Mom

Yesterday was an interesting day, in that "May you live in interesting times" sort of way. Normally i probably would have done a blog entry on the Floyd Landis situation. Last night i also had dinner with my martial arts instructor and our Sifu in celebration of my brown sash.

But the major event of the day was that my mom had emergency heart bypass surgery. It seems at this point that she's going to be OK, but she had to have at least a triple bypass so she's in for a long recovery. At 68 i realize that she isn't an unusual candidate for such surgery, but it's still hard for me to imagine. I don't really think of my parents as old even though they're retired and approaching 70. They don't have old-people habits and demeanor quite yet.

My mom is almost the same age as her father was when he died (of a stroke). Her mother is still alive and kicking in her mid 90s though. I always figured mom for the type who, like my grandmother, would live way beyond the normal life span just because she gets a lot out of life. I suppose it doesn't really work that way though. I don't really know at this point what the consequences of major heart surgery are. Obviously, she's not going to be running marathons and scaling mountains any time soon, but i don't really know how recoverable this kind of heart damage is.