Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

After being in Albany and Niskayuna for a week and a half, cattitude got home yesterday, feeling quite worn out, and very glad to see me, adrian_turtle, and our cats.

He was visiting his father in the skilled nursing facility most days, and also doing things at his father's house as prep for his father to move to an assisted living apartment in Lowell, Mass. On Saturday, he helped his sister and her husband load some of their father's stuff into a rented truck, and yesterday he and his brother-in-law moved stuff from the truck into his dad's new place.

He is home now, and doing very little today, though he was feeling rested enough for a short walk with me and Adrian to look for early-spring flowers. When the vet's office called to say we would need to reschedule our cats' appointments from Wednesday afternoon, I was happy to move it to the following day.

ETA: Cattitude's sister texted about an hour ago to say that their father is moved into the new place, and we all relaxed a little more.

We celebrated cattitude's birthday with excellent sushi and homemade birthday cake. The sushi was from Cafe Sushi (which delivers through DoorDash) and hence a bit of a splurge. I got one of the nigiri assortments, which was as good as I'd expected, and a negihama roll (yellowtail and scallion). Cattitude had chirashi, and adrian_turtle had seaweed salad and a couple of rolls, and we ordered more maki to share. In practice, we shared all the maki, except that I didn't eat any of the spicy salmon roll. I did eat two pieces of the special tuna roll, which had quite a bit of wasabi, and maybe a bit of hot pepper.

There was slightly more sushi than we had room for, not and leave room for even small portions of chocolate cake, but only slightly. The food was excellent, as was the company. I was pleased that Adrian and Cattitude both wanted seconds of the chocolate cake. I don't expect to finish the cake while it's still fresh, and will probably make half as much next time (it calls for two eggs, so that's an easy recipe to halve.)

cattitude and adrian_turtle are now (basically) recovered from the side effects (mostly fatigue) from their second doses of the Covid vaccine. Adrian was here so I could take care of both her and cattitude,to the extent needed.

Adrian left our place and went home a couple of hours ago. I walked to the nearby CVS to pick up a prescription, got home, and basically went flop. Fortunately, there's not much else that I have to get done today, and we can pull things out of the freezer to microwave for dinner if need be.

This is, however, a reminder of my own limits in terms of energy, fatigue, and executive function, which I don't usually have to pay the same kind of attention to, because I've already made adjustments in terms of what, and how much, I do, week in and week out.

Before I start: Don't worry, we're all basically okay here.

About 6:15 Monday morning, cattitude woke me with "I think I'm having a heart attack." I realize this isn't the absolute worst possible news, but it's the worst way I've ever been awakened, and I don't recommend it.

Fortunately, we've been well-drilled (by PSAs, not actual practice) in what to do here. I grabbed the aspirin bottle, handed him 2 and a cup of water and said "chew these," and called 911. I told the operator what was going on, she took my address and conferenced me in with the paramedics, and they got here in something between 5 and 10 minutes. Questions about level and kind of pain, nitroglycerin, and an ambulance ride to the conveniently nearby hospital. [This is the same place I went last year for my gall bladder.] By the time we were in the ER, Cattitude was already feeling noticeably better. They hooked up an oxygen feed anyhow, double-checked the amount of aspirin I'd given him, and took a medical history. Within the first hour, the doctors had said they thought it probably wasn't a heart attack and angina was most likely.

The next 24 hours were a mix of worry and boredom. Once Cattitude was settled into a room, I went home to grab his glasses, which he'd somehow left without; a couple of books; a change of clothing for later; and the travel Scrabble set. (As I said, it's convenient that the hospital is so close to our apartment.) Shortly after I got back, they thought about what he'd told them and offered him a nicotine patch, which he accepted. Even if this weren't a situation where every doctor had said "You have to quit smoking" and he had repeatedly agreed and in some cases asked for advice or assistance, nobody is allowed to smoke in the hospital. He is now in day 4 of quitting smoking, with the aid of nicotine patches and a ballpoint pen to chew on (which he asked me for in the hospital).
The hospital kept him overnight because they needed three blood samples, at 8 hour intervals, to be sure it wasn't a heart attack. Hospitals do intake at any hour, but don't usually send people home at night. He spent most of that time hooked up to telemetry, which is part of the "verify it wasn't a heart attack or other serious heart problem" protocol.

I took Monday and Tuesday off from work, to keep him company, provide moral support, and such. They were not, at first, thrilled at him saying he was going to walk home when discharged—I think they were assuming we lived a lot further from the hospital than we do, and it was a hot day after a string of significantly cooler ones. We told them that he'd walk down to the lobby, and if that was at all difficult we'd call a cab. It wasn't, we didn't, and after a day and a half cooped up, the walking did him good.

We know it wasn't a heart attack. It probably wasn't angina. It also wasn't a couple of other unpleasant possibilities, such as pulmonary embolism. However, he did have those squeezing pains and shortness of breath. So, it's at "call a GP and make a follow-up appointment for a stress test and to discuss what else you need to do." (They made him an appointment, but it's annoyingly far into the future.) He is taking one 81-milligram aspirin tablet a day, and has switched from whole milk to 2%, and is replacing some of the milk he drank with flavored seltzer (at half a gallon a day, that's a significant difference in fat intake). Those are expected and intended to continue indefinitely.

I went to a nearby shoe store today in the long-shot hope of boots. The salesman was both helpful and informative, but had nothing that fit me (a lot of shoe companies don't even make things in my size, and in the wonders of modern capitalism, if it's snowing steadily, the stores are full of spring stuff). He did, however, suggest that if my feet were suddenly colder and the boots didn't leak, I might have too little air circulating, or be cutting off my blood circulation. He suggested not wearing too-thick socks. I will be cautious about how I lace and tie the boots (they tend to loosen as I wear them, so the temptation is to start with them as tight as is practical), and not try to tuck my pants into them. If that works, I will be set at least until spring, possibly for a few years. (Knowing that the best time to get boots is around October only works if you realize in October that you need new boots. If being careful about lacing etc. doesn't work, I am going to put "buy boots" in the Palm for October.)

On the way home, I stopped at a local florist, and bought cattitude roses. I thought about getting just yellow roses, but instead got a pre-made bouquet of yellow, orange, red, and purple. He was especially pleased with the purple. (I had somehow gotten out of the habit of buying him flowers; when I realized this, I decided to do something about it.)

Just now, he stopped at the restaurant/cafe downstairs and got cannoli, at my request. Cannoli filled to order are a Good Thing, one of those good things that makes you impatient with the inferior version. Many an otherwise good cafe fills the cannoli ahead of time. Once filled, the shells start getting soggy. When I worked at ACM, I often walked over to Ninth Avenue to get lunch; there's a place on Ninth around 46th Street that, among other things, does cannoli right, with or without chocolate chips. (Pozzo's Bakery, closed Sundays.)