As some of you know, I have been being treated rather aggressively for asthma for the last year or so.

It has become increasingly apparent that the problem really isn't asthma, and so I've been looking at other places for help, visiting a few other specialists along the road. I made an appointment with the cardio a couple of weeks ago then promptly caught bronchitis.

She (the cardio) postponed some tests until the broncho had cleared up a bit, so early on Martin Luther King day, I showed up at the cardio office for an echocardiogram. The tech took me back into the test suite and began the exam, and about five minutes into a 45-minute exam, she sharply said, "I'll be back in a minute."

Never a good sign.

One of the cardio partners came in and looked at the screen on the echo machine, and said something about 4 or 5 centimeters. He then asked me what my plans were for the rest of the day.

I told him I had to go to my boss's house and repair his wireless network. The doctor told me that that had been Plan A, and he was about to introduce me to Plan B.

He said the echo showed a pericardium full of fluid about two inches around on all sides, and that I would need immediately to go to the closest hospital (which, fortunately for me is one of the best heart centers in the region... even vice-president Dick has been there) for a cardiac catheterization and draining of the pericardium. The cardio practice got me an "add-on" slot for the procedure to be done in the afternoon. I was at the hospital being prepped at 11 am, and a little after three they came and fetched me to the catheter lab. I was back in my room by 5 pm. Amazing stuff!

The reason for the catheterization is that the cause for the fluid buildup is pulmonary hypertension. You can look that up for yourself if you're interested; not very pretty, I'm afraid.

You may recall that a year or so ago I told you all that I'd been diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder called CREST syndrome. There didn't seem to be any consequences from this disorder at the time. That status has changed. Evidently CREST is one of the more common causes for pulmonary hypertension. Ooops.

Now, here's the fun part; the current pharmaceutical with the most bang for the buck (so to speak) is....

Viagra.

Yes, boys and girls, I am now taking a little blue pill so I can breathe. And I'm not sharing. I like breathing.

Now that I've done this...

I suppose it's necessary to offer something...

I'm a little fascinated with the process of writing. I think it's funny that I write differently--faster, shorter, less colorfully-- with a keyboard under my fingers than with a pencil in my hand. Pencil writing tends to be slower, more deliberate, more prone to drift (which is not a bad thing, overall).

In my more academic days I used to volunteer at the local county jail among female inmates who were beyond the GED and vocational courses offered. We went in and taught journaling, as best as one can teach something that personal (sort of like teaching someone to eat, I think).

One of the things we did was to introduce a writing prompt, a half-sentence as a jumping off point, and let the women write for about ten minutes and then share their writing, if they cared to.

I made a mistake one day. (Okay, I made lots of mistakes on lots of days.) It was toward the end of the spring semester, and I was a little stacked up with papers and such, and it was near Mother's Day, so I decided the opening prompt for the session was "When I think of the word 'mother,'..." Most of the women there were mothers, and I figured it would give them a chance to brag about their kids.

Uh. I was, uh, incorrect.

In ten minutes, I called time and asked for volunteers to read their journal entries. Without exception, each of the women had some version of "When I think of the word 'mother,' I think about how much I've disappointed my mother, by making such awful choices in life, in men, in hobbies, in addictions, in (take your pick)."

Within another ten minutes I had a circle of bawling inmates, with tales of woe... boyfriends who beat them and forced them to carry drugs, casual drinking that became horrendous intoxication, stealing from family members and friends, all manner of human tragedy.

And all I wanted to do was to help some women express themselves better. I wasn't prepared for what they wanted to express. That wasn't my job...

But I say all that just to say that I have opened this window to express myself. I don't know what I'm going to express. (Isn't that what they call it when you squeeze some kind of horrid carbuncle?)

First things...

I'm doing this because someone told me I should. Not usually a good thing, but in this case, it's someone whose writing (and person) I respect, and because I should have been writing for a very, very long time and I've just not.

I used to write a lot. I used to write for cash money. I used to teach writing.

Then the realities of Living In America caught up with me, and I grew tired of being broke. So now, I climb around under people's desks (stop that at once!!) repairing and administering their computer networks, and it really pays much better than writing. Unless you're Stephen King or some such...

At one point as an adjunct professor, I could have taught five sections every semester and still collected food stamps.