On July 16, 2007, I began to publish my journal as a web log. Blogging was becoming very popular. I had been journaling off and on for years but had taken up the practice freshly during a sabbatical the year before. I reasoned that a daily writing regimen might help me become a better writer, and I have long held visions of becoming a writer. My original vision was to publish a photograph and a personal essay each day.  I did not know at the time that the essays would become a habit and then an obsession. Shortly after I began publishing my journal entries, I came upon the formula of a 1,000-word essay, recalling the quote that “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
 
After several years, I found that I wasn’t taking enough photographs to support the publication of a picture every day. Often, to find a picture that matched my topic of the day, I would have to use stock photos or photos by other photographers previously published. Eventually, I dropped the practice of placing a photograph every day. I still publish photos from time to time, but most days I simply write the essay.
 
Since that first entry, I have not missed a single day of writing an essay. You can access all those essays from this web site if you are persistent. Here is a link to the first year’s essays. This link will connect you to my journal archives. Like I say, the habit has become an obsession.
 
There have been times when I was unable to publish. I continued to write every day, but when I don’t have access to the Internet, I may have to wait to publish to the Internet. However, I have written an essay every day since 2007. That’s nearly 16 years of essays. It is a lot of words! I don’t know if my writing skills have increased, but my production has been substantial.
 
However, it is possible that I may miss writing tomorrow. It won’t be a permanent suspension, just a day off. At 4:30 local time this morning, I leave for the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle where I will undergo an outpatient procedure. According to the doctors the procedure is routine, and I should be home in time for dinner. It is, however, an entirely new experience for me and I have a bit of anxiety. So, I have decided to give myself the luxury of taking a day off tomorrow if I feel like I don’t have enough energy.
 
What is going on isn’t a secret, but I am not much at being the center of attention or of complaining about my health in my journal. I have been blessed with wonderful health. And my anxiety has less to do with myself and the procedure than with some memories of experiences we had in 2019 when my wife faced serious heart issues.
 
The story is simple. Two weeks ago, while at a school function with our granddaughters, my smartwatch alarmed that my pulse rate was very high. I checked repeatedly throughout the evening, and it was very irregular. I called the after-hours number of our family practice clinic when I got home, and it turned out that my doctor was on call that evening. She arranged for me to come to the office the next day for an EKG and a cardiac consultation. The diagnosis was atrial flutter. It is a condition like, but not the same as the atrial fibrillation that sent Susan to the hospital for an extended stay in 2019. Two days later, I was in the exam room with an electrophysiologist who recommended a “routine” ablation. The procedure is to thread a catheter with a camera and an electronic probe through an artery into the upper chamber of the heart. A brief electrical signal is aimed at a few nerve endings to stop the heart from receiving excess messages about beating. Normal rhythm is thus restored, and the patient goes on with a normal life without the need for additional medications.
 
It may be routine for the doctor, but it isn’t routine for me.
 
However, I am being treated in our region’s most advanced cardiac care center with some of the best trained and best supported physicians and surgeons in the country. And I get to sleep through the whole procedure. The day will be more challenging for my wife and children, who have to wait while the procedure is taking place. I know. I waited while she had a more complex ablation procedure a short while ago.

I have a couple of observations about the day that is about to unfold. I am awed and amazed at the technology that has been developed in recent years to enable such a procedure. Fiber optics, micro cameras and tiny instruments that allow the doctor to “see” inside of an artery and perform microsurgery inside of a beating human heart simply did not exist a short while ago. The ability of doctors to perform lifesaving and life-enhancing procedures is truly amazing.

In addition, I am aware that such a procedure is a luxury of a very small segment of the human population who have access to incredible health insurance. The amount of resources that will be invested in this single procedure exceeds our ability to pay by a significant amount. In our society, senior citizens are the biggest spenders on health care. I am grateful for the decades when our church employers paid health insurance premiums that far exceeded our consumption of health care. I am grateful for medicare and the power of the federal government to pay for expensive healthcare costs. But I also don’t want to have the fact that I receive care to mean that others are denied the care they need, and I know that in our society there are others who cannot obtain basic health care services.

I know I am aging. I don’t expect to get out of this life without a few challenges and bumps in the road. I know that there could well be sickness and pain in my future. I don’t ask for an exemption. But today is not that day. It is a day to receive the care that is offered and be grateful to live in this time of such advanced care.

I have no intention of quitting writing at this point.