Thankful, appreciative and back behind the keyboard

I walked into Hartford Hospital at 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 23 and within 90 minutes they were carving me like a Thanksgiving turkey. A nation can debate all day and night until the 2020 presidential election over medical insurance, but there is no denying the wonders of medical science.

A slice of artery was taken out of my right wrist, put inside my chest, and I got to live. Simple and amazing as that.

How a cardiothoracic surgeon like Dr. Daniel Fusco can use a saw to crack through a breastbone at one point and intricately connect a bypass graft at another point blows my mind. He’s a carpenter on a construction site one minute. He’s Michelangelo the next. And he’s a UConn grad. Amazing.

A month later, I can barely tell that I had a double bypass. The nineinch scar is neat, tidy, perfect. The only lingering effect is numbness in the back of my right hand, my thumb and my pinky finger. Most of it is from the artery removal, some from the ulnar nerve after having my rib cage opened and stretched like taffy, all of which should clear up within a few months. So as we head into the brave new world of Hearst Connecticut Media’s digital subscription model consider any stray ; . o j L k m ? in the coming days as my keyboard gift to you loyal readers.

I nearly died at age 49 in July 2005, collapsed on the kitchen floor with a heart attack, screaming to my wife that I loved her and that I was sorry for all the times I was an idiot. Well, they rescued me, put me in a Life Star for the only helicopter ride of my life and after a quadruple bypass at UMass Memorial Medical Center, I had a second chance at my only life.

When I returned to work as the Hartford Courant sports columnist after six weeks, I wrote how I had spent so much time telling others how to walk in their shoes that I failed to see I couldn’t run a mile in my own. I had ignored the fact my grandfather died of a heart attack in his car at 57, my father had suffered a massive coronary at 47, that I had played too hard earlier in my life, worked too hard later on and loved sports writing so much that I had put it ahead of matters that should have mattered more. I opened my heart and people were extremely kind.

Except one unhappy reader, who emailed that his only regret was that I ever got up from the kitchen floor and returned to my job. Wow. A little harsh. I thanked him for motivating me to keep riding the stationary bike for the next 15 years.

If only it was more than a pithy reply.

Oh, I exercised for a year. And after vowing to walk from the State Capitol to Gampel Pavilion after Kevin Ollie’s absurd prediction

UConn would win the 2014 national championship turned out to be not absurd at all, I got back into shape for the 26mile trek. The truth, however, was after trying to live like a monk for several months after my initial heart attack, munching on lettuce and berries, I lapsed. Badly. Did the old 180degree grease slide. If a snapshot of my life could be taken, it would be me stuffing cheeseburgers down my throat while driving home after covering a night game.

Sports writing isn’t the most difficult job in the world. It is one of the most uneven. Travel, hours that vary wildly every day, deadline caffeine bursts followed by hours of winding down, the job I still love after 42 years does not lend easily toward a balanced lifestyle.

I look at talented colleagues.

Bo Kolinsky of the Hartford Courant. Dead at 49 in 2003.

Alan Greenberg of the Hartford Courant. Dead at 55 in 2007.

Randy Smith of the Manchester Journal Inquirer. Dead at 61 in 2008.

Dave Solomon, the voice of our New Haven Register. Dead at 59 in 2011.

All gone in a heartbeat, with no warning.

I have no answer why they are gone and at 64 I am here. I have no answer why others suffer from cancer for years and they take a vein out of my knee

in 2005 or an artery out of my wrist in 2019 and I’m already walking three miles and have lost 10 pounds and feel great within a month. No angina. All I know is, after eight cardio catherizations, an equal number of stents, a couple more minor heart attacks, Brachytherapy and two openheart surgeries, I’m here, thankful I am, and guilty my buddies aren’t. All know is I keep a Dave Solomon bobblehead, courtesy of a New Haven Ravens promotion, on my dresser to remind me daily of how capricious and precious life is. All I know is, a lazy Catholic has established a prayerful relationship with St. Maximilian Kolbe. All I know is this time, given medical clearance to ease back into the profession I love too much, I’ll try moderation instead of all or nothing. Except for watching my son play DIII college hoops, I’ll still be crazy at those games.

The worst part of a bypass is waking up after four hours surgery to find a ventilator tube down your throat and your hands tied down. There is a halfdozen tubes running out of every part of your anatomy and none of them can be ripped out in a panic. My son and his friends enjoy making fun of me after I get angry and unleash a curse that is short, clipped and sounds like “Sit!” Well, when they pulled that tube out of my throat, I was still drugged up and gave a long, slowmotion “Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!” It hurt. You’re a mess for a week after surgery, emotional, full of anxiety, night

mares and, worst, a nagging, irritation cough from that tube. Every cough, every laugh, every sneeze means you have to squeeze this pillow they give you against your chest to minimize the shooting pain. Other than that, it’s a hoot.

Although Hartford Hospital gives you a thick, comprehensive guide to cardiac surgery and recovery, nowhere does it warn you to refrain from watching 16 consecutive hours of “Mindhunter” on Netflix two days after returning home. That’s right. All two seasons of the truelife, crime series focusing on the FBI initiative to get inside the minds of serial killers. Yes, the show is that enthralling. At one point, my wife wanted to take the remote away, but I wouldn’t surrender it. “They’re interviewing Richard Speck next!” I overdid it, had my only setback and spent the next day in bed.

My wife Liz is a rock. Battled depression and put up with me for more than 30 years. After I spotted a few strange dots on my Tylenol a week in, I teased her that she was trying to poison me. While she denied this vociferously, she took another tact. She insisted we watch the new Bill Burr special on Netflix together. Sure enough, three times — yes, three times — she had to put it on pause as I coughed and hacked uncontrollably from laughing so hard that I could barely breathe.

“Oh,” Liz said innocently. “I forgot that might happen.”

Still watched the show to the end, pillow pulled tight to my chest.

Bill Burr and my wife. Love ‘em.

There is only one fourletter word in the English language too profane to pass through my lips. That’s right. SALT. Got to watch my sugar, too. I have turned in my three bowls of Cocoa Krispies daily for one bowl of Kashi. The sacrifices can be mighty, but a small price to pay for the joy of telling redemption stories, stories of great challenges and resilience, stories that make sports so great. Nothing excites me more than a good debate. Nothing rankles me more than people who deny sports is a microcosm of society. Narrow minds, narrower than the ones that clogged my blood vessels, insist sports columnists stick to matters between the lines. I color outside the lines.

Still, after nearly a month of rest, recovery and loving companionship of my two Labs, my proverbial needle had gotten a little rusty.

“Hey, honey,” I said. “I was thinking ….”

My wife always takes those three words as a provocative prelude.

“Bypass surgery has to be way more painful than having a baby. Don’t you think?”

The veteran of birthing two children without drugs stared me down.

Yeah, it’s time for me to get back to work.