My band of angels

Looking back on the two weeks since Art's "health scare" we feel exceptionally fortunate. Through the most stressful time, friends in Arizona and Washington as well as family supported us. Art went to a local doctor on Monday and was pronounced doing well and very lucky to have a wife who knows CPR. His blood pressure meds are still being adjusted, since he was taken off the diuretic that likely contributed to his low potassium level, and he will have one return visit in six weeks, just before we leave for Sedona and home. On Tuesday he visited the pacemaker clinic. The tech reviewed  his readings over the previous week, since he'd left the hospital, and found no heart irregularities. Art was cleared to remove his sling, drive, bicycle and pursue his ordinary activities while he "takes it easy" for the next six weeks. No cardiology appointment was needed. Amazing!

Yesterday the first notification arrived from our HMO in Washington. The semi-private room is covered. Hopefully so are the ambulance, the ER, the ICU, the angiogram, the echocardiogram, the multiple EKGs and blood draws, and the procedure to insert the pacemaker/defibrillator. I guess we'll get a bunch of "okay, we'll cover this" forms over the next few weeks. How wonderful to have insurance.

Last weekend I wrote a note and left it on the door of the fifth wheel where Scott lives. He's the fellow who applied the AED to Art. I asked him to give me a call to fill me in on details I've forgotten about what happened. I haven't heard from him. That's probably just as well. We need to move on rather than continuously looking back on those minutes of our lives.

Art's daughter Melissa drove from San Diego this weekend for a visit, and his daughter Laura flew in from New Jersey. They wanted to check out their dad's condition for themselves. One day we went to the Southwest Desert Museum...

This is a javelina - looks like a pig but is actually a peccary. We see them in Arizona in the wild as well as at the Southwest Desert museum.

...and the next we walked and ran in Sabino Canyon. Actually, Art and I took the tram to the top and walked halfway down, caught the tram back up to the top and rode it down. Mel and Laura ran to the top and back. They arrived back at the car well before we did.

Each of these daughters lived with us when they were going to school years ago. I have known them both for over 20 years. They are like my own. Such a fine time we had in the Arizona sun!

We have been participating in a Monday group called "Reimagining God". It's a spiritual exploration of sorts. Today we went to a progressive Methodist church we attended once last month. The guest speaker was an Islamic imam from Seattle, and we stayed for discussion afterward. We look for the spiritual similarities rather than the religious differences. I've been saying for a couple of years now that we are all in this together, and the explorations and events of this winter are confirming that.

I think about my friends in Seattle and elsewhere. I am in touch by email, phone and Facebook. I see my friends in Tucson often, since most of them are less than a five-minute walk from our little home. I feel surrounded by my band of angels.