Baseball, Meds, Wedding, Alaska, Summer School and the Cave

I coached what is probably my last time coaching baseball on a Tuesday and missed the Friday game when I was in the hospital for an R & R visit. These are the JV games. It's time to take a break from being the one in charge of a team, though helping others might be in the future. I did help the varsity in their playoff games, and that was a good time even though the last game was a loss. Baseball has been very good to me and I hope I have honored the game and helped others.

The R & R in the hospital? Courtesy of modern medication the doctors think. This is the second time that blood pressure medication has slowed my heart to the point that I black out. The first time I was teaching and woke up laying sideways across a desk. This time I was finishing breakfast and I "awoke" to my family asking what was going on. I had no clue what they were talking about, but soon pieced together the fact that I has momentarily blacked out and I agreed that I should go to the ER. By the way the ER is much better in the morning than at night. No other pesky patients throwing up in the waiting room. The ER doctor is a friend and he with an resident quickly got me to a room. It seems fitting to mention that besides the ER doctor an admitting nurse and two ER nurses were either former athletes or students. I guess my teaching helped someone.

Eventually my GP and cardiologist came to the conclusion that I was over medicated and my heart meds were reduced. I guess that was also why I had been light headed and had dizzy spells for the previous week. Lesson learned. Also makes me think about a situation where society breaks down and I can't get meds. Cardiologist mentioned that it appears post surgery my heart needs to have a slightly higher pressure for me to function. Not bad news if meds are hard to get.

With the dizziness I was told not to drive. Usually not a problem, but we had a 5 hour trip north to help family, then a wedding in Alaska. I'm usually the driver in the family and Maureen had to drive both ways. I'm a horrible co-pilot/navigator. I'm used to reading maps and deciphering to info available on a smart phone is taking some time to learn. Partly because I don't use the app very often and partly because I know where I'm going most of the time, or can use my sense of direction to figure things out. I will admit one of the beauties of the map app is checking where there is traffic problems or road issues, and using that information to change course. So you can imagine the Subie's cockpit conversations as I try to read the phone and direct Maureen on which road to turn on, which lane to be in and to do so in plenty of time to execute the maneuver; all the while with Maureen processing my gibberish and the phone spitting out updates that have to be figured out. We made it up and back alive, but I will tell of a part 2 a bit later.

The good news upon return home is the doctors gave me the okay to drive and I didn't receive a letter from the DMV directing me to stop driving. The letter would involve an appointment and interview with an DMV person to see if I was fit to drive. I had to do that 3 years ago with the first blackout. The big offshoot of this is I got to drive in Alaska and the rental of cars was easier to pull off.

Alaska and wedding? Son number two lives in the Caribbean with his fiancee and they decided to simplify their lives and get married--Yahoo! They decided to do this in Alaska when they were on a vacation with her family. There is so much to write about. Maybe it was a rationalization of mine that because we financially couldn't travel much, looking at books and watching movies could give you a sense of what a location is like. And I still believe that to a certain extent. But actually being in a new place like Alaska gives you so much more than a movie or book can. Everything in Alaska seems BIGGER. The wilderness is so close. We stayed at and Air B-nB in Anchorage and were warned to keep the back gate close so the moose wouldn't wander into the yard. That's wild. I will write another post to give the trip it's due, but it was great and the time together as a family will always be remembered.

The rest of life is normal. I'm teaching summer school during the week and working at the cave in the park on weekends. Again reinforcing the decision to "resign" from teaching but continue to work as a new job. Still a good decision.