Land side...

Daughter Eldest and family (sans Son-in-Law who could not get out of work) were in St. Louis to reunite with Grandson Eldest after the months he spent helping us move First Light. That part of the clan headed out a few days ago to return to their boat in Florida. Though the live-a-board lifestyle comes with more than its share of goodbyes, this was one of the harder parting moments we have had. There is simply no telling when we will be together again. As their van disappeared around the corner I went "for a walk". You know, it's good for my heart.

We could not have moved the boat without Grandson Eldest's help. It must be admitted that any teen-aged grand son is likely to come complete with a few (slightly) irritating habits. And I am sure the same can be said for any mid 60 year old Grampy T. We jostled and joked our way up the ICW and to near the north end of the Chesapeake Bay. We practiced music together. Along the way he discovered Deb's guitar and picked up what is likely a lifetime habit of guitar playing. He also figured out how to dock and undock a twin-engined 42' trawler, did a good deal of boat work, and played a bit of poker, (for plastic chips only). It was the kind of trip the stories of which will likely to be passed along for a generation or two. The guitar habit had him looking for an instrument of his own to purchase before heading back to FL with his family. That had him and I checking out the local music stores. He found his guitar. In spite of his urging I didn't add anything to my Uke collection...but I did add a djembe drum to the electric drum kit, table-top electric kit, and pan drum collection. The table top, pan drum, and new djembe will go with us back to the boat. The electric drum kit stays in St. Louis.

It is likely to feel like a long winter. In addition to living with grand kids again and maybe working (if the shop will have me back) having a new kind of drumming to delve into will help keep me busy. Unlike the others, the djembe is played without sticks or mallets. 

Since the family's departure, we have worked on settling into land life again. It took me a few minutes to remember what buttons needed pushed in our car to get things set up. Unlike when we first came ashore after Kintala, this stint of living on a boat has came with quite a few road miles. So it wasn't much of a shock being back out on the highway. Which is not to say that St. Louis drivers are any less crazy than they were when we left. The house is far more insulated from the weather. It is pouring rain right now, but you wouldn't know that without looking out the window. I suspect the wind is gusting as well, but you can't tell that from this chair. The ice cream in the freezer isn't soft. We don't count how many times we flush the "head" and no one worries about running the water tanks dry. But there are no dolphins or pelicans, no spectacular sunsets or quiet anchorages either. 

With First Light safely on the hard for the winter and little interest in going to work on the boat with snow in the forecast, boat related projects will be curtailed to not much more than trying to figure out how to get the boat to St. Louis next year. Given how plans for this past summer worked out? Well, we will just take each day as it comes. 

And we will just take each day as it comes...

Yeah, I said that. Well, what came was another trip to the ER.

I woke up on day two in St. Louis feeling the same feeling I had felt just before the lights went out and I landed in the New Bern ER. Not nearly as intense this time. It was spooky but faded away in about two minutes. It seemed pretty weenie to make much of an issue out of a minor cold sweat and and being a bit light headed for two minutes while getting out of bed. So I didn't say anything to anyone. But then it happened sitting in a chair reading. Then it happened standing in the shower. And it happened again while working on a small project with Deb. Clearly something was amiss. Deb and I talked it over but in the end I suggested we just go to the ER. You know I was spooked when I'm the one suggesting a ride to the hospital.

We got to the ER in the early afternoon. By then the weirdness was showing up twice an hour, which went on throughout that day, all night, and well into the next day. There was much debate over what was going on, but whatever it was, it seemed to be getting worse. The last time around this thing came within a whisker of being fatal, so there was a good bit of tension being tossed into the mix. We spent the night in an observation unit under the watchful eye of some truly wonderful nurses. This morning a Cardiac Doc showed up, sat down, and talked through the whole history of this thing from the initial event on the boat in Oriental to her sitting with Deb and I in St. Lous. After a bit she got up, walked over to the white board now a part of many hospital rooms, and wrote, “Neuro-cardiogenic-syncope / Vasovagal syndrome”. "That", she said, "is what I think is going on". That's good. What does it mean? 

It means that my brain, for reasons unknown, is commanding a dramatic drop in blood pressure. The long version of the fix?  My pacemaker needed to have a trigger point added. The one I already had fired the thing up when my heart rate dropped below 60 BPM bringing it back to a 60 BPM minimum. The one I didn't have, but needed, would fire the thing up when my heart rate was dropping rapidly. It needed a trigger at 70 BPM during a rapid fall that would bring the rate up to 85 BPM for two minutes, thus offsetting the falling BP. The short version?

My cyborg implant needed an upgrade.

A “wand” to talk to the thing in my chest and a fancy looking iPad were produced. The good Doctor and the Head of her department worked out settings they thought best, waved the magic wand, and that was that. As fate would have it, it was about time for my next event. (You know things are not going well when you can look at a clock and predict a potential fatal heart problem.) They walked out to the nurse's station to watch the monitors. A few minutes later they walked back in and asked if I had felt anything. I had not. They smiled. The monitors had clearly shown a plummeting heart rate followed by the pace maker taking over to catch the falling B/P with additional beats. Several hours have passed and there has been no repeat of the weirdness. Later my nurse came in and started an IV of fluids. A tune up and an oil change. Problem solved.

The Doctors suggested I stay the night to be sure, something to which both Deb and I were more than glad to agree. I'm not sure how many close calls one gets in a single season, but I think I may have reached my limit.

Deb did some reading and found that “Neuro-cardiogenic-syncope / Vasovagal syndrome” can be triggered by exposure to excessive heat and dehydration. Looking back on the summer's activities? Yep, guilty. Having a pacemaker installed and then “recovering” by living and working on a boat with heat indexes of 110+ might not have been the best plan. Who would have thought? Deb also thinks that I had a sub-conscious hint of what was going on—the reason for my eagerness to get the boat parked and get back home to St. Louis ASAP. Maybe. After all, we landed in St. Louis and barely two days later I landed in the ER...again. Which would seem a pretty good chunk of luck if that is what it was. As difficult has this summer has been, there is no question we have escaped some ugly possibilities by some very thin margins. Sitting in this hospital bed, feeling pretty good after a very uncomfortable day, and heading back to a house full of grandkids soon? 

I don't mind sitting in this bed. Take each day as it comes.

House

I was reading an interesting article in Newsweek magazine about how owning a house, though the quintessential American dream, may not be such a good idea for many (if not most) of us. Houses are big, suck up energy, are empty much of the time and, even when we are home, a good part of them is still empty. They cost big bucks to finance, repair, and support, and chew up enough of a budget to easily make even a middle-class income family “house poor.” They can be hard to get out of once purchased. (A statement that falls squarely in the “No Shit Sherlock” department.) I don’t know what “most” of us should be doing. Most of the time I’m not sure what I should be doing. But I felt a resonance with the author’s view of home ownership. Don’t get me wrong; I really like our house in the Central West End. As soon as we finish up the hard wood floor installation I suspect I will like it even more. But I can’t say I prefer the CWE to the marina. I can’t say that I prefer the sounds of the city to the sounds of the lake. (Carp noises aside; which are even more annoying then the howling of neighbor dogs.) The fact that the boat has no yard or grass is a huge plus for me. From an energy standpoint a house has no chance against a boat, particularly a modern boat with wind generators, solar panels and very efficient engine driven generators driving equally efficient appliances. And, (a big thing for people like me) the boat can move. It isn’t rooted to a place. Any job within 20 miles or so of any ocean becomes a place I can move my home. Though my current bosses are first class people whom I enjoy working with and for, they are the exception to the rule in my life of aviation. How sweet would it be if no boss could have hooks deep enough into anyone that the anyone couldn’t just toss the job back on the desk and walk (or sail) away? How much better would we be as a society if most of us felt a little less “indentured." How much better would working people be treated everywhere if most really, really had the option of not going to this or that particular job every day? It isn't that we don't like to work. Most of us do like to work, we like to contribute, create, be involved, make a difference. The other half of the quintessential American dream is to be independent, self reliant, and beholding to no one. We want to make a difference, but we would like to do it on our terms, in our time, and it our way. It is one of the things I love about being in the airplane. Once the wheels are in the wells it matters not who is sitting behind me; it is my show. The calls I make are the only ones that matter. The decisions, the responsibilities and the consequences are mine to make, to carry and to suffer; at least until the tires brush Mother Earth once again. The fun of sailing, the enjoyment of learning a new thing or two, the smiles that come from seeing the world from a slightly different place and in a slightly different way, are big parts of being on the boat for me. But deeper maybe, more important though less noticeable, is the idea that when on the boat my life is mine to live as I choose. I pick the risks to be run and the ones to be avoided, the places to go and the places to pass by and maybe, with a little extra cash in my pocket that used to go to supporting a house, I have some other choices I don't have now. Like I said, I don’t really know. But if I make it to the boat tonight I think I will sit in the cockpit, sip on a Rum-N-Coke, and enjoy living on a boat for a few hours anyway.