And Now the Time Has Come to Face the Final Curtain
A journey through hospice, written by my hubby
The backstory started four years ago with my surgery for an abdominal aortic aneurysm, discovered by accident in an x-ray for my back a decade before. For six years it stayed small, and then it suddenly began to grow, prompting the vascular surgeon to say, “It’s time.”
This became an extra challenge for the doctor, as it seems my aorta overall was smaller in circumference than normal, making the aneurysm that much bigger and more urgent.
All through my life I have never managed to do things the “easy” way.
Even this was a more complicated operation because of its location. Then I went into atrial fibrillation and had to go through several treatments (including taking a drug that stopped my heart briefly to put it back into rhythm… something the cardiologist neglected to tell me at the time).
When I was finally tube- and catheter-free and allowed to be up and about, I had developed what the surgeon euphemistically called “extreme swollen scrotum,” three words no man ever wants to hear. To say “softball-size” would not be an exaggeration.
It seemed I was nearly fixed, just playing around with heart and blood pressure medicines that caused me to, as my wife…
