A Change is Bound to Come

Monitors showing coarse images in a room filled with beeping machines and gowned nurses provide the back drop for my scary morning. Lying flat with intravenous drugs pumping, this sterile world whirls and washes about me. Lying flat, they tell me I must lie still and prone I stare up at the image of the interior of my heart.

Too young, too young, I shake my head. 54 ? Really I am just a child. A young soul, my body is showing wear signs. Still the midpoint of my life has passed, these days rush past. Before the drugs Dilaudid and Fentanyl pumped into me I was sniveling and scared.

Mentally floating I watch my mortality on a grainy black & white screen. An audible pumping sound, a whooshing sound I hear as that core muscle works to keep me alive. What have I done for my heart lately?

Uhm, well I have given up chocolate and caffeine. In the old days I never would have done that. Ever. The doctor thinks the chest pains may be the result of caffeine and stimulants screwing with my veins. I have returned to the use of a statin drug but I am also using a non statin which has its own issues.

My leg wound will heal. This incision is from where they took their tools and snaked their way up into my heart. When my flesh has knit itself back together I will return to walking. Each morning I will trek to the bus stop. Each evening I will be riding my bike.

My diet was already changing. Hopefully the shift will be long term. More fish (for now) is on the daily menu. This is tough when the nearest ocean is 600 miles away.

If the radio is right I have to shift over to eating brown rice and barley too. These grains will reduce my chance of diabetes and that would be a good thing. At least I have always like broccoli. Odd how mortality seems to matter more when there is an instance of sudden doubt as to its continuation.

But the world will always press in trying to derail my efforts. We are conditioned to look for the easy way to do everything. Why walk when we can ride. We are conditioned to reward ourselves with food, food that is not good for us. When in doubt, eat a large piece of chocolate for each achievement or failure.

Today I ache. My muscles and my gut are sore from the “procedure”. Despite the warnings of huge bruising it really hasn’t set in yet. My hip hurts and sitting is uncomfortable. My wish is that these pains would all go away at once without hesitation.

On the other hand I am relieved that none of the physician’s might have to deal withs came to pass. Sequentially numbered these were set out on a warning sheet I had to sign and date. Coronary bypass surgery, stroke and death stand out at the ones that really scared the bejesus out of me. All in all, the event was rather quick and without complication, less than six hours from in the door to out the door.

People don’t change who they are very easily. How and what we eat is unquestionably part of who we are. But when you are faced with a choice between being and well not being, change becomes a little bit easier to swallow. It may seem unfair that grazing is no longer an acceptable food ingestion plan and that chocolate and Diet Coke are no longer a viable food group, but it sure beats the alternative.

Motivated by the existential ultimate coup de grace I think I can eat clean at least for the near future. Maybe if I can stick with a week I will make it a month. Maybe if I can make it a month I can make it six months. From anecdotal memory this is the way change has always worked for me. Aim for today and maybe tomorrow and if it works then think long term.

Once upon a time when I was 14 years old I pared off a great deal of weight. I weighed about 190 pounds and I was 5 foot 6 inches tall. From about April of the year I hit that weight until September I changed my eating habits. I drank water instead of soda pop. I walked and biked all over the place. I stopped eating Tastykakes (mmmm Tastykakes) .

Forty pounds disappeared in almost no time. I didn’t feel it going away, it just vanished. Hey I grew six inches at the time but I don’t think the metabolic change accounted for all of it, or even most of it. It was really a matter of desire and will.

I had made my mind up that change had to happen. Then I focused on a strategy. Each step I took toward the refrigerator was taken with knowledge and purpose. For years afterward I had food rules such as when I could and couldn’t eat. I wouldn’t buy candy bars. I would only drink unsweetened tea. I avoid ice cream. I wouldn’t eat after 7 p.m.

In reality I don’t remember what the event was that motivated the change but there must have been one. It has been my experience that people change only when an “event” occurs. Death, incarceration, and divorce these bring about change. Maybe it I was to pay for a second session with a psychiatrist and maybe a few more after that I would peel back the layers and remember what my catalyst for change was. But right now I don’t think that is necessary. One day spent scared out of my mind while they poked around in my heart; yeah I think that is enough of an agent for change.

Hey but chocolate is chocolate.