Call me Edie....

Hey, it worked for Herman Melville,
and I have to start somewhere.  Why am I blogging?  Mostly for myself. To put it simply, I was waiting to die.  Now I'm dying to live. So much has changed and continues to change in my life, and blogging seems like a great way to put it all into perspective.    And maybe, just maybe, my story will inspire someone. 

I can mark the day my life changed forever:  
October 26, 2001.  That day I learned I had a congenital defect in my left main coronary artery.  It was a potential killer.  Three days later my chest was carved open, my ribcage sawed apart, and two bypass grafts were created around the defect.   I woke up in ICU with 7 tubes coming out of various natural and man-made body orifices, a ventilator controlling my breathing, and several other machines beeping, buzzing, humming, and chirping as each played its part in keeping me alive.  Years later, I still shudder when I think of it.  Having open heart surgery is, to me, as close to being treated like a side a beef as a person can get.  I found it dehumanizing.   

Okay, that was 9 years, 7 months, and 18 days ago - why is it important now?  
Because my old life was destroyed that day and I've been under reconstruction ever since.  Because the progress has been slow and almost imperceptible until now.  And because I see myself differently now, like a block of marble that has been slowly and painstakingly chipped at until, at last, it looks more like a human than a lump of stone.   The sculpture is not complete, but there's enough form visible to create a little excitement. 

But before we get to the good part, we have to get past the bad part.
Heart surgery didn't fix me.  I continued to have big problems and by 2006, a year in which I was hospitalized 8 times in as many months, I couldn't work anymore.  Hello Social Security disability!  I'm glad it was there for me, but if you think it's a free and happy ride on the entitlement bus, think again.  You DON'T get enough money to make ends meet, but you DO get just enough to make you ineligible for any other assistance. 

Did you know that Social Security requires you to be disabled at least 2 years before you can receive Medicare benefits?   Yep, it's true. Fortunately, my husband had me covered on his insurance plan for those 2+ years.  Unfortunately, he was injured on the job and ended up disabled, too.  Goodbye group insurance, hello Medicare!  It was a bad news/good news thing.   Though his insurance was much better in most respects, it wouldn't pay for the surgical procedure that would ultimately save my life.  Medicare would. Why?  Because someone, somewhere in our overblown, unwieldy, dysfunctional government understood that paying for the surgery was cheaper than paying for the medical treatment I would need for years to come without it.  I know, I know.  It's hard to believe, given what we hear in the news everyday, that our government ever gets anything right.  But, as a former co-worker of mine used to say, "even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then."

Next:   The Skinny on Getting Skinny