How Are You Feeling?

How are you feeling?
More than a couple of people ask me that everyday and that is the reason I write…

I typically answer, fine but today I surprised myself and stopped. Today it was a tougher question. I wanted to say fine, because in a comparative way, I am. I truly have few complaints, but today I stopped short of fine because I am not. I have terminal heart failure, and although extremely grateful for my good days and all of the great health I have enjoyed I know what bubbles underneath is just like lava below the surface of my thin crusted well-being. So, I answer fine, even when it is not.

I am out of breath, swollen and tired all of the time. These are the parts of this disease that have become a part of my everyday life. Sometimes my chest hurts and is so heavy I think I am going to implode, but am afraid I can't tell the difference between my paranoid imagination and serious disease symptoms anymore. Then I wonder, does it really matter. It's terminal heart failure, it’s pointless to worry. And even though I don’t want to worry, I will worry just the same. Go figure @$%*@

I don’t know what condition my heart is in, because I don’t want to know, I'll only worry. Better or worse, good or bad, functioning at maximum capacity or not, I don’t want to know any more. I don't want any more degrading, toxic, invasive, nuclear exams that doctors deal out like a cheap deck of cards. Besides, a walk to the end of the block and a couple of glasses of pinot grigio and I can produce the same results as the high priced atom smashing machines. (There is a reason for those lead aprons!) Quite frankly, I’d rather get smashed by the pinot, then I'll send them my results and a bill.

Why do I need to know all of this information, I’m not sure I should…no, scratch that, I do NOT want to know. If God wanted me to have access to all of that information, I’d have a daily paper read-out spew from a bodily orifice somewhere.

So, instead of feeling sick, waiting for them to run tests to tell me I am not getting better or feeling well, waiting for them to tell I am still sick, I have decided to just be. I have discovered, without the aid of the medical industry, that the best way to feel better when I feel like crap is to force myself to get up and just create something. That’s one of the reasons I paint, draw and write this blog.

Now… who wants another pinot?