... there I was, sitting with the laptop on a Sunday night and working the animal care site... I felt a dull, sort of 'sick' ache in my back, just below the shoulder blades. Overall I felt nauseous and eventually started feeling like a great big guy was pressing both palms with all of his might into my chest.

My son stopped by and I said, "I think I'm having a heart attack". We don't know how to handle things like that in this family. Denial is our first bandaid.

He asked if I wanted to go to the emergency room and I said, "Naah, I'll just go to bed" and that's what I did. Must be gas - right?

The next day was only a little better, but since there was some improvement I continued to shrug it off.

About two weeks later I had a doctor's appointment for a physical that had been set up for, well, TEN years. I had been cancelling it and rescheduling it for - yep - ten years. I kept it this time.

When they did the EKG there was a bit of a pause. Another person came in and did it again. Another pause. Another person (funny, each person that came in was older than the last one) and finally a kind 'older' doctor tells me I had a myocardial infarction, also known as a M I or, heart attack.

My reaction? "I KNEW it!" I was strangely happy to not have been wrong. Then I tended to announce it to everyone I met over the next week or so. Clerks? "I had a heart attack". People I never saw before in my life sitting in the doctor's office? "I had a heart attack".

I've stopped announcing it lately, but that might be just because I ran out of people to announce it to.

I'm getting used to living with it (beats the alternative), but for sure, when I'm working in the yard or something and start to get out of breath, I hear those words "heart attack" in my head. I don't like that. I don't like feeling limited.

The myriad of tests show that I'm the healthiest heart attack victim there can be. Perfect cholesterol, all the other results are great and I'm the most conscientious eater (no red meat in more than a decade), fruit'aholic there is. So why a heart attack? Ehh, it's just giving out. Weak, degenerating muscle. The tests showed a couple other things sort of wasting away too (no, not my mind! Not yet anyway).

My thought is that if they can't fix it, don't talk about it. My next doctor's visit is supposed to be next week. They'll see me in about ten years.

Y'uh, I have every intention of being here. I've got a couple birds who have a good 60 years left to live and they think I'm going to live to be well over 100. Shhhhh.... what they don't know won't hurt me!

So how is everyone? Is it summer where you are yet?