- Joined
- Jul 5, 2012
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- 14,749
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- Website
- elizabethbonesteel.com
Generalized whining
So, my dad has a heart condition. Atrial flutter. As heart conditions go, it's pretty close to benign, but it's the "pretty close" that is the problem. This condition raises his risk of stroke by about 3%.
Options are blood-thinning medication, or an outpatient heart procedure. He's on the medication for now, which he's not happy about. Among other things, it's an imperfect solution, although the medications are better than they used to be. So he's going to go for the procedure (assuming testing shows that it's the right way to go), which involves actually killing parts of the heart muscle to disable the improper electrical impulses.
It's apparently pretty safe. He doesn't need to go under a general anaesthetic if he doesn't want to. If I know my dad, he will want to be wide awake and watching as much as he can, because it will be cool.
But he's 76 years old. 76-1/2. And I'm scared.
I am so lucky, in many ways, to still have my parents, and I am feeling rather selfish about it all. This isn't about me, is it? He's the one going through this. He's the one who just had his doctor tell him he's in remarkable shape "for his age," but that stuff just starts to wear out after a while.
He's scared too. I know he is. He says it's better now, and he doesn't even feel nervous most of the time. And I would probably make the same choice he is making - heart surgery, as scary as it sounds, beats the hell out of sitting around wondering if you're just randomly going to have a stroke.
I asked him once, years ago, if he felt the same inside as he had when he was in his 20s. He looked surprised, and said "Of course."
But he's not the same. And my mother is not the same, and I am not the same.
I am way behind on what I'm supposed to be doing. I've been writing around anything substantive on the WIP because I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid I don't have a story, that it has no heart. So I write introductory and character bits, and stay away from the actual plot, which is getting me nowhere. I fear that I wrote one book, and that's it. That I can't do it again. Would that be so bad? I've always written, sure; but this whole-book thing is recent for me. So what if it's only one? So what if it doesn't sell, goes nowhere? I write for myself. Don't I?
There's never enough time, is there?
So, my dad has a heart condition. Atrial flutter. As heart conditions go, it's pretty close to benign, but it's the "pretty close" that is the problem. This condition raises his risk of stroke by about 3%.
Options are blood-thinning medication, or an outpatient heart procedure. He's on the medication for now, which he's not happy about. Among other things, it's an imperfect solution, although the medications are better than they used to be. So he's going to go for the procedure (assuming testing shows that it's the right way to go), which involves actually killing parts of the heart muscle to disable the improper electrical impulses.
It's apparently pretty safe. He doesn't need to go under a general anaesthetic if he doesn't want to. If I know my dad, he will want to be wide awake and watching as much as he can, because it will be cool.
But he's 76 years old. 76-1/2. And I'm scared.
I am so lucky, in many ways, to still have my parents, and I am feeling rather selfish about it all. This isn't about me, is it? He's the one going through this. He's the one who just had his doctor tell him he's in remarkable shape "for his age," but that stuff just starts to wear out after a while.
He's scared too. I know he is. He says it's better now, and he doesn't even feel nervous most of the time. And I would probably make the same choice he is making - heart surgery, as scary as it sounds, beats the hell out of sitting around wondering if you're just randomly going to have a stroke.
I asked him once, years ago, if he felt the same inside as he had when he was in his 20s. He looked surprised, and said "Of course."
But he's not the same. And my mother is not the same, and I am not the same.
I am way behind on what I'm supposed to be doing. I've been writing around anything substantive on the WIP because I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid I don't have a story, that it has no heart. So I write introductory and character bits, and stay away from the actual plot, which is getting me nowhere. I fear that I wrote one book, and that's it. That I can't do it again. Would that be so bad? I've always written, sure; but this whole-book thing is recent for me. So what if it's only one? So what if it doesn't sell, goes nowhere? I write for myself. Don't I?
There's never enough time, is there?