After delivering a breakfast casserole today to our veterinarian for her family's Christmas breakfast, John & I stopped at a Whataburger restaurant.
We were nearly through when an older couple came in. The man had a walker. They sat down at the next table and the woman went to place their orders. The man seemed out of sorts, perhaps in pain or just elderly, hard to tell. But soon he started chatting with us. They're RVers and had driven in from Palm Springs, Calif., to visit two daughters who live at the next exit off Interstate 20. The man said something about having had surgery. I thought OK, walker, probably knee or hip, but no, he'd had CABG.
I quipped something like, "Isn't it fun to have your chest ripped open?" and said I had had valve replacement 6 1/2 years ago today. Well, so had he -- 14 years ago, I think -- and now he's recovering from CABG.
He whipped out his Medtronics mechanical heart valve ID card. He had aortic valve replacement. He & his wife go here & there in their RV. He's a veteran and gets his INR tests done at Veterans Administration facilities.
A lot of people would let periodic INR tests interfere with their lives or think that they would. However, here was an individual who just kept truckin' on -- er, RVin' on.
I did mention that Medicare would cover an INR tester, but when they mentioned the VA, that was a no-brainer.
We were nearly through when an older couple came in. The man had a walker. They sat down at the next table and the woman went to place their orders. The man seemed out of sorts, perhaps in pain or just elderly, hard to tell. But soon he started chatting with us. They're RVers and had driven in from Palm Springs, Calif., to visit two daughters who live at the next exit off Interstate 20. The man said something about having had surgery. I thought OK, walker, probably knee or hip, but no, he'd had CABG.
I quipped something like, "Isn't it fun to have your chest ripped open?" and said I had had valve replacement 6 1/2 years ago today. Well, so had he -- 14 years ago, I think -- and now he's recovering from CABG.
He whipped out his Medtronics mechanical heart valve ID card. He had aortic valve replacement. He & his wife go here & there in their RV. He's a veteran and gets his INR tests done at Veterans Administration facilities.
A lot of people would let periodic INR tests interfere with their lives or think that they would. However, here was an individual who just kept truckin' on -- er, RVin' on.
I did mention that Medicare would cover an INR tester, but when they mentioned the VA, that was a no-brainer.
