Stress test | Happiness is a new phone | Catting a kitten

Just got home from the last chapter of a wild goose chase to find a phone to replace my broken one. So many phones bought, so many returned. But now tonite I've got the perfect phone, an A T and T from Target. Home phones are becoming obsolete. Mine has just what I like: the ability to go outside while talking on the phone, wearing headphones, and clip my bushes or do a little shoveling.

This is my most important tool, along with my laptop.

My morning began with the final pre-op test for my kidney transplant on April 2. Went down to the former Rolling Hill Hospital, now known as Moss Rehab, your leader in treating spinal injuries, traumatic brain injuries, stroke rehab. Very friendly staff. I gave the greeter all my leftover valentine goodies from the party.

I had a pharmacologic stress test which measures how well my heart works. It's a long drawn-out process that measures the heart...

- at rest with no food in my belly, lying under a nuclear machine
- after lunch when I was given an injection of a vein-dilating substance
- an EKG
- at rest with the medicine in my veins

Bob and Paul worked in the nuclear medicine department and were superb. Bob installed an intravenous tube in my arm. Unlike me, my veins are very shy and often fail to open up for company. But Bob finally got one.

I was in the EKG room when his buddy Paul came in to inject me with chemicals that cause a very unpleasant reaction in half the patients. I knew better than to think I was exempt. All symptoms were unpleasant but definitely tolerable. First I felt short of breath. Then I felt a rush in my head and slight headache centered in my forehead.

The three-person team stood around me: the EKG technician whose name was something like Jardina, she was half-Cuban and half-Jamaican and was absolutely wonderful; then Paul from nuclear medicine, and Dr Singer, cardiologist.

I asked why an MD needed to be there and Jardina said, Whenever we stress the heart we want a physician to be present.

Oh.

Singer said my heart looked good. I asked him a couple Qs like, any good new heart innovations lately?

Too many to mention, he said.

Dyou exercise I asked him?

He used to jog but only walks now.

Yeah, I said, Park far away and walk.

I was there from 7:30 in the morning to 1 pm. When I was resting up around 12:30 I said to personality-plus Bob, I've got big plans for today but I feel like crap.

He waved his hands in the air. You'll be fine, he said. Doesn't last long.

The man was right! By the time I drove home I was my old self again, diving into Peggie's cheesecake, followed by a repentant stalk of celery, while I got to work on mailing out one of my memoir pieces to a place called Ducts.org to see if they'll publish me. The piece is about my six-month search to buy my first - and only house - on the upward slope of Cowbell Lane - with a dash of romance in it.

I'm pretty sure Ducts rejected it after I wrote it in '04 but they've got a new editor so we'll see.

When naptime came a'calling it was only 4 pm, but I was ready to sleep.

I went next door to sleep with my nap partner Scotty who said he'd be up shortly. I forget what he was doing....possibly lifting weights. The two of us have this insane need to know every move the other makes. Like, what were you doing outside, Scott? Were you replenishing the birdbath? Or feeding the compost heap?

Wonder why this is.

So, I fell asleep after putting on the movie I've been trying to watch for several days now, A Passage to India, David Lean's last film, one he made after a hiatus of 14 years. Beautiful film but I keep replaying passages, which I did again, then promptly fell asleep.

I slept on and off for two hours, completing the film, and completing a very interesting dream.

I'm lying flat under the nuclear medicine machine which somehow reads isotopes from my heart which are illuminated by the solution they put in my veins. I'm very relaxed and looking down at my body, which, as was the case this morning, was under a white blanket.

Suddenly, Bob exclaims with happiness, You're catting a kitten.

Sure enough, when I looked down, a rather large baby kitten emerged from my body.

It was most satisfying. And needed no analysis or explanation.



Happy Valentine's Day, Gracie! Maybe your bubby will be around awhile.