Is He Back?

Yes, probably. Unless something goes horribly wrong while he’s on the table.

In a few days I go into the hospital, the renowned Mayo Clinic, if you must know, to get my heart zapped. They call it a cardioversion procedure, but that’s just a boring name for that thing where they put those electric paddles on your chest, someone shouts, “Clear!” in an overly dramatic voice of TV inspired team leadership, and then they zap away, as the patient arcs up off the table like a stricken flounder.

I’m going to do this because my heart gets out of whack every so often — actually not any version of often at all, since it last happened eleven years ago, so let’s say it happens once in a great while. The chambers of my heart stop pumping in rhythmic coordination and instead start marching to the beat of a different drummer.

It doesn’t just happen. Something has to set it off. Eleven years ago it happened because I was between doctors (I fired one because her receptionist kept hanging up on me, and others, because she was a crabby old witch) and not taking various blood pressure meds. I intended to get a new doc and new meds, but you can’t actually feel the difference between out-of-control high blood pressure, and regular, safe blood pressure. And because of that, I’d been putting it off. I tend to put things off.

Anywho, I was a walking time bomb and then decided to drive in a very fast rented sports car from Reno to Lake Tahoe to see a play (being their Shakespeare on the Lake performance of The Twelfth Night). The sudden change in altitude (combined with the blood thing) was just the right stage prompt to kick off my first encounter with an arrhythmic heart.

Not knowing about this condition, and suddenly feeling crappy and out of breath, I just assumed I’d caught whatever con crud was making the rounds (did I mention I was at World Con?) and ignored it. Later I went on the TOR book tour for Down the Mysterly River, which is an exhausting undertaking at the best of times, and triply so when one is trying to kill himself with an undiagnosed heart ailment.

Honestly, I thought it was just a flu I couldn’t shake.

Eventually, home again, I sought out a new doctor to see why I wasn’t getting better. “You should be dead,” the nurse said after taking my vitals. I’ll always respect her for her refreshingly candid bedside manor.

They bundled me in an ambulance, took me down the street to the Mayo Clinic where, after three days of getting my blood pressure back into the “there’s a slight chance he might live” range, they zapped me into dull human cardiac conformity again — for the first time.

Now, more than a decade later I need another zap. This time the inciting incident was catching that dreaded plague at a friend’s funeral, which made me feel down for a few days, and also triggered the heart thing.

This time, knowing what was going on, back to the Mayo Clinic goes I. “You have the Covid,” one old nurse says, in the most overdone doom and gloom voice I’d ever heard outside of bad theatre.

“I know,” I said, “but it passed two weeks ago. I’m okay now.”

Not so. The clinic has a rule they can’t zap my heart back into obedience until I self isolate for ten days. So I did, while they looked for a time they could fit me in.

Until then I’ve mostly been fine, except that walking across a room tires me out. That will change back for the better, once I get the zap.

Soon.

At the same time there was a big work deadline, nicely exacerbated by the fact that even sitting at a desk typing for more than twenty minutes tires me out. I missed a few deadlines.

So then, why did I tell you all of this?

Because, as excuses go, a wonky heart is a pretty good one. No freelancer in this silly business for more than forty years would dare not make use of it.

Therefore, yes, I’ve been away from the Substack for a while, but for good reason. My excuses are golden.

I’ll be back on track soon.

The nice part: boy do I have some stuff saved up to talk about!

Soon.