Monthly Archives: October 2013

Day 284: We never know how we affect people (The Ta-Da Pose)

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Ann Koplow

I think, within the last 283 days,  I wrote another blog post about this:

We never know how we affect people

However,  I can’t locate that post right now.

But that’s not really important. Here’s what I wanted to write about, today.

Many years ago, I was driving alone at night, feeling low and discouraged about something.

I can’t remember what the hell I was feeling bad about, now.  (Isn’t that usually the way it works?  Problems that seem so important at the time often fade away, as time passes,  to nothing.)

I remember I was about to exit a supermarket parking lot, and I was waiting for a pedestrian to walk by.

I remember that pedestrian, quite well.  I wish I had a picture of him that I could share with you.

But I don’t.

Let’s see if I can capture and convey the experience to you.

I think the guy was wearing something unusual. I don’t have a great visual memory, so I can’t tell you what kind of clothing he had. But I think it was casual.  Maybe it was colorful.

He wasn’t  a serious, conventional business person. I know that. He looked like a “free spirit.” Again, my visual memory, for details, is fuzzy.

Here’s what I do remember clearly. As he crossed in front of my car, he caught my eye.

And without missing a beat, he made a “Ta-Da!” gesture.  That is, he stopped, smiled, put his arms out, and maybe even jumped a little, as if he was hearing, or making, a silent, triumphant trumpet noise.

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(Just for fun,  I’m going to Google-Image “Ta Da Pose” and see what I get.  Amazing!  Here’s the first thing that comes up:

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Here’s another one, with eye contact:

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That night, after the guy struck that Ta Da Pose ever-so-briefly,  he moved on.

I remember smiling back, then. Maybe I even laughed a little. (I’m not sure, because I was, after all, feeling very down.)

But I do remember this: I drove away, after this brief encounter, feeling changed.  Feeling better.

And to this day, when I am walking down the street, feeling and showing joy, I often think about that guy I met, many years ago.

He made a difference to me.

And who knows?  Maybe I sometimes make a difference like that, too.

Thanks to that guy, Endorphin Dude,  pose-strikers everywhere, and to you, of course, for reading today.

Categories: personal growth | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Day 283: Embracing change

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Ann Koplow

There’s a whole lot of change goin’ on here, dear readers.

I’m very aware of the difference between:

  1. Changes I am choosing, and
  2. Changes I’m not choosing.

That always seems to help: Recognizing the difference between those two types of changes.

Do I deal differently with those two types of changes?

Good question!

Let’s find out, shall we?

Let’s look at two particular changes on the horizon — one which I’m choosing and one which I’m not.

A Change I’m Not Choosing:  

A change in the seasons.  Specifically, the cold is coming, here in New England.

I’m not fortune telling (nor using any other cognitive distortion) when I make that last statement.  I think it’s safe to say that the chances of it NOT getting cold, soon, where I live, are approximately the same as:

Image *

an idiom that’s so inappropriate, I couldn’t resist using it.

Here’s another Google Image, for that idiom, that I can’t resist:

Image  **

So, we can all agree, I hope — as distracted as we may be by those photos —  that the cold will be arriving, soon, where I live.

How will I deal with that change?

  1. Complain about it.
  2. Especially complain about it with people who are empathic and who “get me” (that is, other people who don’t like the cold and who can’t escape it, for now).
  3. Focus on activities I like doing, which I’m more likely to do when it’s cold outside (for example, watching movies).
  4. Buy a fabulous piece of cold-weather gear, and wear it (for example, my one major purchase, when I was in Scotland in August):

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It’s the hat (in case that photo was confusing, in any way).

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Okay!  I’m ready to move on to a change that would include choice.

A change I would be choosing:

Getting another cat.

We already have one cat, named Oscar:

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That’s Oscar,above, sleeping on last year’s winter hat.  Here’s a close-up:

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Why am I considering this change?  Lots of reasons, including:

  1. Oscar seems to be hungering for more companionship, despite having humans around most of the time.
  2. He likes to play, but not with toys.
  3. He can be an ankle-biter (only with the person who has recently started taking anti-coagulant medication).
  4. Our vet thinks it would be a good change, for everybody.

So we’re considering another shelter cat, including

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Baxter,

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Buster, and

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Barney.

And those are just the “B’s.”

Which illustrates something I’ve blogged about before: I can have trouble making decisions, especially those that have an impact on others.

So how will I deal with this change?

  1. Talk (and write) about it.
  2. Especially talk about it with people who “get” it, or who might have helpful information and advice.
  3. Make a pros and cons list, to the best of my ability.
  4. Make sure (because other creatures are involved) there is a do-no-harm “out,” if the change does not work.
  5. Take a breath.
  6. Just do it!

Okay! That concludes our blog post for today.

Thanks to Oscar, Petfinder, Whiskers of Hope,  Broken Tail Rescue,  Gifford Cat Shelter, creatures needing shelter everywhere, and to you, too, for reading today.

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* Image ascribed, somehow, to sodahead.com.

**   Image ascribed to abaenglish.com.

Categories: personal growth, photojournalism | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Day 282: What Would it Give You? (Yearnings)

Posted on October 9, 2013 by Ann Koplow

When somebody wants something (especially something that seems out of reach), this can be a helpful question to ask:

If you had it, what would it give you?

I’m going to ask that question, right now, regarding some things I’ve yearned for in my life.  Some of these yearnings are way in the past, so I’ll do my best to answer them, in retrospect.

When I was a little kid, I really wanted to fly like Peter Pan.

What would that have given me?

Freedom.  Mastery. Joy.  Being above it all.

When I was a little kid, I really wanted to have a cat. And for a while, I couldn’t get one.

What would that have given me?

Another creature to sit with, silently, without expectations.  Somebody to love, simply, with all my heart.

I’m glad I asked myself those questions, this morning.

Now I’d like to focus on some recent yearnings:

Lately, I’ve wanted acknowledgment of my talents, at work and through this blog.

What would that give me?

A sense of self-worth.

Okay!

Whenever you ask the question, “What would that give you?”, here’s  a follow-up question, that can be quite helpful:

Now that you know what you yearn for, are there other ways you might get that, right now?

For the purposes of this morning’s post, I’m going to ask that follow-up question, focusing on the more recent yearnings.

In other words, are there other ways I might get a sense of self-worth, right now?

Yes.

How?

From within.

At this point, I would like to refer my readers to a recent blog post, which helped me, a lot, on  Day 258.

All of you is lovable.

When I re-read that post, this morning, one thing that feels “missing,” for me,  is an image.

Let’s see what Google presents,  in response to the word “lovable.”

Here’s something:

Image

Hmmmm. While that’s a quote from a Classical writer, studied long ago, that doesn’t quite work, for me, right now.  My yearning is to rearrange the words, somehow. (That particular yearning makes sense to me, since the order of words in ancient Latin is often “topsy-turvy”).

What else did the Google Buffet serve up, this morning, for “lovable”?

This one caught my eye …

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…. because I’m afraid of heights AND I can’t swim very well.

However, I’m still not there yet, regarding an image. Right now, I’m yearning for more. For something else.

Here’s another one:

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I can think of lots of reasons why THAT caught my eye, including:

  1. Unfreezing is a word that’s occurred to me, several times, during this Year of Loving* Non-Judgmentally,
  2. The weather, in these parts, is turning cold, and
  3. It’s a friggin’ heart in a friggin’ block of ice, people!

Well, that was fun, but this post still feels left unfinished, image-wise.

Hmmmm. Maybe I’ve embarked on the “wrong” search, here.  I’m going to re-read this post, and see.

Aha!  How about I search on this, instead?

From within.

Image

There we go.

No more yearnings, right now.

Time to publish!

Thanks to Ovid, Buddha, wise people throughout time, yearners and non-yearners (in the moment), and to you, of course, for reading today.

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* I noticed this “typo” hours after I published this post. I am letting it stay, as is.

Categories: personal growth, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Day 281: Thick and Thin

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Ann Koplow

Today’s post is random thoughts about ….

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.

.

.

.

.

.

.

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…. blood!

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Here we go ….

  • My son, when he was younger, didn’t want to even hear the word “blood,” much less see any of it.
  • When I describe to people how my very unusual heart works, I often say, as a punchline, “Amazingly, all the blood ends up in the right place.”
  • While anti-coagulant (anti-clotting) medication is also called “blood thinner,” a helpful pharmacist informed me last Tuesday that “the blood actually doesn’t become thinner.”
  • The first film created by the much-admired Coen Brothers was

Image

  • While I might use the word “friggin'” to express strong emotion or emphasis, other English-speaking people use the word “bloody.”
  • Somebody who says “Blood is thicker than water”  is expressing the opinion that “relationships and loyalties within a family are the strongest and most important ones.”*
  • I just asked my son, who is about ready to leave for school, his first association with the word “blood.”  His answer?  “Blood.”

It’s time to end this bloody post, people!

Thanks to my son, pharmacists everywhere, Ethan and Joel Coen, creative families of all kinds,  and to you, for reading today.

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* According to Google.

Categories: personal growth | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Day 280: No Worries, Part Deux

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Ann Koplow

Exactly 39 days ago, I wrote a post called No worries. If I do say so myself, it was a good post.  And other people seemed to like it, too.

What are you waiting for?  Go check it out by clicking on that link above.  I’ll wait.

Back?  Okay.

Yes, I wanted to re-visit that post today, because, frankly, during the past week, I lost track of the lessons of that post.

In other words, I’ve been worried.  My mind has been doing this:

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Even though I believed it, when I wrote 39 days ago, that worry doesn’t help us,  I still circled back into worry, this past week.

(Psssst! If you’ve ever lost track of a previously learned lesson, see another previous post — called “The Ascending Coil” —  for a perhaps helpful “reframe” of the perhaps unhelpful concepts of “backsliding” and “losing ground.”)

So where was I, before the aside in parentheses?

Oh, yes, I was going to re-cap some facts, to explain why I “backslid” into worry last week:

  1. Last week, I was surprised by a new development with my unusual heart. I went into atrial fibrillation, where I will most likely stay, for the rest of my life.
  2. As a result of #1, I will need to take medication (to counteract the increased risk of stroke) for the rest of my life.
  3. When unexpected changes happen, my first reaction is often to  catastrophize — a cognitive distortion I seem to share with many other human beings.  (For definitions of catastrophizing and other common cognitive distortions, click here.)
  4. While I actually like certain kinds of surprises (e.g., I’d LOVE somebody to be clever enough to succeed in surprising me with a party, some day), other kinds of surprises make me cranky.  And when I’m cranky, I tend to worry more.

I think those four reasons, above,  are enough to explain why it sucked to be me, last week.

Actually, I don’t think it actually sucked to be me, at least not completely.  In ways, it was wonderful to be me, last week.

I’ve just always wanted to say that:  “It sucked to be me.”   And I haven’t said (or written that) before, until now.

Okay! I don’t know about you, but I‘ve gotten a lot out of this blog post,  already, including these benefits:

  1. I got to boss around my readers, insisting that they look at a previous blog post I’d written,
  2. I got to brag about that blog post,
  3. I got to brag about the fact that I’m so smart, that people have tried and failed to give me surprise parties in the past,
  4. I got to use the term “It sucked to be me” for the first time and, in general,
  5. I got to  complain about my week.

That last point reminds me of a favorite movie quote (at 1:00 in this two-minute clip):

If you had trouble hearing that quote at the one-minute mark,,  Dr. Walter J. Kornbluth (played by Eugene Levy) said this:

What a week I’m having!

But you know what? I hope I’m not spoiling anything for anybody,  but by the end of the movie “Splash,”  Dr. Kornbluth (as well as all the other characters I cared about)  had No Worries.

And I feel safe in saying, now, that I’m back to No Worries, too.

Thanks to Eugene Levy, Tom Hanks,  everyone else who collaborated on “Splash,” other creative collaborators everywhere,  and to you, too, for reading today

Categories: personal growth | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Day 279: Fall Photos

Posted on October 6, 2013 by Ann Koplow

I haven’t done a photo essay lately. By “photo essay,” I mean taking some recent photos I’ve snapped with my iPhone and hoping I can link them, somehow.

The structure for this essay will be chronological — that is, I’ll post photos in the order I took them, starting last Tuesday.  And since I tend to be very aware of the seasons, the topic is “Fall.”

Here we go ….

Fall

A Chronological Photo Essay

by Ann

One of my associations with fall is Halloween. When I was a kid, Halloween was my second favorite day of the year.

Last weekend, I bought some Halloween candy:

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The fun-sized package pictured above, however, isn’t going to any Trick-or-Treaters this year.  After I came home from the hospital last Tuesday night, that sucker was mine!

Another association I have with fall is baseball playoffs.  And my local team, the Red Sox, are in the playoffs this year.

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Here’s hoping the Sox make it to the World Series.

Here’s a photo I took, seconds after the previous one:

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Why am I including that photo here?  Perhaps as a visual reminder of the importance of taking the next small step, no matter what the situation.

Perhaps as a visual reminder that photos — and clothing — do not have to be perfect.

Perhaps to show my regular readers that I am physically okay after my hospital stay, since I’m walking my usual walk to work.

More likely, as proof that I still don’t understand how to work my friggin’ phone, especially now that it has a new operating system.

The remaining photos were all taken yesterday, as I took a nice, long walk.  Here’s the first thing that caught my iPhone:

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As usual, I like working with groups, no matter what their differences.

I took the next photo further down the same block:

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I like the way local businesses cater to the nourishment of humans and non-humans around here.

I took the next photo across the street:

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That sign, which is new, seems to indicate that  (1) this trash receptacle is setting a limit and/or (2) some  person is doing the same.

I took the next photo about fifteen minutes later:

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That photo illustrates another meaning of the  word “fall.”

Leaves are falling off the trees, even though it’s only early October.  While the colors are beautiful, I’m hoping that I won’t get fed up, too soon, with the cold that’s coming my way.

A few minutes later, I was happy to see a rabbit.  I like seeing rabbits when I’m walking, and lately I’ve been thinking  I might not see any more until next spring.

So I took a photo of that unexpected rabbit, but the photo was really blurry. I could blame the rabbit or my iPhone for that, but what good does blame ever do, really?  Instead, I’ll show you the next photo I took, moments later:

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It’s another group!

The next photo is related to the first one in this essay, since it’s a harbinger of Halloween:

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 Let’s face it — that photo is blurry, too, but I couldn’t resist including it here.

And here’s the last photo I took, on my walk yesterday:

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Okay, okay.  I’ll give you this: The fall is beautiful.

Thanks, everybody, for reading today.

Categories: personal growth, photojournalism | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Day 278: Elevated to tears

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Ann Koplow

This morning, I read this beautiful post, Flow of Water – Flow of Life, at China Sojourns Photography.

I love that blog, every time I visit, because of images like these:

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and words like these:

“Water is pure: two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen.  It has no desire other than to be itself.

  • try to pick it up, control and squeeze it, and it will elude ~ as will a strong human spirit
  • if it remains still, it becomes stagnate ~ as will our body & mind without pursuing life
  • when it flows it becomes pure ~ as when we flow & move: life, love and our spirits tend to flourish”

“Water is resilient.  Soft yet incredibly strong.  An analogy which is often repeated, is how over time water can turn stone into sand with its relentless flow, creating such marvels as the Grand Canyon.  Water never ceases in its pursuit of life…it just keeps on flowing, bending when necessary, and without question follows its nature.”

“My favorite verse from the Dao de Jing is number eight which parallels water with human nature.  If I had to summarize the words of this verse it is: be true to who you are, keep it simple and kind, and flow with your work and in life, without expectations, and you will not be disappointed.”

When I read that blog post, today, I was moved to comment. The first thought that came to mind, was this:

Your post reduced me to tears.

Then, I thought, that’s not right. So I gave it another thought.  And I wrote:

Your post elevated me to tears today.  Thank you.

Before I wrote that comment, I also thought about my friend Marcia‘s comment on my post yesterday:

You’ve gone through the looking-glass Ann, with a wonderful looking-glass heart. And everything there turned out to be really, really beautiful,and we were all flashes of light, gone in an instant but never really gone at all. And Mr. Rogers was, in fact, an essential force in the universe. As my mom always said: “How lucky we are!”

Every time I read what Marcia wrote (including just now), I tear up.

I’m noticing the language there, too.  The term is “tear up.”   It’s not “tear down.”

When I responded to Marcia’s comment yesterday, I wrote:

I am moved to tears.

When people say “I was moved,” that usually involves tears, doesn’t it?*

And movement is good.

Even if it hurts, some times.

Many thanks to Randall Collis,  Marcia, people who see beauty (and luck) everywhere, and to you, especially, for reading today.

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* It occurs to me that this also applies to Moving Days, which, honestly, have been some of the worst days of my life.

Categories: personal growth, photojournalism | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Day 277: Very Unique

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Ann Koplow

My son and I, who are both a little snobby about grammar, often bemoan the use of the term “very unique.”

We say, “Unique means one of a kind!  How can something be very one of a kind?”  And we sneer a little bit, verbally and facially. (That’s how grammar snobs are.)

So why did I use that term, “Very Unique,” for the title of this blog post?

Well, I’ve been thinking, more than usually this week, about my own uniqueness.

It’s true that each one of us is unique.  We don’t need this guy (or anybody else) to tell us that:

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(Although, that can help, sometimes.)

So, yes, each of us is unique, but I may be a little more unique than most. That’s because (as I’ve blogged about before, this year), I have a very unusual heart.  I have Congenitally Corrected Transposition of the Great Arteries.

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After I first found out, at age 27, that I had a heart like that, I remember having a conversation with my mother about it, in the hospital cafeteria.

I said to her, “So, my aorta and pulmonary arteries are switched.  That, by itself, would have been very, very bad for me, at birth. However, my heart also has another very, very bad mistake.  The ventricles are switched, too. So my blood goes to all the right places.”

I paused, for the punchline.

“Mom, for years, you have been telling me that ‘two wrongs do not make a right.’  I guess NOT.”

If my memory serves me well, my mother looked at me and said, “Oh, Ann!”  (If my memory serves me well, my mother said that on other occasions, too.)

So, what’s my point, today?

Here’s one:  Of all the people in the world, I should be the MOST forgiving of mistakes. I am, literally, living proof that two giant mistakes are better than one.

So maybe I’ll remember that, the next time I beat myself up about some mistake.

My original intent, in writing today’s post, included presenting some hard data about how very unique my heart actually is. So here are some numbers, from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia website:

CCTGA is a rare heart defect. Only 0.5 to 1 percent of all people with heart defects have CCTGA. This means there are about 5,000 to 10,000 people in the United States with this condition.

I guess that IS a  pretty small group.  (Although —  as with everything — I guess it depends on how you look at it. I wouldn’t want to have all the people with hearts like mine over for a party, any time soon.) (And yet, who knows? Maybe that would be do-able, too. We could always order out, for pizza.)

I still haven’t made my originally intended point, in writing this blog post today.

Here it is:  Yes,  I am very unique. The chances of somebody being born with my kind of heart is (conservatively) approximately 10,000/314 million*.

However, you are very unique, too.

Here’s some math about THAT (quoted from Ali Binazir’s website)**:

Scientists calculate the probability of your existing as you, today, at about one in 400 trillion.

All this math is making my head hurt, right now.  But I believe I am correct in this:

My very-uniqueness is negligible, compared to the very-uniqueness of each of you, reading today.

As a matter of fact, what are the chances of YOU reading this blog post, written by ME, right now?

Now, my head REALLY hurts.

But let’s just say I’m very grateful, for all of it.

Thanks to Fred Rogers, Ali Binazir, and every very unique person, reading right now.

* 314 million is the 2012 population of the U.S. (The up-to-the-minute U.S. census numbers are unavailable today, October 4, 2013, because of the U.S. government shut-down.)

** Thanks to Google, as usual, for helping me find this.

Categories: personal growth | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 77 Comments

Day 276: Radical Acceptance

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Ann Koplow

For many years, I’ve been talking to people about the concept of radical acceptance.

Here’s Google’s definition of radical acceptance (attributed to Dialectical Behavioral Therapy):

Letting go of fighting reality. Accept your situation for what it is.

While that may sound simple, many people find radical acceptance challenging to understand, much less practice.

Here are some more attempts from me, to get at radical acceptance:

It’s acknowledging where you are, and being as aware as you can be about that.

It doesn’t mean approving or otherwise shifting how you feel about where you are.

And it has nothing to do with staying there, either.

Radical acceptance is allowing yourself to be as completely balanced and connected to where you are in this moment, no matter what the next moment will bring. (And the next moment will bring some sort of change, even if that change is imperceptible.)

I love talking — and writing —  to people about radical acceptance, because I think it’s helpful and important.

One thing I’m realizing, in this moment, is this: When I think of radical acceptance, I usually think of accepting difficult things — those situations that cause pain, fear, and suffering.

However, I’m aware of a different kind of radical acceptance, right now.

Radical acceptance of love, which can be challenging to understand, much less practice.

It’s immediately obvious to me why it takes work to accept painful situations. I wonder why love and other good things might be difficult, at times, to accept, too.

I do find it easy to accept those things that inspire love in my own heart, including natural beauty,

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animals,

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people,

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and music.

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No matter where those things show up, I usually notice them.

However, I often do not notice the love that is out there, coming back at me.

Sometimes,  that love is more obvious. Sometimes, like this week,  it’s difficult to discount or ignore.

Radical acceptance. I’m working on it, in all ways.

Thanks to Marsha Linehan, Monument Valley, Capybara Madness, my parents, Street Pianos,  Luke Jerram, radical accepters everywhere, and to you, for reading today.

Categories: personal growth, photojournalism | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 24 Comments

Day 275: Getting better

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Ann Koplow

I appreciate, so much, people’s comments, hopes, and wishes in response to yesterday’s blog post.

Here are some random thoughts about what’s been happening:

Over the “Breaking Bad” Marathon Weekend (see here, here, and here), I noticed I was getting short of breath.  There were LOTS of reasons for those feelings, so I noted them, but I didn’t worry about them.

However, after the weekend was over, I still noticed the shortness of breath. I no longer had good explanations for those feelings, so I started getting concerned.

Monday night, when I was taking a nice long walk with my bf, Michael, I talked to him about my worries.  I said to him, “I can’t figure out, these days, whether these feelings are in my head or in my heart.”

And I told him about a technique for people having panic attacks. This technique was inspired by this book (which I recommend highly):

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The technique is this:  If you feel panicky and believe that might be heart-related, try this:

Exert yourself physically and see what happens.

So I said to Michael, “Wanna sprint?”  Because I also remembered, many years ago, challenging my old business partner, Jonathan, in a similar way, and discovering — much to my surprise — that I was a damn good sprinter (over very short distances).

So Michael and I sprinted, to the nearest tree.  And it was fun, again, to run like the wind.

After our sprint, I took my pulse.  And, much to my surprise, I found that my pulse ….

… was not speeding up.  At all.

It reminded me of my life, from ages 10 to 35, when I lived with a fixed-rate cardiac pacemaker.  During that time, even though I managed to dance a lot of disco, becoming a

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(which was lots of fun), my heart rate never, ever speeded up, no matter how much I exercised.

In 1987, when I was 35 years old,  I got my first DDD cardiac pacemaker, which essentially repaired my heart to act like  yours — like a “normal” heart.  That is, every time I exercised, my heart speeded up.

I remember, after I got that pacemaker in 1987, going to an indoor track and jogging.

To me, that felt like one of my childhood dreams.

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Flying like Peter Pan.

Monday night, my heart was not speeding up at all, after I had sprinted like the wind.

So I knew something was very wrong, but I didn’t know what.  When Michael and I got back home, I called the on-call cardiology resident at the hospital where I get my treatment. And together, we decided I should come into the Emergency Room.

So, at 9 o’clock on Monday night,  Michael and I went to the Emergency Room.

Now, as usual, I have some time limitations on writing this blog post, so I need to make a “long story, short.”  Here are some of the highlights of the next 24 hours:

  1. A very cool doctor, whom I had never met before, listening to my heart, and telling me that I had a “beautiful” heart murmur, which “sounded like the wind.”
  2. Two very cool doctors, whom I had met before, telling me that I was in atrial fibrillation, probably for the rest of my life, but not to worry, because this was extremely manageable, and with my very cool pacemaker, they would fix it so that I might actually feel better than I had been feeling lately.
  3. These same two very cool doctors,  seriously and respectfully discussing with me the pros and cons of various responses to my current situation, one of which would include being on medication for the rest of my life.
  4. My believing that the decision we came to, together, was a good one, and feeling hopeful about the future.
  5. Spending a couple of hours, having an echocardiogram performed on me, with one of the kindest, most beautiful people I have ever met in my life, which included the tears involved with any new, unexpected, and potentially scary development in one’s life.
  6. Having nothing but good results, in all ways.
  7. Going home.

Which is where I am writing this blog post, now.

Gotta end this blog post, so I can get some more sleep and go to work.

Thanks to doctors old and new, runners who fly like the wind, kind people everywhere, and to you — especially — for reading today.

Categories: personal growth | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

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