May 2, 2008
Had an appointment at the Heart Institute this morning. Dr. Lee looked at my charts and shook his head. He kept looking at me with this incredulous expression. Frankly, I was kind of embarrassed. Finally, he confronted me on how "lucky" I am to be sitting in his office. He wouldn't let it go. "Do you know just how DAMN lucky you are?" When I said I didn't, he said, "the survival rate for what you have just gone through is one percent." I knew I was lucky, but I didn't know how lucky. He wasn't finished: "Do you know what the survival rate is on aspirated pneumonia?" Zero percent? No, he told me, "it's 50%." When he asked me if I had any chest pains, I told him yes I do, but that the lung doctor showed me an x-ray detail that when my bandmates did CPR on me at the Elks they fractured a rib, and he said, "Tell that person, thankyou, because they got blood to your brain and saved you from being a vegetable."

So, Terry Mitchell, I thank you. You can crack my ribs anytime. Dr. Lee explained that if you do the chest thumps too lightly it doesn't work.

I have to go back next Tuesday for an angiogram.

Got back home at one. Took a nap and came into the office. The new issue of True West is here (June) with George W. Bush as a cowboy on the cover. Should upset some, and thrill others. He's damn cute, if you ask me.

Still working on Remington style sketching in sketchbook. Here are a gaggle of takes on Apache headgear. In the movies they always just take a scarf and wrap it, Rambo-like around the head. As you can see, the Apaches had a wide variety of head wraps, more Bedouin than Bloods and Crips.



I'm also studying Maynard Dixon;s sketchbooks for his take on Apache style:



I promised I'd run some of those silly poems from my mother's school book, but I'll do those tomorrow.

"A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits."
—Richard Nixon