January 13, 2011
Dear Everyone:
Some of you may be wondering why you haven’t heard from me since the beginning of December. (Others may be connected to one “grapevine” or another and already know.) What happened was this:
The first Sunday in December, after having lunch with “Jeannie”, I stopped at my “old” shopping center, the one closer to my old townhouse for some typical weekly/pre-Christmas shopping. At some point, my heart stopped and I collapsed in the parking lot.
(It’s OK. I survived. I’m all right. Not great, but definitely all right. Resume breathing.)
Many thanks to the total strangers who called
911
and pounded on my chest and blew into my lungs until the
ambulance
arrived. It turns out the
nearest hospital,
San Ramon Regional Medical Center, is barely three
blocks away from the shopping center.
Lucky.
The emergency people went through my cell phone
looking for a contact. A
couple of years ago, I learned in a workplace “Safety Moment” about
“ICE”. It came out of the
bombing of the underground transportation in London.
It stands for “In Case of Emergency.”
I put “ICE” in my phone, with “Jeannie’s” name and phone number.
Evidently, no one told the emergency people about “ICE”.
Eventually, they did connect with “Jeannie” who
rushed down to the hospital.
I was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), unaware of anything that was
going on. “Jeannie”
contacted our oldest sister, “Frankie”, who happens to be a
Registered
Nurse (RN), who could understand the convoluted doctor/nurse
terminology.
“Frankie” dropped everything, Christmas included,
and flew out to help “Jeannie”.
Bless her.
I won’t go through any of the grisly details.
Suffice to say that I was in the hospital for over three weeks.
A specialist “installed” a “defibrillator” in my chest.
Various other things happened.
They let me out in time for Christmas, which we spent very
quietly at my condo in San Ramon.
“Frankie’s” kids talked her through installing
Skype on my laptop, so we were able to “see” everyone at her place on
Christmas Day.
Not to make too “light” of a serious situation, I
am doing much better now.
I’m on all kinds of medications and have seen many doctors in the past
few weeks. They all agreed
that I was incredibly lucky.
(It turns out one of the bystanders in the parking lot was actually
certified to perform CPR.)
I’m “off” work for the foreseeable future.
The next couple of months, at least.
I have plenty of things to do to keep me from going “stir crazy”.
One of my co-workers sends me emails every few days about what’s
going on at work. I’m not
worried about the people at work.
They’ll either figure out how to do the things I was doing, or
they won’t.
In the meantime, I may not be sending out a Letter
every week. No one is interested
in how many pills I swallow on a daily basis.
If anything interesting happens, I’ll drop a line.
But we’ll consider this a “Sabbatical” for now.
Everyone have a safe and
Happy New Year.
Love, as always,
Pete
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