I'm writing this to about everyone so I don't have to write it but once.

As many of you know, I am going to have to have open heart surgery to get a valve job and a general "tune-up". It seems that every time that the cat at Methodist Hospital gets hungry, they call me and want a body part to feed it. It's already had a kidney that they removed, part of my foot, my gall bladder, my parathyroid glands, and probably some things that I failed to mention, and now it's hungry for heart valves. I hope that dude DIES soon, so he'll leave me alone!

I had my heart cath today, and it showed that I will have to have 2 by-passes and 1 new heart valve. One artery is 90% blocked and the other is about 60% blocked. There is a third one with some blockage, but the Dr. said that it was so tiny that it was "inconsequential". I guess that means that I don't need it anyway. The valve that they are going to put in will be the metal type, and they said if I was real quiet, that I could hear it click. The good side of that is, if I wake up some morning, and get real quiet, and don't hear anything... I don't have to get up!

As of this minute, the surgery is scheduled for Tuesday morning at 7:30am, and is scheduled to last between 4 and 6 hours, according to what they run into once inside. I have a slight cough right now, so there is the possibility that they could put it off, but I hope they go ahead with it while I still have my nerve. This is not the kind of thing that I look forward to, but I should feel much better in a few week or months.

Tuesday morning, if anyone of you are so inclined, I'd sure appreciate a little prayer for myself and the Dr. I could sure use the prayers, and I'll bet you could use th' practice.

Well, I guess that about covers it, so after Monday, I'll be "off line" for a little while.

Later,