I had my first doctor’s appointment today after being hospitalized nearly three weeks ago.  My cardiac team is about my age and really, really good.  I felt great about them — there’s something comforting about being treated like a peer, rather than being treated by some aging gray-haired cleric of medicine who treats you like a test subject.

But the reality hasn’t changed much.  I’m doing really well for someone who’s been through what I’ve been through. Almost normal overall — that’s pretty surprising to the docs given the state of my heart.  But a weak heart means different things for different people.  My body has healthy reserves that are keeping me going in the face of all this.  If I was in my 80′s, they said, this would be catastrophic.  But I can go back to work tomorrow.

But I’m not 100% by any stretch of the imagination.  What I have will not go away, and it will almost certainly not get better.  All I can hope for is stability — being able to function as normally as I can and live as long as I can.

It changes your worldview.  I can’t think about what I’ll be doing next year, or five years from now — I have to live in the moment, in the now.  I feel fine right now.  My heart is beating right now.  I’m alive right now.  I will not die today.

And if the now stretches on for another 10 – 20 years, then all the better.

Let’s hope that’s the case.