This Is Not A
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Date: 03/10/16
Beating On...
Appointment with my local cardiologist this morning. I was feeling quite trepidant, even though I was certain that it couldn't possibly go as terrifyingly awry as the last time I saw him.
Anyway, after an electro-cardiogram and an echo-cardiogram, he pronounced himself pleased with my progress (I had, apparently, a 'far better gradient', whatever that is). But then he made explicit something which might only have been hinted at before; namely, that the surgery they had done on me in Manchester back in July was only ever going to be a stop-gap solution, a way of buying me some time, and that - sometime within the next two years - my troublesome pulmonic valve will have to be replaced altogether by a synthetic one.
I find myself a little...well, yes, disheartened by the news. I had hoped that what they had done would last me a fair bit longer than that, and the thought of having to go through a far more radical 'procedure' - with the concomitant increased risk, length of stay in hospital and length of recovery required afterwards - has taken a bit of the joie out of my vivre, especially as I can be pretty sure that one of the consequences will be The Depratment forcibly pensioning me off at the age of about 56.
I'll get over this, of course. Aware as I am of how quickly the years seem to pass now I'm closing on the age of official decrepitude, I know that there's time yet to smell the roses (and chuck things at the cats crapping by them).
