The Tin Man
Member
1/06/2011 was my big day. Sometimes wondered if I'd feel like celebrating or just let it slip by. I'm still not sure how I feel about the noisy plumbing clunking away in my chest. As it turns out though, I guess I have a lot of reasons to celebrate.
The last year was a pretty rotten one. First the heart surgery, followed by a hernia repair that set me back health wise farther than the heart surgery did. The frustratingly slow recovery put a damper on my normal summertime activities with family and friends. Work missed because of illness kept my wallet pretty low but we squeaked by. My girlfriend spent the first seven months of the year going through chemo for gall bladder cancer so I had to keep a chin up for her sake as well as my own. (All the while she was keeping a brave face for MY sake!) It all went by as a bunch of muddied, blurry snapshots until finally the holiday season was right there.
Only those last few days saved the year for me.
Seeing old friends I have missed without even knowing it. My daughters' fourteenth birthday brought as much joy to me as it did her. My girlfriend getting a (tentative) clean bill of health on her first recheck. Knowing that if was not for that little clicking chunk of carbon and metal and the skilled people who put it there one year ago today, I would not have been here to experience any of it, the good or the bad.
Yup, the year 2011 was surely one that was less than stellar for a lot of people for a lot of different reasons but, here I am, hoping for a better one ahead for myself and all you.
The last year was a pretty rotten one. First the heart surgery, followed by a hernia repair that set me back health wise farther than the heart surgery did. The frustratingly slow recovery put a damper on my normal summertime activities with family and friends. Work missed because of illness kept my wallet pretty low but we squeaked by. My girlfriend spent the first seven months of the year going through chemo for gall bladder cancer so I had to keep a chin up for her sake as well as my own. (All the while she was keeping a brave face for MY sake!) It all went by as a bunch of muddied, blurry snapshots until finally the holiday season was right there.
Only those last few days saved the year for me.
Seeing old friends I have missed without even knowing it. My daughters' fourteenth birthday brought as much joy to me as it did her. My girlfriend getting a (tentative) clean bill of health on her first recheck. Knowing that if was not for that little clicking chunk of carbon and metal and the skilled people who put it there one year ago today, I would not have been here to experience any of it, the good or the bad.
Yup, the year 2011 was surely one that was less than stellar for a lot of people for a lot of different reasons but, here I am, hoping for a better one ahead for myself and all you.
