Day Two Of The Heart Monitor And Janice Taking A Little Piece Of My Heart…Now Baby.


I got through the night without the red light coming on, so I didn’t wake up dead, which is another misnomer. How does one “wake up dead?” I don’t care to find out. I know Jerry Garcia was always playing and talking about being part of the Grateful Dead, another messed-up name for a band. Dead folks aren’t grateful unless they have never heard a Taylor Swift record, or they are in Heaven, so we can assume the band at least gave Christianity a second thought. In the end, Ole Jerry didn’t have much to be grateful for except a body full of Heroin or whatever the hell he killed himself with. We can assume that if he made it to Heaven, the Good Lord at least put him in one of his praise bands along with Hendrix and a few others.

I had my usual cocktail last night, sitting on the patio with Momo, watching the Skunk and two Opossums come into the bird feeding area scrounging for treats. I was surprised the two critters didn’t get into an altercation, considering they both prefer the same foods: fruits and veggies. Momo says no old man in their right mind would encourage critters to come to an animal Luby’s cafeteria in their backyard. Somebody has to take care of our small furry critters. Elie Mae Clampett always had a few hanging off of her, and Granny was good at fixing them for supper when Elie Mae wasn’t around and Jed was out shooting for some food and finding more crude. Did Granny ever serve Mr. Drysdale and Miss Jane any Possum Medallions on a wooden stick with Chipmunk sauce?

Finally got my heart monitor paired with my Bluetooth hearing aids and my stereo and listened to some of the drum solo from Iron Butterfly’s “Inna Gadda Da Vida,” and man, that guy could play, I got my heart to match his kick drum, and was moving and grooving in my La-Z-Boy: Momo thought I was having the big one and almost called 911 since the light started blinking yellow. If it’s green, I’m good; yellow means it’s iffy, and if it goes to red, then I’m off to La-La Land. I got a text from my Dr. Squatch to “knock it off.”

Take another little piece of my heart now, baby, You know You Got It If It Makes You Feel Good…


Getting older guarantees one thing for certain: each week is a new and often, rousing experience. This week was my Opus moment: I had a heart monitor installed. A nice piece of technology super-glued to my chest that tells my cardiologist, Dr. Squatch, if my heart is acting abnormally, and if sudden death is imminent. At least I now have an inkling of when it might happen.

The first nurse had the bedside patient demeanor of a prison guard. ” Lay down, be still, don’t finch, don’t breathe, don’t do anything,” she says. She applies a gooey substance to my neck so she can use a Channel 5 Doppler radar to detect blockages in my carotid arteries. I, being my lovable, imaginative, smart-ass self, asked her if it was a boy, a girl, or an alien implant? She wasn’t amused, but my Cardiac Nurse wife, Momo, got a giggle.

The Doppler imaging completed, we were ushered into another room where the second nurse explaied the device to us. It was rather smart looking, small, many lights and buttons, and had to be attached to my chest with Gorilla Super Glue. After she installed the contraption, she expalaied how it worked: Momo being a fellow nurse uderstood all of it.

She pushed buttons, sent some signals to somewhere far away, and I was in business. ” If the light blinks green, it means you are doing alright. If it goes yellow, that means you are stressed and need to slow down and don’t look at that Sydney Sweeney Eagle jeans commercial. If it blinks red and glows like ET’s finger, then the doctor will call you with instructions for your final moments on earth. If he is busy or not near his phone, you can kiss your ass adios,” I understood. ” It will also connect to your hearing aids via Bluetooth, so you can listen to the soothing sounds of your own heartbeat, or the bass drum beat to In A Gadda Da Vida.” I am impressed.

Momo drove me to Home Depot so I could get into an altercation with a salesperson to see if this thing really works. If you don’t get another post soon, you’ll know Janis took another piece of my heart, baby.