Dooty

It's now 3:22 a.m. I was awakened at 2:13 by the angina. 

I took my meds...with the soda-water that eases the stomach pain they induce. 

And now, fully awake, I'm, yet again, pondering the dilemma of my  disease.

If I exercise, as I did yesterday -- walking four blocks -- the angina flares. If I DON'T exercise I gain weight faster and put more "load" on my heart. Add to that the ever-present risk of stroke and one is faced with the question: Is now the time to call it quits?

This isn't depression motivated suicide, it's sound-mind thinking; it's acknowledgement of the pain of a heart attack -- I've experienced it and don't want to again -- and the recognition of the loss of quality of life that can occur with a stroke.

And there's no way to predict if a stroke'll result in drooling from the side of my mouth or I'll be paralyzed and -- as it's called - locked in.

The cardiologist asked me questions such as -- "How often are you taking the sub-lingual nitro(glycerin)?"

Maybe it's too individual to speculate, but I got the impression she has some knowledge of how to gauge the level of my disease. But she didn't offer any tidbits. And at the time I didn't think to ask. (Maybe I'll send her a msg through the portal). When I asked about taking advantage of the New Mexico Death in Dying Act, she said, "You're not terminal." And with that, dismissed the question.

I'd hoped to press the issue since, with heart disease, there're no STRONG indicators of terminality (as with cancer). But I'll have to look elsewhere...in my spare (remaining) time.

I have a responsibility to myself -- a born-again agnostic, raised in the existential wonderland of the 1960s, with all the insights and delusions (We shall overcome!) of that era. I'm deeply involved in three relationships; each mutually supportive and daily moving us toward ever expanding developments in ways that only the intimacy of lovers can provide. 

But I have a responsibility to myself,  to call it quits while I can. But when?

And she's not offering any tidbits, let alone any substantive info. So I write this as a means of tracking my process; it may be a way of knowing WHEN when I see it. 

Oh, wait. That only works with obscenity.

Rumored to have a decent omelette, we went to see. 

I've forgotten.