Been a little less than a week since I saw the cardiologist and took my first test. Got me writing and thinking about all sorts of stuff.
Thought about it when I grabbed the updated prescription and muttered Are You The One That I Want?
Heard back from the doc today about my test results and he agreed the most important thing I can do is focus on diet and dropping a few pounds.
Though he does want me to take a stress test in addition to the other one we scheduled for the beginning of July. It is about establishing baselines and benchmarks along with ruling out any unknown issues.
I am not going to buy trouble so until I hear differently I am operating under the assumption that I am doing ok for a guy my age..
It could be better but it could also be much worse and that is something I am aware of. I have seen contemporaries go down hill.
The Famous CLE Cigar
The guy in the cigar shop said he didn’t recognize me and I said I didn’t expect that he would. “I come in once a year, if that.”
He asked me what I was looking for but I didn’t tell him “the ones that remind me of my grandfathers.” Nor did I say “the ones the guys and I smoked after our kids were born.”
We only did it a few times and we laughed about it because we knew it was something we were doing in part because we had seen it on television or in movies.
Mostly we did it because we were interested in why our grandfathers and fathers had done it. We found opportunities at parties to sneak outside with some good scotch and a cigar.
You don’t smoke a cigar quickly, it is slow and methodical. It requires you to pause and take your time. That is something we don’t do enough of. We don’t slow down and take in the moments.
Someone once asked me how long I have been smoking cigars. I laughed and said I probably had my first around 25 or 26.
Probably never smoked more than five or six a year if that many and some years I know I had none. So if you say it is 30 years of smoking it might be 100 and that is on the higher end.
Are there healthier ways to pause and take in the moment? Yeah, there certainly are but there is something to be said for engaging in events that allow you to turn off your mind and go elsewhere.
That cigar reminds me of standing in the backyard of the house I grew up in listening to my father and grandfathers talk..
It reminds me of sitting in Farmer’s Market with my grandfather listening to the altercockers talk about WWII, the women they met over there and a million other stories.
And sometimes I remember the other men who sat with us who had numbers tattooed on their arms and their silence.
I Still Own That Tux
I am not sure where it is now, but I can tell you it was purchased at Sears and that I found that a little embarrassing. Got a ton of use out of it.
As a point of reference everyone in the photo is mostly standing on the ground. The big guy in the back was about 6’5 or maybe 6’6, don’t remember for certain but I know my buddy Michael is about 6’3 so he has some size on me.
Thirty-four years later there are 1,000 different stories that I can tell about time with these men and some go back almost a full decade before that photo was taken.
I have told my children to hold onto the old friends because there is something special about that. We go back more than 40 years and I am lucky enough to know a few others who I go back even further with.
Which is to say the history includes junior high, marriage, becoming fathers, divorce and so much more.
We have learned separately and together the importance of following advice like that in the picture below.
Not going to stress about my stress test or any other, the answers will be what they are and at that time I can decide if they require attention or adjustment.
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