Sometimes the most difficult aspect of writing is the lede.
The introduction to an article is called the 'lede' and is usually in the first paragraph.
'Lede' is a deliberate misspelling of 'lead' designed to prevent confusion in the days when printing was done with lead type. (For the record, during the first year or so of my career while I was a part-timer in high school, the newspaper I was working at was still using lead type.)
You might have the bulk of what you want to write planned out in your head only to struggle mightily to come up with the first graph or two. That’s certainly been the case here.
It’s taken a couple of weeks for me to get this written, but here goes.
After knowing it was coming for several weeks, it all came to a head a couple of weeks ago on a Tuesday when I received word from the Sanford Cardiovascular Institute in Sioux Falls that I had been scheduled to have a pacemaker installed the next Friday. That meant that rather than being about two months away, the implant was to take place in three days.
I’ll try to keep this as Reader’s Digest-like (brief) as possible.
Many of you know that I did have a heart attack in 2019, was hospitalized with Covid and pneumonia in November and then was back in the hospital in April, this time with pneumonia only.
After showing some irregularities during an April hospital stay in Worthington, a heart specialist from Sioux Falls that happened to be making visits to Tracy and Slayton was contacted and asked to come to Worthington to examine me.
She did and confirmed the suspicion of the doctors and nurses in Worthington that I was experiencing Atrial Fibrillation. The normal heart rate is 60-100 beats per minute. I had PRs of 38 and 166. A pacemaker was necessary to control that.
So, the procedure was done and I’m doing much better. Still fatigued at times but that’s getting better.
For the most part the biggest issue is the incision itches like mad on occasion.
It also hurts when somebody decides to slap me on the chest while wishing me a Happy Father’s Day. I’ll protect his identity other than to say that his name rhymes with Raise Bacobsen. I know he didn’t mean any harm.
I did ask the doctor if I would be able to run a 5K with a pacemaker and he said that I would. To which I said, “Well, that’s cool because I couldn’t before.”
I’m thankful for a supportive family and a relatively small group of friends that I’ve shared my experiences with although word tends to spread and that’s fine because the extra support and prayers don’t hurt.
And I’m also appreciative that the people at my day job at Ametek are understanding and supportive. I’m not going to be moved to a different position because I’ve missed some work due to an illness.
So, I’ll wrap this up by saying that my output in this space has been a little erratic and may continue to be so. I may not get to some items I want to, but I’m not going to repeatedly say I’m going to post something and then never actually do it.
Remember that at least until this point and for the foreseeable future, this is all free. Sometimes you get what you pay for.