The official web site of A.H. Lloyd

One thing I've learned over the years is that you can take nothing for granted.

You've got the week planned out, the schedule set and then something pops up.  It could be a flat tire, or an appointment that runs long, and then everything gets messed up.

I'm used to that kind of thing happening, but always in the back of my mind, there's the thought of a life-changing event just waiting to pop up.

Which is what happened this week.

For much of Labor Day weekend I was under the weather.  I had a low-grade fever and body ache that came and went.  So I rested and ate some spicy food washed down with bourbon and Vitamin C supplements to drive it away.  By Sunday afternoon, it seemed to have done the job.  I felt fine, read to make up time on Monday.

My kids had managed to wreck both the washer and the dryer Saturday.  Both were older machines and had been overloaded once too often.  Monday morning I got online and checked the Labor Day sales.  I didn't want to wait a week for free delivery, so I checked to see which stores had them in stock for immediate pickup.  I found one, and got to work.

First, I had to remove the old appliances and did this in about an hour.  The trick is to take them apart downstairs and bring them up in pieces.  Then I went and got the new ones and with a little help from my kids, I got the new ones installed and working.  All this was done by 5 p.m.

I took a well-deserved rest, had some pizza and a couple of cocktails, and retired for the evening.  Before I fell asleep, I realized the fever had come back.

I awoke the next morning in rising pain, and I was drenched in sweat.  I drove my daughters to school and then all but collapsed on the floor.  I asked my wife to look up heart attack symptoms and I checked all the boxes.  The ambulance arrived with commendable dispatch.

Turns out, it was myocarditis, not a heart attack.  Since I'd never heard of the things, I took it all in stride and looked forward to going home.  Each test came back good, no damage and the docs noted that I'm relatively young and in overall good health.  I got out in two days with orders to rest and take it easy for the next month.

In short, I have every reason to expect a complete recovery with no lasting harm.

It was only after I got home and looked up myocarditis that I realized how close to the brink I had come.  You see, a part of me figured I should just rest at home and let the feeling pass.  I never really felt in danger, just a lot of discomfort that was surely the result of exhaustion from the previous day's work.  The only reason I called the ambulance was because I was afraid that if I didn't, I would actually have something bad happen.

That's what I most fear, by the way.  Death by irony.

So now I'm having the retro-active realization of how close to the edge I came, much as a fighter pilot who returns from a mission full of confidence that the enemy never came close to touching him gets pale when he sees just how many bullet holes hit behind his seat without him noticing.

The the 'life changing' aspect of this is simply that I'm going to accept my limits and also pay closer attention to my weight and diet.  My overall good health acted as a back stop and I want to keep it that way.

And I'll go on taking nothing for granted.