Picking up the threads

At least, I think so.

Life is resuming some of its old rhythms. Alan's allowed to take up driving again, gradually, & since Tuesday has been taking daughter #2 to her 'paying off student overdraft' summer job a few miles down the road. We're debating whether to brave Asda at weekend, or stick to the novelty of Internet grocery delivery a while longer. Even had a little row the other day, which is a sure sign of things getting back to normal :-)

Meanwhile daughter #3 has completed her GCSEs & daughter #1 has completed her degree (but still waiting for results). Son has a job interview tomorrow before heading in our direction for a long weekend of tv footie & food. He's contrived to take leave from his current job for the whole second round - nice to see that maths degree isn't going to waste!

So generally speaking the next generation are heading into the future where they belong & we're sitting back taking stock of the last month & wondering how many of the threads we really want to pick up. Some of them are probably just entanglements we can do without.

No rash decisions, though, until we've negotiated summer's cardiac rehabilitation, physiotherapy, angioplasty-with-a-stent-or-two & renewed recovery. That's enough to be going on with.

Update

I should be in bed, but 1. I owe people an update & 2. it's kind of scary but exhilarating to be out here in cyberland so late without my trusty cigarettes.
Since my last report there have been lots of angio things. Look them up if you like - plenty of sites around with pics & even animations. Alan had an angiogram, which told him he needs an angioplasty. That's the step before heart bypass surgery, & it sometimes works. He'll be walking round with £1200 worth of titanium stuffed inside an artery. Date uncertain, but within 3 months. Holiday cancelled.
So he came home from that test, late Friday. Saturday proceeded in an orderly fashion, but Sunday was spent in A&E. Surprising how closely angina pain followed by over-reaction to blood pressure reducing medication can imitate a second heart attack. Monday saw us seeking to escape a limbo world where "any time now" means "in several hours if you're lucky". When I win the lottery I'll buy Grimsby Hospital an extra pharmacist so they don't have to keep people wating 5 hours for a prescription that turns out to be the same bag of tablets you went in with the day before & had nicked off you.
So today Alan, duly chastened at having overdone things in the garden on Saturday, had a nice quiet day in front of tv. Not. We brace ourselves for morning.

Out of silence

Comes not silence. Or something.
It's been a while since I felt able to communicate publicly. It's amazing what 30 years of habit can do. Like fix the association of marking & smoking so that one simply doesn't happen without the other. Quite scary to register the extent of chemical dependency.
I think I'm winning, though.
Alan put it quite succinctly: "You have an alternative. You can carry on smoking. And kill me."
Not subtle, but probably true.
So, to stop being cryptic:
Midnight 22/23 May 2006: Alan had a "significant" heart attack. I'm never going to forget those moments of watching him flake out on the bathroom floor, drenched in vomit, or mumbling semi-consciously in the ambulance, as the paramedics noted his "not detectable" blood pressure.
The family rallied round, then gradually dispersed again, back to their own lives. I've tried to pick up the threads. Torn between the profound & the trivial. Struggling over nicotine addiction is so selfish & petty in the face of potentially fatal atherosclerosis.
sounxte ftgkgjfjearhhhyyhhyhy,#yes. orsieky.l