HOW-OF-WHY

So I have been absent from the world wide web (or the "internets" as George Bush calls them) for a few weeks.
Here is the low down:
7/7/06 - I have what turns out to be a massive Heart Attack (HA) around 3PM.
Luckily my x-wife calls 911 and a fire-truck and an ambulance of paramedics arrive quite soon, stabilize me and haul me to St. Lukes South.
At 3AM I am suddenly transferred to St. Lukes Medical Center, just off Oklahoma & KK, order there by a Cardiologist, Dr. Paul Bernstein.
Within a couple of days (not the same day) I undergo a Cardiac Catheritization followed immediately by an Angioplasty. Dr. B and his hot shot crew brag that they can do 50 of these a day (sort of a Jiffy-Lube mindset applied to heart trouble). To do this they get to my erratically thythmed heart by going through a very large artery in my groin area.

During the next few days they do a bunch of mysterious, complicated and painful procedures looking for blood clots, and trying to get my heart beating normally again. I'm told each one might kill me but if not I will not remember a thing that happened.

Finally a rather large crew gets assembled to basically shock my heart back into its regular rhythm.
They put me under and anesthetic.
I come back up and the crew and their machinery are gone. An hour has passed but I have no memory of what I experienced even though they tell me I was "awake" during the process. My nurse yells me the procedure worked. My heart beat is stable.

Trouble is that there are life threatening complications in their Jiffy Lube Angioplasty approach in one out of 5 cases. MD B (who suffers under the delusion that he is a god rather than a Jiffy Lube type technician) misses that there was a screw-up despite my telling him that the pain in my right leg is worse than the HA pain. Not even examining the wound site or my hideously swollen and bruised right leg/hip/lower back he denies me ANY pain meds and simple says "you'll get used to it" and walks out. When a nurse intercedes on my behalf by calling him he tells her "no pain medication, and NEVER call me again" What a god like Jiffy Lube charmer!

He/they send me home in extreme pain, unable to walk, no pain meds. My 19 year old daughter an a stranger walking down the street manage to get me into the house. I am in agony.

Ross Bigley, Director of the Milwaukee Short Film Festival & Dirty Job Films and James Fletcher of the Bunny Gumbo Theatre Company (who produces COMBAT THEATRE twice a year) were planning a Benefit for me even prior to the HA. It was held on 7/29/06 at BucketWorks. Actors & directors volunteered their time & talents to stage 3 of my short plays and three films I have made in were also shown (plus a clip reel of films of others I have performed in).

In mid September Ross is shooting a film version of my short play HAPPINESS IS A LONG SHOT. It will be available on DVD from Bunny Gumbo Theatre Company and Dirty Job Films.

I lived on the 2nd floor at home but have had to be on the first floor since.
The person I was pre HA seems like a memory of someone else. He is gone.
I'm someone who has replaced him and has some of his memories, but someone else.

Today I was taken to see the non-Bernstein cardiologist.
He says I am healing.
I am still in quite a bit of pain.
But no one will prescribe any pain relief medication.
I have lost some weight.
I'm about 50 pounds above where I was when I graduated from high school.

On 7/23/06 I turned 60.

I have been in the hospital 5 times in 4 years.

During #3 or 4 I asked the most communicative Dr. (named Tim Allen) why I had these health problems. He explained that I had made a big mistake early on. I chose the wrong parents.

My father died, when I was 15, when a blood clot in his leg (from a 20 year old industrial accident) moved to his heart and killed him. My mother lived into her mid eighties, but lost a leg due to vascular problems

Right now, much of just living is challenging.

None the less, it is good to be alive.

mjm 7/25/06