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“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”

—Woody Allen

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In trying to clean up a bit after what’s been an interesting, to say the least, month, I found the guide for the cruise Mary Lee and I had booked for this summer. Turns out I wound up with a different itinerary.

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Thursday, July 18, 2019: Transfer from Oslo, Norway Airport to Hotel Bristol, Oslo. Oslo is … a medieval and Renaissance gem….

Thursday, July 18, 2019: Drive into Portland as the moon sets over Maine Medical Center. Check in, get a body shave, talk with my anesthesiologist, and then lose consciousness until I feel my esophagus being ripped out. Mary Lee, who’s been waiting for me to come to, tells me the breathing tube has just been removed.

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Friday, July 19 & Saturday, July 20: See gargantuan snowcapped mountains, magnificent fjords, and one of Europe’s largest glaciers, as you travel to picturesque Bergen, an ancient city with deep Viking roots.

Friday, July 19:  ICU, Maine’s gargantuan Medical Center. Awake and panicky. Having trouble breathing. To prevent pneumonia, my nurse gets me up at 3:00 a.m. to sit in a chair until 5:30, when I go back to bed. Visit from P. from my 12-step program who works here. After someone tears drainage tubes out of my gut, I move from ICU to picturesque Room 104. Find the classical channel on TV and leave it on all night.

Saturday, July 20: Never could sleep on my back, just some drug induced Never-Never Land. Wake around 3:00 with a medicinal smell in my nose and a clattering of trumpets from the TV that sounds like a party of drunken horses. Spend the day getting to know my nurse as she escorts me between bed, chair, and bathroom. Decide to write a country & western song, “Lasix and Me.” Apparently, I’ve added ten pounds of fluid in my legs. Using a walker, I head down the hall with the nurse beside me and Mary Lee behind me with a wheelchair, which is good because I have to sit down after about 60 feet. Get my own incentive spirometer. Can barely bring it to 500 mg.

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Sunday, July 21: Bergan, Norway. Enjoy a relaxing tour by deluxe motor coach as you tour the main sites… Hear interesting stories about Bergen’s colorful past…

Sunday, July 21: Nice visit from my colorful rector, who’s supposed to be on vacation, and B. from Men’s Group, who’s full of interesting stories. Walk without a walker further down the hall and back, but still have to rest in the wheelchair half-way through. Spirometer up to 750 mg. Down two pounds of fluid.

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Monday, July 22: Cruise to Geirangerfjor … Seven Sisters Waterfall…the Suitor waterfall…Eagles Bend towers…

Monday, July 22: Cruise down the hall to 111A, where I now share a room with J. When he orders a lobster roll and French fries for lunch, I almost throw up. Since Thursday, I’ve choked down a bowl of cereal, a fruit cup, and a container of yogurt. No waterfalls, but I do have my first shower. Make it around the nurses’ station without walker or wheelchair, and get the spirometer up to 1000 mg. Nice visits from friends and clergy. My nurse tells me I should go home tomorrow.

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Tuesday, July 23: At Sea: Relax, Renew, Recharge at The Spa. … peruse our Library…

Tuesday, July 23: Maine Med. & Home. Still not sleeping, so I’m awake when they come to give me a chest x-ray at 5:15 a.m. Get word I have a “slightly collapsed” left lung, so go for another x-ray at noon, then wait 20 minutes in what feels like a refrigerated meat locker for transport back to my room. Take another shower to warm up. Finally get word that the second x-ray shows no change and that my surgeon isn’t worried. I can go home. Which means another two hours of paperwork plus getting rid of all the rest of the IV portals and wires. See myself. I look like a zippered pincushion.

Home! Feel as if I’ve gone 15 rounds with a black rhino.

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Wednesday, July 24: Travel among the majestic mountains and fishing villages of the beautiful Lofoten Islands…

Wednesday, July 24: Two hours with R. from home health care. Two concerns: my back, which looks like I might be developing sores that can lead to infection, and my lungs, neither of which seems to be operating at anywhere near capacity. Try to do three ten-minute walks around majestic Willow Grove.

On a nice note (pun intended), receive more personal mail today than I’ve had in the last six years.

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Thursday, July 25: Tromso, Norway. Meet your local guide and drive through the city known as the “Gateway to the Arctic”…

Thursday, July 25: Don’t quite make a mile around Willow Grove, but following the advice of Dr. R.’s nurse to put a pillow under my arm, am able to sleep on my side and as a result, get the best night’s sleep I’ve had in over a week. Feeling more improvement. After watching me climb stairs, get in and out of bed and get up and down from the toilet, PT person from home health services says I don’t need her.

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Friday, July 26: Honningsvag, Norway. Take in …one of Europe’s most stunning natural sights…. The cliffs of Nordkapp rise more than 1,000 feet from the sea waters and are topped by a large, flat plateau…

Friday, July 26: So much for stunning self-confidence: Today’s nurse, J., is concerned about possible infection in the incisions made in my legs to get the vein for part of the by-pass, so I’m blaming myself for not paying more attention to these incisions and for wearing the same pair of pants for three days. Now, these incisions seem to burn, and my face feels hot. Convinced I have a fever.

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 Saturday, July 27 & Sunday, July 28: At sea. Designed in the spirit of the boutiques along the world’s finest boulevards, we are proud to feature our onboard shops…clothing and handicrafts … jewelry and …cosmetics and skincare products.

Saturday, July 27: a night of catastrophizing. When I went to bed, my feet felt hot and tingly, and within fifteen minutes I’d developed kidney failure, started dialysis, and died. Tried Thich Nhat Hahn breathing exercises, prayers, psalms, replaying the 1961 Class L State Basketball championship game. This morning after two phone calls, one to home health, one to the surgeon’s office, I’m told my options are to ride it out or go to the emergency room. Decide to ride it out. Walk up to the community garden (Mary Lee gives me a ride back.) Something cheerful about gardens.

Sunday, July 28: Best night’s sleep so far. Increase my walking to 15 minutes each time. Feet feel fine, but because I have to have something to fret about, I’m concerned about my faster heart rate.

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Monday, July 29: Shetland Islands… Farmland and dreamy meadows unfold toward seal-dotted beaches. Columnar sea stacks and rocky cliffs… Medieval castles… Shetland ponies…

Monday, July 29: I’ve had three major operations and The Lord of the Rings has pulled me through each time. More aware this reading of the beauty of the language and the underlying sadness that runs through the entire trilogy. Even if the Ring-Bearer is successful against Evil, the world the characters know will fade away. Realize that despite priding myself on my ability to keep growing, keep changing, my life as I know it is slipping away—culturally, politically, physically—and today I want to cry.

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Tuesday, July 30: Orkney Islands.  …embark on a scenic drive to the Ring of Brodgar, the finest known circular stone ring from the early Bronze Age…follow the coastline of Scapa Flow…

Tuesday, July 30: My sister brings over lobster rolls for lunch, as well as the obituary for my great-grandfather Bennett.

Ever since I got the diagnosis of a blocked artery, I’ve been asking: why me? My cholesterol levels have been low, as has blood pressure, and heart rate. I’ve always been a walker and watch my weight and what I eat. Turns out, you can’t fight your DNA. Grampy Bennett’s obit reads like an autopsy: “at 6:00 p.m. last Saturday night, Clifford Bennett, age 63, died suddenly in his kitchen of acute indigestion. He’d been in good health prior.” Googling “acute indigestion,” I find that up until the 1920’s that was the term for what we now know were heart attacks, often brought on by the same blocked main artery that I had.

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Wednesday, July 31. Edinburgh, United Kingdom. See highlights of Scotland’s capital city…from gracious architecture to a storied castle…

Wednesday, July 31. Our gracious friends J & D bring over supper for tonight: a shrimp and rice casserole with coleslaw. J’s had a stroke, a by-pass, and a valve replacement, and has just taken up rollerblading again.  While I’m inspired enough to try walking without either my hiking poles or a walking stick, I’m not about to get on any damned roller skates, thank you very much.

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Thursday, August 1: At Sea. We invite you to browse our selections of cutting-edge activewear at our onboard shop.

Thursday, August 1: Nice evening walk to water the garden, but then noticed before going to bed that my left ankle was swollen again. Spent the night browsing my Catalogue of Really Ugly, Horrible, Awful Things that Might Happen. Finally took Tylenol and slept until almost 8:00 a.m. Called my twelve-step sponsor and feel better.

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Friday, August 2 & Saturday, August 3: London. Discover Greenwich’s maritime and royal history by foot… Shakespeare’s Globe Theater… West End musicals…Tower Bridge… the London Eye. Return home.

Friday, August 2: Mary Lee is off with one of the grandchildren, so I get up, meditate, go for a walk, fix and eat breakfast by myself—a first! Home health nurse says I’m doing well. Still some “crackling” in my lung and some swelling in my ankle, but I’m walking faster and standing straighter. Can keep the spirometer’s button in the smiley face area for over 5 seconds each time.

Saturday, August 3: the day we should have been flying home, ending our original cruise. For this cruise through heart surgery, I’ve still got at least another month. I don’t know what I’d have learned from those majestic mountains and castles and villages, but I have definitely learned at least two things on this trip I’m on now. First, I’m not in control. Three months ago, I had no idea I had anything wrong with my heart. Now, I don’t seem to have any command over how I’m doing each day, either physically or emotionally; all I can do is surrender my life to the God-of-my-not-Understanding.

Second, I live primarily through Grace, in this case, the compassionate professionalism of my doctors and nurses, the cards and visits and emails from friends, and the unwavering love and support of my family, especially Mary Lee.

Not to mention the Grace to have accepted my surgeon’s advice and not put all this off until next week.

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