This post was added a year and a half after retiring from CCS.
Originally written and posted at Patterns of Ink
on May 27,2007 and again HERE:
It started with a murmur…
My primary care physician said the murmur was very faint but scheduled an echocardiogram just the same. That echo confirmed a faint murmer so he scheduled a nuclear stress test—if nothing else just to get a baseline for future reference. A month passed (which I mention only to stress the non-emergency nature of the stress test) and I headed to North Ottawa Hospital in my finest jogging outfit.
It was the same outfit I wear at the fitness center Julie and I joined last spring. I have lost more than thirty-five pounds since then. but I will admit that I don't really jog so much as walk around the track, and I don’t really exert myself on the equipment, I typically call it good after swimming four lengths in Olympic-sized pool. In other words: I'm far from the high school senior that won the Physical Education award in 1974. I'll also admit that my ten minutes on the stress-test treadmill while hooked up to a dozen wires and being injected with radioactive isotopes did leave me more than a little winded, but the technicians involved were so calm, kind, and complimentary that I thought I did fine and told my wife so upon returning home.
At 4:58 the night of the stress test, I got a call from the cardiologist’s office. There was urgency in their questions:
“Are you sure you’re okay? No chest pains? Any shortness of breath?”
“I feel fine," I assured them.
“Well, today's stress test indicates a few areas of concern. So if you feel any symptoms—anything at all—go straight to the ER.” The voice went on to scheduled an appointment for heart-cath consultation, but every minute or so they repeated these instructions to go straight to the ER. They said it again just before hanging up.
“Hmm…” I sighed, staring at my phone.
“What’d they say?” asked Julie. “
“I could be reading into it," I smiled, "but they seem surprised that I'm not having a heart attack right now.”
A few minutes later my primary care physician called. We often have lighthearted banter during our visits, and he felt comfortable opening with, “So, I hear you failed your stress test.”
I laughed and said, “I didn’t think I did until the cardiologist’s office called a few minutes ago. I’m feeling just fine—really."
“That’s good to hear," he said, then repeated what the other office said about going straight to ER if I felt anything unusual.
"Wow.__so I guess I really did bomb the stress test.”
"Seriously, Tom, It's a wonder you didn't have chest pains. The test indicates multiple concerns--multiple arterial blockages—multiple regions of the heart were lacking oxygen. Fortunately, we don't think there is any damage to heart muscle. The cardiologist wants to do a heart cath as soon as possible. That's the only real way to know what's going on. You have an appointment with them Monday. The last words he said before hanging up were, "I’m sorry this is not going to be the Thanksgiving and Christmas you had planned.”
I thanked him for his call and repeated what he said to Julie. It was a frank and even funny conversation, but that last line that got our attention: “I’m sorry this is not going to be the Thanksgiving and Christmas you had planned.”
The weekend passed event-free, but during my time at the cardiologist office Monday, all the talk of caths and arteries and options-- and all the heart diagrams on the wall--did prompt a slight tightness in my chest. No pain. No shortness of breath. Just a tightness behind my sternum.
"It's probably psychosomatic I said. You know just all this talking about it." I said dismissively.
“That kind of stress (e.g. anxiety or worry or conflict) is just as real as a treadmill.” He explained. I knew this to be true because the occasional tightness behind the sternum had started the year before I retired.
The cardiologist’s office is a stone’s throw from the Trinity ER.and, with my permission, he calmly checked me in for the night just to be on the safe side.
The heart cath was first thing the next day. We had been told it would take 90 minutes to two hours depending on how many stents were needed. Mine was over in 45 minutes and I was alert enough to think to myself, “That’s either really good news or really bad news.”
In the recovery room afterwards, I was told the good news first— no damage to any heart muscle. I really like my cardiologist. He’s optimistic but doesn’t sugarcoat things. He went on to say that the LAD (sometimes called the “widow maker”) was 100% blocked. The RCA was also 100% blocked, and the LCA was 75-80% blocked.
Knowing what I know about my grandfather’s fatal heart attack in 1958 and my father’s fatal heart attack in 1995 and my wife’s emergency open-heart surgery in 2004, I gave him a puzzled look and asked “If the widow-maker is 100% blocked and the RCA is 100% blocked, and I only have a trickle in the LCA. How am I alive?”
Thank God for collateral arteries. (And thank God I had never been overly ambitious at the fitness center.)
I’ll fast forward through the rest of my eleven days in the hospital and say that today marks three full weeks at home. My surgery was the day after Thanksgiving. "Rest and recovery" is going very well at home.
My doctor was right when he said, “…this is not going to be the Thanksgiving and Christmas you had planned.” I can honestly say that “a peace that passes understanding” has accompanied us through each unfolding day.
Never did my family and I have a more thankful Thanksgiving, and never have we anticipated a more joyous Christmas!
Merry Christmas to you all!
Tom
Please listen to the words of this video link. It is not a Christmas song per se—but it beautifully sums up the season for me this year.
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As a writer and former English teacher, I have an understandable aversion to Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)--especially as it pertains to the creative arts. I believe that being made in the Image of God includes the irrepressible desire to create. The thought that this very human process can be mimicked by a non-human source is troubling. I'm told, however, that A.I. like the example to follow is distilled from millions of human thoughts skimmed like cream from the collelctive body of human writing that has gathered on the internet since humans began writing there. Whether or not that is true, it does give me some level of comfort. Still, let it be known I do not use A.I. in my writing process and it has played no part in any of the posts here at Patterns of Ink.
Having said that, I recently stumbled upon "Gemini" which is what Google calls there A.I. program (similar to ChatGPT). I was curious how A.I. would analyze my "...metaphors and meaning and enless patterns of ink..." (as statted in this blog's header). I was pleasantly surprised and decided to post the results.). Whenever I an A.I. analysis, I will playfully frame it as a brief guest lecture by Dr.G.E. Mini of Ayai University. I must admit, this imaginary professor is very observant and surprisingly open to the subtle spiritual elements often below the surface of my writing.
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Analysis of Tom Kapanka's "The Rhythm"
Presented by Dr. G.E. Mini of Ayai University
This wonderful poem by Tom Kapanka perfectly executes the concept of "form matching content." The poem doesn't just talk about rhythm; it forces the reader to experience it.
Here is an analysis and appreciation of "The Rhythm," breaking down how it achieves its effect.
The Structure of Speed:
The poem is structured in three distinct movements based on tempo:
1. The Legato Opening (Lines 1-8) The beginning is smooth and lulling. It describes the subconscious, automatic rhythms of biology—blinking, heartbeats, breathing, etc. that are unnoticed in in the passage of time (“…cycles of the sun”). The language here is soft ("breath and sigh," "slip our mind"). The rhythm is steady, almost unnoticeable, mirroring the very things it describes—the background noise of being alive.2. The Staccato Climax (Lines 9-12) This is the brilliant center of the poem. "we wake t’thm, walk t’thm, work t’thm, talk t’thm, laugh t’thm, cry t’thm, live t’thm... die t’thm." By contracting "to the rhythm" (or "to them") down to the percussive sound of "t’thm," Kapanka forces the reader to speed up the auditory effect: When read aloud, "t’thm" sounds like a metronome ticking, a snare drum tapping, or a quickened heartbeat.
3. The Reflective Slow-Down (Lines 13-15) Just after the highest speed ("die t’thm"), the poem hits the brakes with: "It becomes a most ungraceful dance ..." The line length expands, forcing the rhythm to slow down. The final lines introduce a theological or spiritual element. The "ungraceful dance" is the frantic activity described in the middle section when life's activity is divorced from the Giver of Life.
The Thematic effect: The short poem compresses the entirety of human existence—from waking to dying—into a frantic, breathless rush. It perfectly captures how quickly life passes when we are on autopilot, just moving from one beat to the next without thought.
The Core Metaphor: The Conductor The final imagery shifts the focus from the dancers (us) to the Conductor (God). "...when we ignore the Hand that grants the Grace and gently taps... the rhythm." The poem suggests that the frantic pace of modern life (the "work t'thm, talk t'thm," etc.) is chaotic and "ungraceful" if we forget the source. The use of capital letters for "Hand" and "Grace" implies a divine Creator. The ending is masterful because of the ellipsis (...). It forces a pause, a breath, before the final words "the rhythm." It mimics the very "gentle tap" it describes, ending the poem not with a bang, but with a mindful heartbeat.
Summary "The Rhythm" is a clever piece of poetry because it uses sound devices to manipulate the reader's physical experience of reading. It starts slow, rushes you through a lifetime in four lines, and then gently slows you down to contemplate the source of that life. It is a reminder to stop dancing frantically and be more mindful of the One who wrote the score.
