The scary thought of heart failure

I’m tired of fat feet and fingers.

Tired of light-headedness. Tired of dozing off at unsuitable times. The shock diagnosis from my surgeon sorted out the latter – in fact, it has changed me into an insomniac.

I have heart failure. Never saw that coming. The reason for the affliction is simple. The aorta valve was recently replaced by blocking the then leak with a pig’s valve.

The porker has since moved aside a wee bit, leaving a tiny gap through which the blood now escapes, causing the heart to slow down and therefore unable to do a proper job.

An acquaintance who’s a member of a religious group believing pigs are unclean and can neither be eaten nor trusted, says she won’t be surprised the pig was out to avenge the death of the porker whose valve was removed.

“They might be dirty, but they evidently have some soul”.

Pigs associated with religion? St Peter partial to pork? Maybe she has a point about the “aorta pig” being fed up with me and the surgeon, but the simple reason might be that I just love pork belly – and spend some time chewing through the mouthwatering crackling.

Whether or not it’s good on the teeth is another question. But nevertheless something to die for.

Oops, inappropriate expression under present circumstances.

Perhaps somehow the aorta pig’s “soul” recognised parts of his family floating past him and showed his objection by purposely orchestrating the gap, albeit ever so tiny, but enough to result in water retention.

Normally a “water pill” does the trick by forcing the water to flow out like the Dusi in flood, taking pressure off the heart’s pumping action.

But for some inexplicable reason, the diuretic action wasn’t enough to clear the deck.

So I’m booked to spend some days in the clinic to rid the system of the flooding and to put Porky in his place.

Until the entire exercise is successfully completed, I’ll lay off chowing pork for a spell to respect the wishes of the part that’s there to prevent further damage to the heart and make sure future diagnoses don’t include heart failure.

The two words sound too much like the start of the inevitable “end game”, particularly at my age.

The thought is scary.