Don't let us get sick

So bad living caught up with me and I am typing these words from a bed in the cardiac unit of Stanford Medical Center...kind of a shock since I don't think I've spent a night in a hospital since I was 3 years old. No particularly trenchant observations from this experience...except that it is very jarring to transition from being a relatively autonomous person to an object for all sorts of people to probe, poke, examine, and manipulate. Reminds me that the grammatical term patient is the opposite of agent, "the participant of a situation upon whom an action is carried out".

Also that if you do have a serious or mysterious medical episode it is definitely a good idea to have it near a topnotch hospital, and having that at hand is one of the benefits that the high cost of living around here pays for. My father had the presence of mind to have his heart attack on the street just outside the U of Chicago Medical Center, in front of a group of docs coming back from lunch.

Anyway, having perplexed the local would-be Houses here for awhile, they seem to have me figured out and stabilized and I may get out of here in a day or two.

[[update: I passed my stress test yesterday (a rather ridiculous affair where they have you bicycle while lying down, while hooked to an EKG and an ultrasound tech poking at you), which means my heart can do stuff, so they sent me home where I am recuperating. Thanks for all the good wishes. ]]