Rhino’s Ramblings - Heartfelt Rebound

By Robert Thomas Opinion/Commentary

It’s August. Summer is almost over. And yes another football season is about to sweep into Moose Jaw.

And with the graces of God, medication and great medical care it looks like I’m around for another season.

I shouldn’t be but it is what it is. My heart should have failed last May but for some reason it didn’t.

The cardiologist told me I should have picked up a pacemaker as my heart was in really bad shape. A heart specialist in Regina agreed but I passed on the recommendation.

It’s not that I’m worried it’s going to cramp my style around the microwave but rather it’s elsewhere.

Anything that creates an electromagnetic field is a hazard.

A lawnmower, an open car hood, electric drill and finally some of the camera lens I use.

So many of the things I enjoy would be gone.

There would be no photographic sports coverage and the photojournalism I studied over 40 years ago would be lost.

So I said no.

All of this because of trauma I took so many years ago in Russia. It’s something you have got to beat on a regular basis.

I might sound gutsy, I might sound stupid but really when it comes down to it I just got plain lucky.

The problem with my heart is that ventricles were full of plaque.

There was plenty of inflow as the vessels were clear but the heart itself wasn’t.

When they scoped my vessels and my heart they couldn’t get through from either side of my ventricles because the heart was clogged.

What it needed in an ordinary person’s parlance was some medication that works like industrial strength Drano to clean it out.

The best way to describe my condition was that there are 12 stairs to the basement of my house.

If I ran up those 12 stairs I would immediately need a two hour nap at the top of the stairs.

If I walked up slowly or took 20 minutes to make it up those stairs I didn’t need a nap.

When I went to ball games I found myself hanging onto the fence with one hand so I could take photos with the other and wouldn’t fall down.

It took months of medication costing thousands of dollars but slowly I started to feel better.

I could run up the basement stairs and didn’t need a nap.

Whether you believe me or not I actually did listen to the doctors to some extent.

I was told to avoid salt and above all avoid too much stress.

I cut back on the stories that would put me in the center of some major controversy. Not really the best way to run a news source but long ago I see MJ Independent as simply adding where it’s needed and covering where there is no coverage and should be.

So about 10 days ago I went to my GP to get the results of my annual heart scope.

My blood chemistry was good.

The blood pressure in my lungs went from severe to normal.

My heart went from severely obstructed to moderate.

Basically it means I shouldn’t worry about dying so long as I keep the stress to an acceptable level and avoid salt.

And oh yeah I’m suppose to do some walking - ironically just what you get covering football.

Life is good.