Not Every Texas Hospital is Dallas Presbyterian...

So, as I've mentioned in a few places before, I've had myself a little medical adventure.

But to tell the truth, I thought I was on top of it, watching my caffeine, exercising, keeping half an eye on what I eat.  I kept seeing my doctor and my cardiologist, even got an audio echocardiogram (like a sonogram for your heart, they watch it while it's working, very cool).

But somewhere between the audio echocardiogram and two Fridays ago, something changed.

I had been having respiratory problems for a few weeks, that I ascribed to the changing seasons (Spring cedar blooming in TX kicked my ass).  But it didn't get better, to the point where I couldn't sleep at night because I couldn't lay or sit down and breathe.  Deborah finally dragged me down to our doctor, the one who had recommended our cardiologist.  He ran an EKG and promptly pulled out his telephone.

"You could probably get there alright if Deborah drove you," he said, "but I'd feel better if there were a couple of medical professionals with you..." So I wound up in an ambulance headed for Methodist Texsan (sic) Hospital in San Antonio.

Turns out that my "irregular heartbeat" was a massive dose of PVC's (premature ventricular contractions) in my lower heart chambers which were majorly interfering with the passage of  blood from the upper chambers, and my heart was working at between 15 and 20% efficiency.  Along the way it had expanded from "slightly enlarged" in CA to two and a half times its normal size and my "allergies" were in fact pulmonary edema.

So I'm flat on my back for a week with an oxygen feed up my nose while some very capable people did a hell of a job on my decaying carcass.

Their first procedure was to run a camera up the femoral artery from my groin straight into my heart, where they isolated the specific points in my two lower chambers that were sparking the worst of the PVC's.  It's a weird feeling laying there watching the monitors (I was under sedation but wakefulness under sedation runs in my family) as these wires wiggle around inside your beating heart.  They identified the specific points they were looking for, and a few days later (symmetry is everything), they went back in on the other side of the groin and up the other femoral artery.

And I lay there and watched them methodically burn out little bits of my heart that were producing the worst of the PVC's.  And I'm sorry, but sedation or no sedation I could feel some of them, as in "OK.  Ow. Ow. Ow."  Finally they were done and pulled back out.

The procedure was a success, insofar as the number of PVC's was drastically reduced.  I spent another week in the hospital while we watched to see if they had stabilized and getting fitted with a Zoll Life Vest, an external defibrillator/monitor you wear.  If my heart gets too far out of line, it will give me one minute's warning and then tase my ass, resulting in a) my heart stabilizing at least long enough for emergency treatment and b) dropping me like a pole-axed steer.  I won't be driving for a while.

I wear the vest for three months while we evaluate the heart's progress, (there's a slight chance I might even regain some heart function) at the end of which, either it will have improved enough to control with medication, or we go to an implanted defribrillator and the full Cheney...

Needless to say, I am grateful beyond words to the staff of Methodist Texsan, and even further so to Deborah for dragging me to the doctor when she did.

The staff was absolutely outstanding, I cannot say enough about their skill and professionalism.  If I had had this experience at County USC in LA, I'm reasonably sure I'd be dead by now.

A NEEDED HELPING HAND FOR TEXAS DEMOCRATS!

While I was at the Medina County Fair down here in Texas this weekend, I happened to pass the Texas Democrats' campaign booth, where bitter looking older folk were lecturing puzzled adolescents.

They have apparently adopted the slogans of  Battleground Texas, the "grass roots" organizing movement that is campaigning for and funneling out of state money into campaigns like abortion diva Wendy Davis's, to save the womenfolk and children from being slung out of public school by their hair or something.  That slogan: "Turn Texas Blue."

Well, the simple eloquence of that just won me over, and it got me to thinking, how else could we help these plucky underdogs and babykillers with their noble quest.

So I came up with a few ideas;

Our devoted readers are invited to add suggesttions in the comments as to what other things the Texas Democrats might turn Texas into (the first person who says "a newt" gets sent to the border to watch for incoming Priuses and Subarus with "Coexist" bumper stickers).

Hey Cowboy, Stop Treating the Border Like a "Border State Thing..."*

"If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they have been brought there by no fault of their own, I don't think you have a heart." — Rick Perry


And if you think you were elected governor so you could feel good about yourself and better than us, I don't think you have a head, Governor.


Tuition support for indocumentados — illegal immigrants, Governor, you keep forgetting that first word, is a magnet, one of the things that draws them across the border to Texas (and now California, God help us, like they need more encouragement.) 


You may not know this — and I suspect that will become a recurring theme of this piece — but the young people of your state are already being badly served by your state university system.  Your state colleges are already passing over native students of all races with their in-state tuition discounts in favor of actively recruiting more profitable out of state students. Now you decide to add another favored class, financially subsidizing a privileged group that, let's face it, most liberal college leaderships will feel ideologically challenged to give preference to in any case.


College admission is a zero-sum game, Governor.  There are only so many seats. And anything you do that adds difficulty for the legally-resident kids of your state, regardless of race, creed or color, is simply wrong.  I understand you were handed a fait accompli by the Texas State Legislature, but that doesn't mean you have to like it, defend it or insult the people who disagree with you.


Illegal Immigration, Governor, in case you weren't aware of this, is a complication that metastizes across every other issue you claim to be addressing effectively.


Has your crack campaign staff told you that 40% — nearly half if you can't do that math with your custom Lucchese boots on — of the jobs you boast of Texas having created have gone to illegal immigrants?  Sure, those are the crappy, low-end jobs, most likely.  But do you know who that hurts?  The legally-resident children of Texas, Governor, black, white, brown and yellow.


Do you know what those crappy, low-end jobs are Governor?  They're the first jobs, the starter jobs, the jobs that introduce the kids of your state to working for a living,to dealing with bosses, coworkers and customers,  to taking home a paycheck, to spending and saving and making budgets and paying your salary.  They're crummy jobs, by and large, the kinds the kids take — used to take — on summer vacations, between semesters, over the holidays.  Delivering pizza, working the McD's counter, working for their uncle's gardening firm, low-end, low-pay, vitally important jobs at that stage of the kids' lives.


Only now when they go to apply for those jobs, they're being done by — guess who? — middle-aged indocumentados who ain't moving on, up or out to make room for a new generation of workers.  What does that tell the kids about how much Texas and you value their futures and well-being, governor?


You know who really hates this, Governor?  Hispanics.  You know why? Because it's their kids being affected the most.  Indocumentados don't really threaten my job; not too many folks scoot under the fence down in San Ysidro to annotate Restoration comedies.  But Hispanic parents hate illegals — and they do — because they see their kids' jobs being handed over to these intruders.  It's their kids' futures being cut short.  You could have an Hispanic kid whose family has been in Texas since Seguin and Los Tejanos fought at the Alamo, and he will not be able to get a job if an employer can get away with hiring an indocumentado who will work for less, under worse conditions and take more crap because he has to.


Healthcare?  Have you been to any city emergency room in Texas, governor?  The indocumentados place a huge load on emergency services for basic health care... health care that in too many cases they do not pay for.


Respect for law?  Tell me how sanctuary cities encourage respect for law.  Tell me how you condemning Arizona for trying to uphold the law encourages respect for the law.

Actually crime?  How many Houston PD officers were wounded or killed by indocumentados since 2006, Governor?  How many statewide?


And finally, Governor, stop treating the border like a "border state thing" because we're behind your border and the indocumentados move on to our states as well.  If they were just setting down and squatting in CA, AZ and TX, maybe you'd be justified in embracing your inner Huckabee and doing what feels good no matter how many cops it kills, but they don't and you're not.  Act like a national political figure or get out of the race.




*Props to Dave in Texas over at Ace of Spades for the inspiration...

Spotted in Austin, Texas...

Governor Sends Texas Rangers to the Border!

Federal Government Fails in Constitutionally-Mandated Fundamental Obligation

While the Obama Administration arrogantly fumbles with intruding the government into aspects of our lives for which it has NO Constitutional mandate whatsoever, the situation along the Mexican Border has decayed to the point where local law enforcement and the the understrength Border Patrol are simply overwhelmed.

While shelling out billions of dollars to destroy perfectly serviceable second-hand cars, the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress somehow cannot find the funding to deploy available National Guard troops to their own border.

As a result, Governor Perry is reverting the legendary Texas Rangers, currently an elite investigative body, to their historic role as a state paramilitary body and law enforcement for those hard lands where the law has failed. Predictably RINO Kaye Bailey Hutchison has condemned the move.

Obama photo op flyby over Houston goes horribly wrong...

HT: THEOSPARK (blogroll below)

Don't Mess with Texas!

The New Face of the Future?

HT: Theospark, in links below

Soon's he sees the wires coming, they will be...

Subject: Texans & Terrorists


Ya gotta luv them Texans

One thing about TEXANS is that their hearts are always in the right place!

T. B. Bechtel, a part-time City Councilman from Midland , TX , was asked on a local live radio talk show, just what he thought of the allegations of torture of the Iraqi prisoners. His reply prompted his ejection from the studio, but to thunderous applause from the audience.

'If hooking up an Iraqi prisoner's nuts to a car's battery cables will
save just one Texas GI's life, then I have just three things to say:

'Red is positive, Black is negative, and Make sure his nuts are wet.

ht: Deborah Leigh