Never a Stitch

For years I boasted, never a broken bone, never a stitch. Playing basketball, volleyball, working ten-hour days, with “youngsters” in to the fifties.

Sixty-one now. I felt funny, not ha-ha funny, weird funny. Doctor said, you’re fine. The RN checked me out. “You may have had a heart attack. Referred, tested, Cardiac catheterization, bad news, I need a triple bypass, ASAP. Just like my dad.

Long story, longer recovery.

When I wake in the ICU stitches behind my knee, ankle to collect a saphenous vein, stitches to close the incision in the chest. My first, with many more to come.