It’s inevitable that I would read an opinion piece in the Washington Post with a title like this one:
It’s inevitable that I would have trouble sleeping last night after reading that and the comments that followed, including, “ How can something be increasingly inevitable? Isn’t that like being a little bit pregnant?” (Inevitably I thought, “Or veryunique.”)
It’s inevitable that people are going to fortune-tell and catastrophize about the future. It’s inevitable that sometimes they’ll be right and sometimes they’ll be wrong.
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It’s inevitable that I’m going to share images like these in this daily blog.
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It’s inevitable that the Daily Bitch has something relevant to add.
Here’s what I find when I search for “it’s inevitable” on YouTube:
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It’s inevitable that I express gratitude at the end of this blog post to YOU!
I won’t go into the niceties of why that was, but my nice doctors still thought it would be nice for me to get an echocardiogram ASAP to ensure that my nice but very unusual heart was doing a nice enough job.
So I took a nice trip to the hospital yesterday afternoon and met a nice echocardiogram technologist who despite his many years of experience had never encountered a nice heart like mine before. He said it would have been nice if they had scheduled me with somebody who had experience with congenitally corrected transposition (the rarest of all heart defects). I wasn’t just being nice when I told him that I believed he would do a nice enough echocardiogram to capture all the necessary information my nice doctors wanted to see.
We had a nice time as I told him about my cardiac history and he was nice enough to tell me what he was going to do before he did it. It would have been nice if I had remembered to take a photo of this very nice echo technologist so I could share that with all my nice readers.
What was really nice was that — rather than being tight-lipped about what he was seeing (my usual experience with medical technologists) — he told me that as far as he could tell, my nice and very strange-looking heart was doing a nice job. He said that a nice doctor would take a look at the images after I left and I think it’s a nice sign that I didn’t get a call last night from the hospital.
It was nice that, with all this nice news and non-news, I could really enjoy the arrival of my nice son back from his nice trip to Europe. I guess I was being nice by not taking a picture of him and my husband Michael last night because even though they can be nice about it, they really don’t like having their pictures taken. However, I warned them that I will soon need a nice picture of the three of us for the class report for my upcoming 50th college reunion, which I’m sure will be nice.
It would probably be nice if I stopped writing and shared my nice images from yesterday right now.
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It’s nice that I don’t have to work like a dog today and that I’m about to play outside with my nice son, who is staying here for a couple of days.
Here’s a nice video of our nice cat Joan doing a nice job cleaning herself.
“Stochastic” seems like a great title for today’s stochastic blog post.
My stochastic thoughts now include wondering whether I should replace the word “random” with “stochastic,” as in “that’s so stochastic” and “who’s that stocho who was just talking to you?”
Here are my stochastic images for the day.
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The Daily Bitch is so stochastic.
Here’s what I find when I search for “stochastic” on YouTube:
In my Coping and Healing groups, people often talk about ways to increase confidence.
Yesterday, the group talked about “fake it til you make it” — practicing confidence even when we’re not feeling it. It’s difficult to feel confidence when we’re doing something new, and everything we’re doing is new in one way or another.
Today, I have confidence that this post will adequately cover the topic of “confidence.”
Lest I let the Daily Bitch have the last word on confidence, here’s a wonderful Ted talk I find on YouTube when I search for “confidence.”
Thanks to all who help me have the confidence to embrace every new day, including YOU!
The word “still” has so many meanings and the movie Still evokes all of them.
Michael J. Fox, by his own report, was never able to keep still when he was growing up. He is still living with a disease that makes it impossible for his body to keep still. His wife, Tracy Pollan, is still incredibly honest and wonderful and all his family members still support each other lovingly. While Parkinson’s is unstoppably degenerative, still, Michael J. Fox is living his best possible life.
I still have other still images to share with you before I start my work (which I still love) in 30 minutes.
I’m still hoping for peace, so I shall wear purple today.
Here’s what I find on YouTube when I search for “still.”
I still have to thank all those who helped me create this “still” blog post, including YOU!
Today’s Daily Bitch Calendar reminds me of sayings about knowledge like “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” and “ignorance is bliss.”
I do know what I’m talking about when it comes to living your whole life with a rare heart condition, and it hasn’t always been easy. Yesterday, when I went for an echocardiogram, I was uneasy with the knowledge that the September echo I had in Georgia (when I had a T.I.A. or a “mini-stroke) had indicated there was “severe regurgitation” from my mechanical valve. My long-time cardiologist, Dr. Deeb Salem (who has lots of knowledge), told me that might mean the valve needed to be replaced or that a clot, since dissolved, might have caused temporary regurgitation.
Yesterday I made sure the echocardiogram sonographer had the knowledge about that earlier echo. Based on my experience in medical systems, I had the knowledge that she couldn’t really tell me the results yesterday. I knew I wouldn’t receive the official knowledge of whether or not I needed a new valve and another open heart surgery until later, after somebody with more knowledge had interpreted and documented the results. However, I really wanted reassuring knowledge yesterday after holding this scary knowledge for a while, so while watching and listening to her perform the echo and not having the knowledge to interpret the results as they were happening, I carefully said this: “What would it look like if there were severe regurgitation around a mechanical valve?” and I got the knowledge I wanted when she replied, “Not like what we’re seeing here.”
That knowledge made me very, very happy.
What knowledge is there in my other images for today?
I’m definitely going to celebrate today (with popcorn) my latest good news and the knowledge that I’ve really beaten the odds of life expectancy for my heart condition. When I see Dr. Salem next month, I’m going to ask him what it was like to be my doctor, starting when I was 27, having knowledge like this (which I just found when I googled my heart condition):
Dr. Salem, in all our years of working together, never conveyed that knowledge to me and here I am, about to turn 70! Also, I have the knowledge that some people with CCTGA have made it into their 90s and why shouldn’t I be one of those?
Here’s what I find when I look for “knowledge” on YouTube.
Thanks to all who help me share knowledge through these daily posts, including YOU!
I often find it a challenge to focus on blessings instead of calamities, and I know I’m not alone in that.
Yesterday, when I was walking to work and focusing on everything that could possibly go wrong, I gave myself this blessing: “If you’re going to think about every danger that exists, you could also think about what’s safe.” And the blessing is that I immediately felt better.
I also asked myself this question: “If you knew that this was your last day in earth, how would you spend it?” and it was a blessing to realize that I would still go to work and facilitate groups.
Do you see blessings in my images for today?
Should we let the Daily Bitch have the last word about blessings today?
Here’s what I find when I search YouTube for “blessings.”
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Thanks to all those who are blessings to me, including YOU.
