because my M.S. must have been taking up too much of my time lately.

So while most of you will be sleeping snug like bugs in your beds, I will once again be taking off my shirt in a room full of strangers as they poke and pinch their way over my hands and arms to find a suitable vein. Goosebumps will spread as I lean back on the cold, hard chair and listen to the doctors and nurses discuss my over-weightness whilst standing next to me as if I won’t be able to hear their “tsk tsk tsk’s” and other condescending comments.

The good thing is that my BFF will enter the room shortly thereafter. Dear magical Anesthesiologist will float in on his glorious syringe shaped clouds of propofol and medazolam. He will bring his generous gift of peaceful and wonderful sleep to me. Once the nurses find the previously mentioned deep and buried veins, he will wave his magic needle, exclaim “Wigardium Drowsiosa!” and everything will blink out into a deep, impenetrable milky blackness. None of the sounds, sights or smells of the pads placed on my chest, side and back will reach me. I won’t feel the cold adhesive as it clings to my freshly shorn skin. I won’t hear the high whine of the machine as it cranks up to deliver its powerful charge. I won’t smell my chest, abdomen and back burning from the fire of electricity shooting deep through flesh into that troublesome muscle protected by bones and tissue placed there by thousands of years of evolution.

Then, hopefully, I’ll wake up missing only a few moments of time from my life wondering why I have all these funny creams and bandages all over my torso. I’m sure I'll be glad that they are there in a few hours when the steroid cream wears off and I start to feel the skin healing from the fresh burn marks. Some blisters will form and they will itch like hell. But if I scratch them, it’ll hurt SO much worse. Trust me, I’m not new to this rodeo.

After a few hours my doctor will allow me to come home. I’ll hang out on the couch with the dog and watch some lousy cable teevee. I’ll take a few aspirin or something, maybe a nap if I can find a position that doesn’t rub to hard against the burns. Every five or ten minutes my wife and I will check my pulse to see how steady it is. We’ll be looking for the reassuring and groovy repetitive sounds of: thumpah thumpah thumpah thumpah. If we hear: thumpah thumthumthum thumpah thumpthump thumpahthumpahthump thump thumpah, then I’ll be pretty pissed off.

You see, all of this bitching and moaning I do about M.S. is pretty serious. It hurts, and losing muscle control of my body pretty much blows in every conceivable way. But I don’t think the M.S. is what’s going to kill me. I think if I'm betting on a horse race between Advanced Cardiomyopathy and Multiple Sclerosis… A.C. would win out in the home stretch.

I am not afraid of dying anymore. Mind you, I am NOT saying that I want to die, but I have a closer understanding of the fact that it will happen to me at some point. It’s a part of life for all of us. It sucks and it ticks me off and letting go of this place is certainly not a fun concept that I enjoy pondering. But on a day like today looking ahead to a day like tomorrow, it kinda punches me dead in the nose.

I do intend to go down swinging though! Father’s day was awesome and I love being around my wife and kids. So they’re gonna have to drag me outta here by tooth and nail broham! Mortal or not, I have too much to see and do before the credits roll.


Now that I’ve spread this jam of happiness and joy all over your day, let me just say this: Tickle your kids. Hug your loved ones. Play fetch with your dog. Shine a laser pointer in circles around your cat. Stare deep, long and hard into the mirror and don’t look away from yourself. Smile. Laugh. Sing. Sing again. Sing LOUDER! Please love yourself!

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