I meant to continue last night, where I was telling about looking at Road Scholar tours, to add an emotional reaction. I was looking for something else, but one of my searches turned up a tour of the south of France. Looking briefly at the itinerary I saw a lot of familiar names, starting with Aix-en-Provence. That brought a wave of memories of when Marian and I toured that area in… what year was it? This morning I went into the photo collection to verify the date: that trip was in 1990. Anyway, something about remembering that trip just gave me a wave of loss and grief such as I haven’t felt in quite a while. A different life, now absolutely out of reach.

Saturday 06/04/2022

Decided that I wanted to walk to Midtown for coffee, which I did. I held open the option of taking a Lyft back, which is what I did the last time I did this, but no, when I finished the coffee and scone, I felt fine and just toddled on back on my own tootsies. And felt great. Total miles for the day, 4.4.

At 1 it was time to go to an event, a choral performance. One of my neighbors, Bert, is a member of the Peninsulaires, an a capella singing group. Today they were holding a joint performance with Mission Valley Chorus, a women’s group. I was on my way to my car in the basement when I passed Bert’s wife Barbara, who was waiting for two other riders to carpool with, and attached myself to them for the free ride.

The performance was nice.

This was at Grace Lutheran in South Palo Alto. Afterward, at Bert’s suggestion, I took a look at the church’s A/V setup. Very fancy with a video switcher and six cameras. I took a couple of pictures of that and sent them to the A/V group.

At 6pm I left in my car for Stanford to see Stanford baseball play Texas State in their Regional game. Stanford had a bad moment in the 4th and was behind 1-4. Coincidentally I had just got a frozen lemonade thing from the concession stand. I like the frozen lemonades because they take a long time to eat, ten minutes or more. Now I realized that I would be sitting in a big crowd (fewer than half with masks) with my own mask down, nibbling frozen treat, for ten minutes. And we’re trailing. So fickle fan that I am, I left. Stanford eventually lost, and will have to play on the loser-bracket game tomorrow. I have not stayed through a whole game this season. It is quite the waste of money. I think next year I won’t renew my season ticket.

Back home at 9pm, I got absorbed in working on my essay for Tuesday’s writers group and now it’s 11:30 and I am way late going to bed.

Friday 06/03/2022

Went for the standard walk and felt fine. Definitely stronger than pre-TAVR.

The year is half over, so how, you ask, am I doing on my crossword puzzle times? Back at the end of 2021 I wrote that my time to solve the LA Times daily crossword puzzles was steadily increasing. Is that ominous trend continuing? I thought mid-year was a good time to check. Yes, the trend continues.

I’m holding my own on Sunday and Friday. The other days I’ve slowed down another 5%.

Mid-morning a neighbor called me because she had updated her version of Quicken and it had messed up the display of her data. In the end I was no help. I don’t know Quicken, so I just tried to back her up to a prior version, but failed.

At noon I headed over to Sunken Diamond to watch Stanford Baseball play in the NCAA regional they are hosting. They won.

Spent some time looking at the Road Scholar website and thinking about where I might travel. Right now many of their tours are already booked for the rest of the year.

06/02/2022

Went for a modest walk. Then called a couple of people on my committee trying to get somebody to cover a couple of events. Looks like it will be me, sigh.

After lunch and a quick nap it was time to go to the museum to lead the 2pm tour. Only 6 people who stuck with me but didn’t seem that excited. I blocked on a couple of points in my talk, just came up blank forgetting what my next point was. I don’t like doing that.

That was about it for the day.

Wednesday 06/01/2022

First thing, I went for The Standard Walk, the first one in about 3 weeks. I felt it at the end, but not in the same way that I did pre-TAVR. Then I just felt tired and wanted to rest early. This was more about muscles feeling strain from being out of shape. Anyway, little bit and I should be getting back to where I was, wherever that was.

Lots of emailing in support of the AV group. I;m having trouble getting people to sign up to cover events. Trying to be cool and supportive. Takes time and attention. Tomorrow, more of that.

At 3:30 I left for CHM where I watched a live interview with Sal Kahn, the founder of the hugely popular Kahn Academy, free online education for the world. He’s a warm, engaging, articulate guy. His interviewers at this event, not so much. They should have just put him behind a podium and let him tell his story. Kahn Academy was already serving millions of learners in 2019, but you can imagine what two years of pandemic-related school closures has done. You’ll have to imagine it because there were no specific numbers given tonight.

Tuesday 05/31/2025

Paid a couple of bills. Took a short walk, up to Whole Foods to see if they had my favorite beer, as they sometimes do. They didn’t. Worked on the car model. Attended the writers group meeting. I had nothing this time, but next week’s cue is something I can get into: “your favorite comic strip or character, and what it says about you.”

At three points today, somebody from El Camino Hospital called me to check on me. One was legit, in the sense that I could have a conversation. That was a call from nurse Kathleen, who works with Dr. Rammohan. She asked intelligent, probing questions and had useful info. Among other things, she reminded me I was supposed to book an appointment with cardiologist DiBiase, and an echo. After she rang off, I did call for that and scored the last appointment on DiBiase’s last day before she leaves on sabbatical! That’s in early August.

The other two calls were useless. One was a person who clearly knew nothing about me or what procedure I’d had, and just wanted in the nicest way to run through a long script of questions about my post-op care. The other was a recording from the head doctor assuring me they were very grateful I’d chosen their hospital for, fine, thanks, click.

Had a long nap and ate dinner in my room. Although signs and feelings are, that the TAVR has improved my health all around, it hasn’t done anything for my overall mood.

Monday 05/30/2022

In the morning I went down to FOPAL and as usual found 6 boxes of computer books. It took a couple of hours to process them, which I did with no problem. Then back to CH for lunch.

Have I written about the 4th floor TV? My friend Stew led a drive to get his 4th floor to install a big TV in their lounge, his idea being they can show movies and such. They got a very nice looking 65-inch Samsung on a wall mount. They have a Blu-Ray player and plan to get a Roku. (The staff vetoed them getting a Comcast subscription for it; I’m not sure why. Nobody to charge the subscription against, maybe?) But Stew wants to be able to get content from a laptop up on the big screen.

This ought to be possible; the TV claims to support Apple AirPlay and whatever the Windows equivalent is. So today I tried for the second time to make that work. And failed. Two different MacBook Pro laptops, one new, one 5 years old, and both can “see” the damn TV on the network, they both list it in the menu of remote devices they could talk to, but when they try to connect they spin for 30 seconds and say “Unable to connect with” the name of the TV.

It’s not a big deal; they work very well when connected to the TV by an HDMI cable. But it would be cool to do it wirelessly. Never mind.

Then I went downstairs and picked up my sack supper. On holidays we get a sack supper and the kitchen staff gets off work early. Next to Patty’s apartment and borrowed a serving bowl and spoon, as I don’t have those. Then I pitted about a pound and a half of cherries. I took that and my sack to our picnic in the floor dining room at 6. Ten people around a big table. Including Edie, from whose house the big table came. It really is a gorgeous table, with eight matching chairs. Couple folding chairs to fill in. Nice.

Later I plan to go up to the roof and look for meteors. Results tomorrow.

Sunday 05/29/2022

After all my usual Sunday morning pleasures (watering the plants, doing the crossword) I decided to go to the California Avenue farmers market and maybe buy some cherries. The 6th floor is having a picnic supper tomorrow night and I could bring them to share.

In other times I have walked that 2-3 miles, and probably will again, but this time I drove. And after buying cherries and an almond croissant from The Midwife and The Baker, to Safeway for a few groceries. Then home to pass the time until 2 when there was to be a jazz concert at the Congregational Church. That’s just a 1.2 miles away and my initial plan was to walk that, but when it came time to leave, I didn’t feel like walking so went again by car.

The concert wasn’t great. Nothing wrong with the musicianship, in fact the performers all had (per the program) very long resumés in pro jazz and the singer, Kenny Washington, is famous enough that I had heard of him, and he was fun to listen to. But much of the selections were not a type of music I can listen to for any length of time. I have a simple ear, I like melodies and rhythm. This was the kind of show where each of the six players would take a looong solo, in turn.

Anyway a quiet day and pleasant.

Saturday 05/28/2022

In the morning I first filled out my ballot for the June election. One more thing off my coffee table, it’s almost empty now. Then I walked the ballot up to the drop box at City Hall. I was walking briskly, more brisklier that lately, and feeling good. The TAVR really made a difference, it isn’t just placebo effect.

I came back by way of the farmers market, which I haven’t been in for a couple of months owing to dieting, and bought a pound of Rainier cherries and a chocolate hazlenut pastry. That was my breakfast and my lunch as well.

Then I helped a neighbor, Joan, record a treasured tape from her walkman (yes, a real Sony Walkman from the … 90s?) into her Mac.

After a nap I went down to the auditorium to help David M. run a concert. He would normally have done it alone, but he just had two stents put in and isn’t supposed to exert himself. I didn’t point out that I just had a giant stent put in and am not supposed to exert myself either. Turned out, there was no exerting needed anyway.

The concert was really nice, two women doing classical piano and violin duets. Very complex stuff by famous composers and done very well indeed.

Dr. Rammahan had referred me to a cardiac rehab program at El Camino Hospital. Dr. Margaret says there is a better one, HeartFit for Life, which was founded by the late husband of another resident, Karen. I like the look of their website and of course they are much closer than the other. So I messaged Dr. Dibiase asking if she approved would she refer me to that program. I kind of like the idea of a closely supervised fitness program to get back, or back-ish, to where I was. At some point.

Friday 05/27/2022

I had the usual hospital night. To much light and noise, and a really nice and kind nurse waking me up at midnight and at 4am to check vitals. Then the phlebomist at 6am to take only 3 tubes of blood this time, and at 7am, the nurse with a rolling EKG cart. And a little later, the nurse with a rolling echocardiogram cart to do that. This was really interesting, she was able to image the aortic valve in live operation really well and I could clearly see the little flaps opening and closing. And doing it perfectly.

At about 8am, Dr. Rammahan comes by very pleased with it all. The valve ought to last you the rest of your life, he said. And if it should start to break down, we could always put another one inside this one. I asked about the catch filter he put in the carotid: did it catch anything? Maybe a couple of little grains; he couldn’t tell if they would have caused a problem or not. He wanted me to go on plavix for 3 months. I told him all the reasons I hated being on plavix–bruising, nosebleeds that won’t stop, etc., and talked him down to 1 month only.

By 10 nurse Kim had pulled my IV, and I got dressed. At 10:30 another nurse brought the discharge paperwork for me to sign, and a few minutes later Dennis pulled up and I was on the way home. With a stop to pick up the plavix, I was home before lunch. Several of my neighbors welcomed me back, either then or later in the day. It was quite touching.

Spent a quiet afternoon. I had intended to go out to the Creamery for a chocolate shake for supper, but neighbor Patty insisted that was too much. She said I should take Betty and Jerry’s invitation for supper. Awww no chocolate shake? OK, she said, I have to go out for some errands, I’ll bring you one. And she did, about 3pm she showed up at my door with a Creamery chocolate shake. Which totally spoiled my appetite for supper, but worth it.

Thursday 05/26/2022

Up at 4:20, quick shower, dress. Make sure I have all of he needed paperwork and cards for admission. Down to the lobby where Dr. Margaret soon appears and we are off down Alma to the hospital where she drops me off with warm wishes. Seems my neighbors like me which is nice.

Registration and prep go smoothly. Jorge, who shaves my groin hair, has a slick electric razor with a vacuum attachment.

(Ok I am writing this with the WordPress app and its editor is TERRIBLE, just doing bizarre things. It gets really confused when a paragraph goes over four lines. I’m switching to the Notes app then pasting here.)

Dr. Rammahan stops by for the usual pre-op check and he has fresh news. He has studied the notes from my original valve job and the recent images. He explains (what I originally knew but had mostly forgotten) that Dr. Gaudiani installed not just the pig’s valve but its whole aortic root as a unit – like a 4-inch tube with the valve closing the end. So in present images that ascending tube is, quote, “calcified like crazy”.

This raises the chance of stroke, a known but usually rare side effect of TAVR. To prevent that he will do an additional piece of work. He will put a catheter in through my right radial (wrist) artery, up to my carotid, and install a filter to catch any trash that might get loose and head for my, um, head. When the TAVR is in place he will take the filter out before closing up. I’m cool with this, not being a fan of stroke.

An IV gets installed in my left arm, about six vials of blood are drawn from the right, then I am left alone to do a couple of sudokus, and at 7:30 Tyler comes to escort me to the toilet and then to wheel me on a gurney to the OR.

Here I find about six people all being very busy and professional. They prep me from all sides somewhat like multiple chefs prepping a rack of lamb. Zack the anesthetist says he is putting in the juice. I have just time to say, “I taste it on the back of my tongue,” and Zack says, “Oh yeah that’s the Lidocane,” and then…

I’m In a different room and Zack is saying “All over, and it all went according to plan.”

After half an hour I am transported to a regular room. I get my glasses back, and my phone, and my head clears up and basically it’s all over but the shoutin’. I have two small purple wounds on my groin, one I assume for the camera and one for the business, plus a clear plastic inflatable cuff on my right wrist.

And a strange quiet in my chest. This is odd. I never notice my heart beating (except at night sometimes). It’s definitely beating now, I can find my pulse in my wrist or neck. But somehow there is a sensation of stillness in my chest, as if I had changed from a gas engine to battery power. Was I sensing the back flow, AKA “heart murmur”, before? And it’s gone now? Or maybe it’s imaginary. Not a bad thing, anyway.

I exchange texts with several people, have lunch, take a nap, all very normal except I’m wearing a backless gown and bright green bed socks. Jean drops by to visit (to my surprise there are no Covid restrictions on visiting).

And that will do for now. Medical adventure proceeding nominally!