by Steven B. Orkin
"We thought about it for a long time, ‘Endeavor to
persevere.’ And when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on
the Union."
- Lone
Watie (Chief Dan George), ‘The Outlaw Josey Wales’.1
I love this quote.
There’s a kind of sardonic audacity about it, a defiance and spirit, that I
find inspiring, and that ‘endeavor to persevere’ phrase is just gorgeous. It rolls
off the tongue so beautifully and outside of the context of the movie it came
from, it really is powerful, a phrase of power, really.
A year ago today,
I came pretty close to dying. Though I was only 57 at the time, in reasonably
good health, and had no prior cardiology-related condition other than taking a
blood pressure medication, I experienced something unrelated called a Type II heart
block, defined as follows:
"Abnormal rhythm
where the heart beats too slowly. This is caused due to problems in the heart’s
electrical system which controls the heartbeat."
Symptoms of the
condition include dizziness, fatigue, heart flutters (arrythmias), fainting, and
other such effects. I had been experiencing mild versions of such symptoms over
the course of several weeks but they were so sporadic and they passed so quickly,
I didn’t pay much attention. Maybe I was in denial.
However, on 10/15/22, the symptoms
became too pronounced to ignore any further. By that evening, I couldn’t walk
across a room without having to stop and rest.
I ultimately went
to the ER, at which point my heart was beating at a very low 45 beats a minute.
The only treatment was to install a pacemaker. Though I had to have a second,
related procedure the following February called a cardiac ablation, which treats
abnormal electrical signals in the heart, by and large, the device has been
functioning properly. I’ve been feeling good and am overall, able to engage in
the same activities I did before this happened.
I don't know where
this condition came from. Maybe it was just lying in wait, a hidden bomb sizzling
in the darkness. I have always had a benign abnormality of the heart known as a
bundle branch, which is almost always harmless, essentially the difference
between having a back door on your house or a side door. Until it’s not. That’s
the most likely culprit. There's evidence to suggest it may have been a
byproduct of having been afflicted by the coronavirus. There’s significantly less
evidence to suggest it was a byproduct of the coronavirus vaccine. At the end
of the day, it doesn't matter, does it? Faced with a near death experience,
with the help of some excellent doctors and the support of loved ones, I'm
still standing.
I try not to think
too much about the fact that my life is to a good extent being sustained by a mechanical
device. I can’t change that fact, so why bother obsessing over it? But
certainly, this experience has given me a renewed sense of how fragile life can
be, how unpredictable, how ephemeral. It has also presented me with a powerful lesson
about perspective. Will I spend my time lamenting over the injustice of this
happening to me, or will I be grateful that I overcame formidable adversity and
am able to continue embracing the beauty of the world, my life, and the wonderful
people in it?
I choose the latter.
Thank you for
reading.
~~~
This is my latest tattoo, which I got a few weeks ago in commemoration of the anniversary of the day my life changed. It’s a combination of the mathematical infinity symbol and something called a Mobius Strip, which is a geometrical form that essentially has no beginning and no end, a perpetual loop without a top or bottom. It’s located on the left side of my chest (you can see the scar from where the pacemaker was laparoscopically embedded under my skin in the upper right), close to my heart.
Footnotes
- Here’s the full quote from the film:
"I wore this frock coat in Washington, before the war. We wore them because we belonged to the five civilized tribes. We dressed ourselves up like Abraham Lincoln. We only got to see the Secretary of the Interior, and he said: "Boy! You boys sure look civilized.!" he congratulated us and gave us medals for looking so civilized. We told him about how our land had been stolen and our people were dying. When we finished, he shook our hands and said, ‘Endeavor to persevere!’ They stood us in a line: John Jumper, Chili McIntosh, Buffalo Hump, Jim Buckmark, and me — I am Lone Watie. They took our pictures. And the newspapers said, ‘Indians vow to endeavor to persevere.’ We thought about it for a long time: ‘Endeavor to persevere.’ And when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on the Union."
~~~
