Well, not so much a hiccup, actually, more a small heart attack.
Happened a week last Saturday Night (probably the fourth of a short series),
Operation on Thursday put in two stents.
Now home and recuperating, but obviously, not overly active, for a while.
Honest, it had nothing to do with the paper…
This will probably give me a bit of time to trawl around the blogosphere and irritate a few folks. 🙂
Apologies to all those who were expecting to hear from me. Now you know why.
Some interesting may conceivably follow in the days to come.
It’s not even as if I’m actually really that old, you know….
Old man in a cave 
13 comments
Comments feed for this article
March 23, 2008 at 2:12 pm
dennis
Fergus, I’m very sorry to hear that happened to you. I hope you stick around here for a long time. Your wit and insight would be surely missed if you depart this moral coil.
March 23, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Timothy Chase
Oh — that’s fun. I had a heart attack at age 33 and two stints put in as well — about eight years ago. About five months earlier I had a two week episode of bipolar rapid cycling every twenthy-four hours. quizat haderach in the morning, ready to climb into a crack in the floor by 11 AM, down the rest of the day, sleep for three hours, then right back on top of the world by the time I woke up. Clockwork.
Reminded of bipolar except as far as I knew it didn’t run in the family. In Iowa, families tend not to discuss that sort of thing, or much of anything else I figure. The television is front-and-center at dinners. So I figured I was going nuts.
Then less than a year later, September 11th. That was some year! But at least by that time I had a new obsession (a job) and I rarely thought about the heart attack anymore. Just not pushing cars or carrying around any furniture. And I let the movers handle my wife’s boxes of books.
Best wishes…
March 23, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Timothy Chase
Incidentally, I went through a little depression for a bit on account of the heart attack. That is probably normal. Feeling broken. Feeling like I couldn’t do things, or had to take things easy.
And it was kind of traumatic having to put my life in the hands of someone else, then the hospital stay — having to stay in bed, go without smokes. Oh — and I sprung a leak where they had gone in and got clamped to the bed overnight. But it gave me a reason to get back in touch with my family. I probably should give them a call today. (Actually, my mom has had a heart attack since then, and so has a younger brother at age 28.)
But things got better, more or less. Heart-related problems don’t seem like an issue, except perhaps in figurative terms. Took a few months before I tended not to think about it as much, though. Obsessions help.
March 24, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Aaron Lewis
Old is a state of mind.
(Old Guys learn from the mistakes of others i.e.,
“Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.”)
March 25, 2008 at 9:09 pm
furmatte
Sorry to hear about your “hiccup” – I hope you feel better soon. Take it easy, put your feet up and have a nice glass of red wine (if you’re allowed!). 🙂
Peace.
The artist formerly known as Captain Bobski
March 25, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Yves
Hi Fergus,
It’s not the first time I visit your blog, and I appreciate your thoughtful reflections. I’m sorry to learn about such an event, however it makes appreciate the value of life. Courage, take a good rest, and have a good distance from the current agitation. I long for your complete healing, and for hearing from you again. Patience, and have a good time.
And, as an old man in a cave, be inspired by the cosmic neutrinos crossing so quietly your body, your house, even the whole Earth. I tried to track some of them years ago (end 80s) using a 1000 tons detector inside a cave in the middle of a tunnel under the Alps at the Franco-Italian border. Now they are tracked using cubic kilometers of water in liquid state (Antares, Mediterranean Sea) and in solid state (Amanda, Antarctica). The next generation of those experiments (Km3Net as a project, Icecube already assembling) is expected to make the first positive discoveries of cosmic neutrino sources besides the 1987 supernova explosion. They are awaited between 2010 and 2015, not less than 25 years after their first TeV gamma ray counterparts (Crab pulsar,…). I long for that, and it shows the value of time in science, counting in generations, as for the founding works of Keeling et coll. leading to our present understanding of Earth climate.
Have a good convalescence, and best wishes.
Yves (Avignon, France)
March 26, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Peter Hearnden
Ahh, that explains it… Good to hear you’re on the mend.
March 27, 2008 at 3:11 am
John Mashey
From firsthand, bad heart attack (1995) experience, and having had a quad bypass (1998) which unfortunately required cancellation of a planned talk in Manchester for the 50th anniversary of the “Baby”…
1) take the hint your body is giving you. I do not recommend quad bypasses for fun.
2) take care of yourself. Increasing exercise really helps, even thought it takes a while to build up. When I came back after the “event” as (doctors say), I got winded walking around the dining room table. These days I walk/jog 3 miles through the hills, bike, do aerobics, ski, and it took years to get back to that.
3) Be warned that if a doctor tells you the “disease is progressing”, they don’t mean progress the way you or I would.
But amusement can help, and since you’re dealing with doctors, you may be amused by Viscount Monckton’s latest, posted in the middle of:
http://www.desmogblog.com/skeptics-journal-publishes-plagiarized-paper
March 27, 2008 at 2:00 pm
James Annan
Hi Fergus,
Sorry to hear about the bad news. Hope you make a good recovery.
James
March 27, 2008 at 11:10 pm
fergusbrown
Thanks, James.
It’s almost a commonplace triviality these days; I didn’t even spend much time in the hospital after the op. Which is a shame, since I was having something of a ‘Carry-on’ experience there for a while…. ooh, Maaatronn…
March 29, 2008 at 3:33 am
SCM
Best wishes for a good recovery – hope you can manage some gentle exercise soon or whatever it takes to get you back on track.
March 30, 2008 at 12:41 am
Timothy Chase
fergusbrown wrote:
Well, it is great to have you back.
Your blog is on the list of blogs that I will frequently check to see if there has been a new post — even if I don’t comment that often. (Honestly, I am often at a loss to come up with something worth saying — even though I enjoy the posts.)
Take care…
March 31, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Eli Rabett
Hope things go well.