This year, the Grand Canyon Star Party on the South Rim had more in store
than we planned on. First the special nature of this year's GCSP, then my
adventure.
Usually, we get from 90 to 110 astronomers for the week, but this time we
had a record of nearly 130! It has gotten kind of busy the last few years,
with running sunset talks in the theater each night, then three
constellation tours each night, as well as my own scopes (well, my awesome
spouse and
grandkids often take care of that.). This year was busier than usual
though, since, after a tremendous fund raising effort by the Grand Canyon
Association and four years of very hard work by GCNP staff, the Park was
awarded
Provisional International Dark Sky Park status by the International Dark
Sky Association. The Provisional status means that the necessary changes are
identified down to individual light bulbs (and this is in fact three
cities worth of property) and the path forward is clear in order to achieve
full
Dark Sky Park status by 2019, the 100th anniversary of Grand Canyon
National Park. Not only were there the usual monumental daily efforts in
keeping
GCSP on track, but also nearly daily interviews with local and national
news media.
This year, though, astronomy turned out to be a small part of the
adventure. I guess I didn't realize (nor did my cardiac docs) that I was
attending
GCSP under shaky circumstances. When my primary care doctor retired in
late December, a pair of nurse practitioners bought the practice and began to
scrub the records of existing patients. They got to mine in April, and
had a couple of shocks to deal with. First, going back about three years, my
thyroid had started to fail. Second, there was full documentation of a
cardiac work-up we did going back four years because of some memory and
balance problems I was having at work before I retired 18 months ago. This
work-up indicated that I had some possible blockages. I was never told about
the thyroid nor the heart. This explains a lot of problems I was having at
work before I had two small strokes and retired. But off and on for a
long time I'd been feeling more and more run-down.
With the discovered information, we started to do a four month fix on the
thyroid, and to redo the cardiac checks, and got conflicting test results,
Some said things were OK, some not. So we decided on a full cardiac
catheterization, and maybe needing one stent put in, and do it after GCSP.
After
all, I was doing 4 mile speed walking and other workouts every day, and no
pain. As a safety valve, Jim Knoll, TAAA club leader for non-profit
outreach, knew exactly what was going on health-wise with all of the outreach
we
do together, so he jumped in a couple of weeks ahead of time and said he'd
stay in the shadows in case something unexpected happened.
I went in on Thursday, June 16 for a 35 minute catheterization and a
single possible stent, and got a big surprise. Needed five emergency
bypasses,
so Friday June 17 started the chop shop. Got back home only three nights
later, two nights early. Good thing I do lots of walking and Health Rider
work, so no sign of any heart damage of any kind but the arteries were a
mess; 95% to 99.1% blockages. I may have been approaching a fatal coronary.
Little did we know that the super capable heart (distance runner for 55
years) was carrying on. Lucked out on this one, and other than post-op
recovery, can't believe how much better I feel. Being diabetic from my
grandmother and having cardiovascular disease from my father, having stone
pipes for
arteries was pre-ordained.
Now in the middle of two months of recovery after being cracked open like a
lobster and the heart learns to work with the new plumbing, and both of my
legs look like Texas Chain Saw Massacre where they took the pieces for the
bypasses. They don't tell you about that! But after yesterday's
checkup, I'm now allowed to drive and lift 30 pounds. I'm up to 40+ minutes a
day walking at over 3 mph. I hate to think what might have happened if one
nurse practitioner had not done the deep dive into my records.
Jim O'Connor
South Rim Coordinator
Grand Canyon Star Party
gcsp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
--
See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please
send personal replies to the author, not the list.
