Best wishes

Ted,

This is why you exemplify class in the blogosphere.

“Classy” was exactly the word that came to my mind, as well. May your example be imitated throughout the blogosphere.

All part of the human condition although I’d not appreciated that heart catheterization, angiograms and the like had moved into public domain interest. Any readers who might wish to know more – preferrably from a spectator’s viewpoint is recommended – can look here:
http://www.rad.wfubmc.edu/patienteduc/angiogram.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/talking/tests/xrayscans_angiogram.shtml

My own recent experience just before last Christmas had upsides as well as downsides. The upsides were the blood vessels around my heart are “normal”, so further surgery is not indicated, for which I’m appropriately grateful, and the previously prescribed medication is correct. The downside was that part way through the procedure my blood pressure collapsed to abnormally low levels so I was put onto a saline drip there and then and injected with atrophine as a heart stimulant to revive blood pressure.

Out of the theatre, for the next half hour or so a nurse stood by my bedside watching a battery of monitors plugged into wire pads affixed to my chest to make sure nothing more untoward transpired. And for the rest of the day, the concern was to get my blood pressure back up to normal levels – and to make sure the incision for inserting the catheter didn’t reopen, which would have resulted in a nasty haemorrhage. As the consultant remarked later that day on his post-op rounds, the concern when I had entered the hospital the previous afternoon had been to get my blood pressure down to normal levels. I enjoyed his sense of humour about this, I must say. Anyway, I’m still around.

Besides all that, I wouldn’t want to wish any harm to the sick because of their ideology. Isn’t that what distinguishes our brand of tolerance for political pluralism?