The Heart Failure Chronicles: Part II

My blockage was in the Left anterior descending artery (LAD) which supplies blood to the front and bottom of the left ventricle and the front of the septum. Thanks to the Cleveland Clinic for the artwork. 

Beware the Widowmaker.

That's the potent nickname for the heart's main trunk artery. Get a blockage in that big boy and, well, it's all over but the mourning.

I beat the Widowmaker. My cardiologist was a bit stunned by it. He tells me that Widowmaker-caused heart attacks that come into the ER usually don't make it. He told me this after inserting a big stent into my artery. I appreciate him not bringing this up the day I brought myself and my blockage into CRMC in the hopes that the crew there could save my life.

I'm here, am I not?

I was on the path to recovery the moment I reached the ER. It didn't seem like it, not at first, because I was a sick lad with a clogged heart and a bad pump and congestion in my lungs. A week later, I had a tube in the Widowmaker and was on the way home.

The care was superb. I don't have much to compare it to as I haven't been a hospital patient for approximately five decades. In 1960, I was in a Mercy Hospital ward with other children. The nurses wore white uniforms and stiff white caps. Nuns in black habits ran the hospital. On Saturdays, they let the kids come over to the nunnery to watch "Mighty Mouse" and "Sky King." The docs were rarely seen but were officious and efficient when they arrived, always attended by a nurse hovering in the background. An antiseptic smell wafted through the air. Shots were administered in huge glass hypodermic syringes with long needles. That may be just how I remember them, as I was a little kid with a fear of needles.

Fifty years later in Cheyenne, I had my own room that overlooked the construction of CRMC's new cancer center. Several times a day, choppers buzzed my room on their way to dropping off emergency cases on the CRMC helipad. An efficient procession of nurses, CNAs, phlebotomists, doctors, chaplains and therapists trooped through my room. My heart was monitored by the folks in the telemetry unit. I ordered my meals from room service. Everyone was kind and caring.

I was admitted to the hospital on Monday. On Wednesday, I was scheduled for the cath lab. People spoke of the cath lab in hushed tones, as if it were a special place, a shrine to modern medicine. The cath lab nurse arrived and described the procedure. Dr. Chapman the cardiologist looked in on me. Mid-morning, two nurses arrived with a wheelchair and guided me to the cath lab. When we reached the inner sanctum, I was greeted by a group of doctors and nurses and technicians. Led Zeppelin blasted from the stereo. The room was cold and brightly lit. I was unloaded on a table. I was hooked up to an IV and Foley and my right groin was shaved. That was the site for the insertion of the catheter. Dr. Chapman was in the control room behind a glass window. "We're going to give you something to relax you," said the tech. Suddenly, I was so relaxed that I missed the whole procedure. When I awoke, I couldn't breathe. They hooked me up with a breathing machine and wheeled me back to my room. The stent is in, someone said. And I was glad. Blood was flowing in my heart again and maybe I was going to be all right.

Not so fast, bucko.

My heart was damaged. I'd gone for a week or two with a blocked or partially blocked artery, which deprived the heart muscles of blood. Sometimes those muscles can go into hibernation for a time and a renewed blood flow brings them back to life. Sometimes. My pump's efficiency was about half of what it was supposed to be. They plied me with drugs that lowered my blood pressure and helped my heart pump more efficiently. They gave me a drug called Effient that coated my platelets so that they would coagulate at the stent site. I now take Lipitor to lower my cholesterol. I probably should have been taking this all along.

Get thee to the ER. That's the cardiologist's refrain these days. When people complain of heart attack symptoms, they don't mess around. EKGs are administered in the ambulance and if it's a heart attack, they want to get that patient treated quickly. The quicker they can open the artery, the less damage is done.

I wish I would have known that. I wish that I'd had an inkling that the pains in my belly were heart attack symptoms. I was my doc had thought of administering an EKG while I was in his office. I wish a lot of things. I pray that my heart returns to normal over time. If not, I'll be fitted with an internal defibrillator which will monitor my heart rhythms and shock me back to normal should I go into arrhythmia. Right now I'm wearing an external defibrillator. It's a vest with sensors that track my heartbeat. It's also equipped with paddles that will shock me back to life should I have a weird rhythm. I wear a book-sized battery pack around my neck. It's a great conversation starter.

I've learned a few things. You may be having a heart attack even if I doesn't seem like a heart attack. Your symptoms may be atypical. Get thee to the ER. You may save your life or, at least, avoid damage to your heart.

--To Be Continued--

Poetry and Equality and Tunes on Cognitive Dissonance tonight

Meg Lanker-Simons hits the airwaves tonight. Listen in as Will Welch talks about the Equality Day rally Monday in Cheyenne. Great tunes, too:

Tune into 93.5 KOCA tonight, 10PM-1 AM and keep your dial locked for fab music + Legit Conservative + d-bag o' the week. Our special guest tonight is Dylan Przygocki, who's going to read poetry. Also, listen in for GetEQUAL WY and QAN @ UW state organizer Will Welch talking about what you can do to support equality in Wyoming this MONDAY!

Don't forget to send The Legitimate Conservative some questions! 

Listen online and talk to us in the live chat! Check outhttp://myradiostream.com/cognitivedissonance to listen at 10 PM andhttp://chat.myradiostream.com/FSHs11p6864/ for the chat!

Taking your requests for songs, dedications & d-bag nods til 8 PM. Laramie Civic Center, rm #255

Bobby Jindal to RNC: "We've got to stop being the stupid party"

Wyoming Republicans: Bibles in schools, roadkill in the freezer, silencers on hunting weapons, an aircraft carrier on Crow Creek, a Dept of Ed Director who's ruining the schools, highest suicide rate in the nation, crumbling roads, Rep. Gerald Gay who says that gays are evil, "coal is your friend" classes for middle school students, what global warming?, the earth is 6,000 years old, "public employees are bums," "Obamacare is a commie plot," Dick Cheney, Agenda 21, Tea Party, wolves are four-legged terrorists, drug tests for poor people, etc. Stupid is as stupid does, Gov. Jindal. 

The Heart Failure Chronicles: Part I

Leonardo da Vinci heart illustration, 15th century.

I had a heart attack but didn't know it was a heart attack. It's flu season and my belly hurt. I was at work on Monday and it was almost closing time so I headed home so as not to ralph all over my workplace. You would have done the same thing. My boss Rita had the norovirus the week before. So did her husband Mike. She came home from work one evening to find Mike writing in pain on the front room floor. She took him to the emergency room where the docs looked him over and said, "Norovirus" or "stomach flu" or something like that and sent him home. He and Rita both had bodacious stomach cramps for two days, accompanied by ralphing and the other thing. Two days later, my coworker Annie and her entire family came down with the crud.

Meanwhile, I was at home with a belly ache watching crappy daytime TV. You'd think 500 channels would offer something beside Judge Judy reruns and a whole channel that shows "Frasier" 24/7. There's one for "Seinfeld" too.

On Wednesday, I went to the doctor.

"I have a bellyache," I said.

"There's a lot of norovirus going around," said the doc.

"That's what I hear. I have a bellyache."

"Any vomiting," asked the doc. They usually don't say "ralphing."

"No."

"Diarrhea?"

"No."

He looked pensive. He wore a dark suit and a stethoscope around his neck. He's an old-timey GP, with extended office hours and a staff that's seen me through sinus infections, bronchitis, assorted infections. He gave me a physical in September and pronounced me fit as a fiddle.

He never asked me about my heart. I have no history of heart trouble. My family has no history of heart trouble. My blood pressure is always 118/78. I swim every other day at the YMCA. I lost 30 pounds this year and feel fit as a fiddle most of the time.

He gave me an anti-nausea shot and sent me home. "Get plenty of rest and drink lots of fluids," he said. I've heard that before. I did as ordered. The next morning, I awoke with a horrible pain in my stomach and along my left side. I called the doc. He sent me over for X-rays. He called later. "Pneumonia," he said. "We'll order some antibiotics."

Crap. Pneumonia was an ancient scourge with me. I hadn't had it much as an adult but was hospitalized several times with it during childhood. I was 10 the last time I had it and that was the last time I spent a night in the hospital as a patient.

I took my antibiotics. The pain began to subside. Ten days of antibiotics with lots of fluids. I wasn't eating much but suddenly had a hankering for egg mcmuffins. Because I was sick, Chris was willing to grant me almost anything in the way of comfort foods. This was a bad thing, as it turned out.

It was Christmas week. I was camped out on the couch. Don't remember much except somebody gve me a cast iron frying pan. Not sure why I had asked for a cast iron frying pan although I'm a pretty good cast iron cook during summer camping trips. I'm an old Scout and learned a lot back in the days when when out scoutmasters were crusty old Army guys who smoked a lot and were very bad examples that way. I suppose they also brought booze to our winter campouts in Colorado's Collegiate Range and sat around telling old war stories while we snoozed.

Turns out, I didn't have pneumonia. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. I was home for two weeks. I wasn't feeling much better but two weeks is two weeks and I had deadlines to meet. I watched a lot of football on New Year's Day. I was wearing a groove in the couch cushions. It was time to go back to work.

The next day was Jan. 2. A damn cold Tuesday. I took my daughter to school and then went to the store. Not sure what I bought but I dropped the groceries off at home I sat on my couch. I couldn't breathe. It was like an asthma attack, although I hadn't had one of those in decades. I called Chris.

"I can't breathe," I said.

"What do you mean you can't breathe?" She was at work and I could hear the hubbub in the background. I tried to think of what I would say if she called me at work and said she couldn't breathe.

"I'll be right home," she said.

I sat there alone, gasping for breath. We live at 6,200 feet. One sometimes sees athletes playing the Broncos at 5,280 feet hooked up to oxygen. I felt that I needed some oxygen. That's odd as I've been living a mile high for decades.

Chris arrived home and said, "Let's go to the hospital."

I stood. Walked to the door. And that's as far as I got. "I can't make it to the car."

I stood gasping at the bookshelf.

Chris got on the phone and called 911. I returned to the couch. Five minutes later, the EMTs were swarming around me. Two young men and a woman. They brought out some oxygen and hooked me up. That was better. Took my vitals. Guided me out to the gurney. I lay down and they covered me up and it was cold as hell. They boosted me into the back of the ambulance and hooked me up to some sort of vaporizer to help me breathe. The woman EMT told me to relax and I said I was too scared to relax. They fired up the siren and zoomed me to the ER. They put some sensors on my chest and took some sort of reading which I found out later was an EKG. By the time I got to the ER, the diagnosis was already floating around the halls. "Congestive heart failure."

I'd had a heart attack some time during the past two weeks. Maybe several heart attacks. In minutes, I had an IV in my right arm and a guy was drawing blood. They hooked me up to another breathing machine. A nurse came in and asked where the pain was.

"I have a bellyache." As I said it, I realized I was saying the same exact thing I'd been saying for two weeks.

"Where?"

I circled my stomach with my left hand. "All over."

"Hmm," she said. I'd been hearing this for two weeks.

"Any vomiting?"

"Why do people keep asking me that?"

"We've had some bad cases of stomach flu."

I felt like saying, enough with the stomach flu already -- I've been through that and pneumonia and I still have this fucking belly ache.

An orderly appeared and took me to X-ray. The X-ray tech looked familiar. She introduced herself and said she'd been the Wyoming Arts Council's Poetry Out Loud winner the first year we conducted the competition.

I remembered her name. Kamaria.

"What are you doing here?"

"Poets gotta make a living."

I thought that was pretty funny. I laughed but my lungs ached. Kamaria put me on my back, injected some sort of truth serum into me and sent me into the maws of a large machine. I couldn't breathe. She told me to take a deep breath. Don't poets have more empathy? The machine moved me out. "One more time," she said. I remembered her up on the Atlas Theatre stage, reciting Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman. I tried to remember the names of poems. "I hear America singing." Walt taking care of Civil War wounded at D.C. hospitals. His brothers was one of the wounded. Now there's some empathy for you. Maybe Kamaria was following Walt into the medical field. Wish I'd done that, once upon a time wanting to be a nurse like my mother and my grandmother.

Channeling Walt Whitman at the CRMC telemetry unit.

I was still thinking Civil War when I returned to my slot in the ER. I was happy to have a room. There were people lined up in the hallway. People coughing. A young woman with a freckled back. Doctors and nurses hovering and typing stuff into a bank of PCs. I thought of the Atlanta scene in "Gone with the Wind," all those casualties lined up, most of them dead or dying or about to be left behind as the Yankees closed in.

"Congestive heart failure." A doc I hadn't seen before looked at me. He was Indian or Pakistani or something else. A young nurse stood at his elbow. "Dr. Khan," he said. "I'm head of cardiology."

"Congestive heart failure."

Dr. Khan nodded. "You had a heart attack."

"When?"

"You tell me."

"I've been sick for two weeks."

He looked over at his nurse. She scribbled on a pad.

"Can you lie down for an hour?"

"I can't lie down for five minutes."

The nurse again took notes.

"We want to take a look at your heart," said the doc. "We have a great cath lab. We want to see your heart and open up any blockages."

This was all new to me. "Open heart surgery?"

He shook his head. The nurse took notes. "We try to get our heart patients up to the cath lab ASAP."

"What's a cath lab?"

He explained the catheterizing lab to me. Lie me flat on a table and give me some drugs to relax. Put some dye in my heart. Go through my groin and put a camera up to the heart, check out the arteries. Open to blockages with balloons and maybe install a stent if needed.

"What's a stent?"

He explained that it was a tube that the docs put in the artery to keep it open after it was clogged by plaque and cholesterol and inflammation.

This was a lot stuff to take in. "Cath lab is open 24 hours a day," he said. "We've been here since 4 a.m."

I told him that I doubted if I could lie flat for the time needed for balloons and stents and cameras. He nodded. The nurse took notes. And they disappeared.

Another nurse came. She said they might take me to the cath lab as time was of the essence. I was feeling a bit scared and would have felt more scared if I wasn't hurting so much. Some time passed. My wife was making calls, alerting the troops, calling my work to say I probably wouldn't be in today.

All told, I was in the ER for a couple hours. Not bad, when you consider all the horror stories people tell about 12-hour ER waits. The hospital's building a new ER right outside the doors. It will be three times the size of the current one which should take care of that "Gone With the Wind" congestion.

I was admitted to the hospital with congestive heart failure, heart failure or just massive heart attack. I heard other terms later. I was transported to a room on the telemetry unit where I was wired for sound along with the rest of the floor. They monitor our hearts in a bunker full of computers and computer geeks. I was glad to be so monitored, as I'd never had a heart attack before.

Thus began my first night in the hospital....

--To Be Continued--

Singing songs from "Rent" at Broadway Karaoke Night in Cheyenne

In memoriam: Gaydell Collier

Gaydell Collier and her dog Maxie

Gaydell Collier was gracious and generous. She shared her expertise in writing and publishing with anyone who asked. She was also one of those people whom writers admire unconditionally: a librarian. She knew books, but people were her specialty. Gaydell passed away January 18 at Rapid City Regional Hospital, across the border from her beloved ranch in Crook County, Wyoming. Here's the obit that appeared on the Wyoming Arts Council blog:

Gaydell came from the East Coast and as a child told people she would eventually make her home in Wyoming.

She attended the University of Wyoming, and met her then-future husband, Roy Hugh Collier. While living in Laramie and the Harmony area, Collier worked as circulation manager at the UW library, and collaborated with Eleanor Prince in producing three publications: Basic Horsemanship: English and Western; Basic Training for Horses: English and Western; and Basic Horse Care.

She and her husband purchased their Crook County Ranch in 1977. Collier took over the Crook County Library Director position and was there for 14 years, while also operating her ranch bookstore, Backpocket Books.

She was co-editor along with Nancy Curtis and Linda Hasselstrom on three anthologies: Leaning Into the Wind: Women Write from the Heart of the West in 1997; Woven on the Wind: Women Write about Friendship in the Sagebrush West, in 2001; and Crazy Woman Creek: Women Rewrite the American West in 2004.

Her publications continued in periodicals, reviews, anthologies, and magazines. Her last book was the memoir, Just Beyond Harmony, published in 2012. She received a Governor’s Arts Award in 2004. She was a charter member of Bearlodge Writers in Sundance and of the statewide writers group, Wyoming Writers, Inc., as well as a sustaining member of Women Writing the West and Western Writers of America.

Cuddly jackalopes have a dark side

Thousands of tourists buy those cuddly plush toy jackalopes every summer as they cruise through Wyoming. These cutesy-pie jack rabbit/antelope hybrids are ubiquitous in gift shops from Cheyenne to Jackson and everywhere in between. Douglas, of course, is the animal's ancestral home and the city's mascot, with a neat downtown statue and thousands of artsy jackalopes embedded in a new North Platte River Bridge.

A bill wending its way through the 62nd Wyoming Legislature would make the jackalope the state's official mythical critter. That's fine. But the animal also has a dark side, one that's been celebrated in music by Steve Earle, the Supersuckers and Wyoming's own Gary Small and the Coyote Brothers. Steve Earle's "Creepy Jackalope Eye" offers these chilling lyrics:

I got a jackalope face
I'm a jackalope guy
And I'm staring you down
Creepy jackalope eye

Is it so hard to imagine
Is it so hard to believe
Something so outrageous
Something so far fetched
Well how 'bout adam and eve?

Gary Small's "Snaggle Tooth Jackalope" deserves a little respect as it preys on unsuspecting turistas:

16 motor homes are still missing
Not a trace of human parts was ever found
Just a bloody boot and a shred of Bermuda shorts
On top of a prairie dog mound.
Tourists beware of the snaggle tooth jackalope
A cold-blooded killer...

Yikes.

Where to go for updates on bills before the 62nd Wyoming Legislature

Interested in tracking all of the bills in this legislative session? From A-Z, from the ridiculous to the sublime? Go to the Wyoming Legisweb Bill Tracker.

If you're interested in those bills affecting public employees, go to the Wyoming Public Employees Association web site.

Wyofile provides daily updates on the legislature. Go here.

The Casper Star-Tribune does the best job covering the Lege of any of the state's newspapers. OK, others do a pretty good job but the CST has the best web site.

What about bloggers? You can find info about hot issues on the WY Progressives blogroll on this blog's right sidebar. Marriage equality will be a hot topic next week. Medicaid expansion is another one. Revamping the Dept of Ed has been a big issue since the start of the session Jan. 8.

Wyoming Rep. Tim Stubson plans to punish state employees by taking away benefits

Wondering what Republicans talk about when they have time on their hands?

If you're Rep. Tim Stubson, House Majority Whip, an attorney and an independently wealthy man-about-town from Casper, you think to yourself: "Those state employees make too much money and have too many benefits. Let's take something away from them just for the hell of it."

Stubson's spouse, Susan, should know better, as she once served on the Wyoming Arts Council board. Stubson also has two sons, one of whom served as a page at the legislature. Said the Rep. Stubson to his son: "This is how we Republicans stick it to state employees, son."

Here's Stubson's big plan:

House Bill 0079 - Redefining vacation as unpaid wages: Sponsored by Representative Tim Stubson, it passed the State House last week and is awaiting introduction in the State Senate.  It would remove vacation pay as a "unpaid wage" in the case of termination from employment, effectively removing it from the worker's final paycheck.  We do NOT SUPPORT this bill in the Senate, and believe it would harm workers in this state greatly by withholding necessary income that they earned during the time they were employed.  Please contact your Senator and let them know you do NOT support this bill! Tell your senator you don't believe in punishing state employees: Just in case you didn't know....the State of Wyoming changed all of the Legislator's emails this year to a uniform email address: Firstname.Lastname@wyoleg.gov

Shame on you, Rep. Stubson.

What the heck is wrong with these stingy, right-wing politicians from Casper?

Poet and labor activist Mark Nowak is eminent-writer-in-residence at UW in February

Poet and labor activist Mark Nowak in coming to Wyoming:

For the much of the past decade, Mark Nowak has been extricating the poetry workshop from the academic classroom and re-employing it in factories, workplaces, and other labor/working-class spaces. These workshops include his early transnational "poetry dialogues" with autoworkers at Ford plants in St. Paul, Minnesota (through UAW 879) and Port Elizabeth and Pretoria, South Africa (through NUMSA, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa), another series of workshops with Muslim/Somali nurses (through Rufaidah, a Somali nurse support organization), and his current ongoing project with members of Domestic Workers United <http://www.domesticworkersunited.org/> in New York City (to be featured in the 2012 PEN World Voices Festival). 

While at the University of Wyoming, Mark hopes to work with graduate students and other community members in facilitating a Wyoming version of these creative writing workshops with workers in the area. In advance of his visit, he would like to work with interested students in identifying potential groups to work with, making initial contacts, and selecting a group of Wyoming workers with whom several creative writing workshops could be facilitated. As always, the goal is to also produce an event at the end of these workshops (and the end of Mark's residency) in which the participants read the work they produce to their family, friends, co-workers, and the larger community. 

Mark Nowak, a 2010 Guggenheim fellow, is the author of Coal Mountain Elementary (Coffee House Press, 2009) and Shut Up Shut Down (Coffee House Press, 2004). He frequently speaks about global working class policies and issues, most recently on Al Jazeera, BBC World News America, BBC Radio 3, and Pacifica Radio’s “Against the Grain.” A native of Buffalo, New York, Nowak currently works as director of the graduate creative writing program at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY. 

Mark Nowak will be on campus February 18th - March 1st.  Public workshops will be held between February 17th and February 27th and will culminate in a Reading and Celebration the Gryphon Theater on February 28th.  There will be a public reading by Mark Nowak on February 22nd at Second Story Books. 

Website

Big equality vote next week in The Equality State

Jeran Artery at Out in Wyoming writes about next week's votes for equality in The Equality State. Jeran names name and challenges us all to contact our reps on the Corporations Committee. These are good people who can be reached with persuasive, cogent arguments from constituents. However, they often represent rural conservative constituencies. This is when you see a clash between fundie anti-gay arguments and Wyoming's live-and-let-live traditions. You just never know... There will be a rally at 11 a.m. at the Capitol on Monday. Get more info here. Stay active. Use those e-mails and smartphones to make these people accountable:

We are ready to rock and roll with Marriage Equality (HB169) and Domestic Partnerships (HB168) here in Wyoming. These two bills have been assigned to the Corporations Committee in the House of Representatives.  They are going to be heard at noon on Monday, January 28th.
All of the committee member names below are linked to take you to their legislative website.  The website contains phone and email contact information. 
Here are my notes on what you can do to help:
Madam Chairwoman Rosie Berger,  Needs lobbied.  Needs emails from across the state and especially from LGBT residents and allies living in Sheridan County.  Could become friendly but is going to take some work.
Rep. Gregg Blikre  I spoke with Rep Blikre this morning and he doesn't know where he stands.  He said he wants to hear all the arguments and make a decision from there.  So please email him and ask him for support, especially if you live in Gillette or Campbell county.  Again, I think we can get his support but he needs to hear from all of us.
Rep. Dan Kirkbride  I spoke with Rep. Kirkbride this morning and he said he is a probably a no vote on both bills.  He doesn't think his constituents in Platte County are favorable. Personally I know Rep. Kirkbride and he is good man.  I expressed how important these are to me personally and he promised to keep an open mind a listen to our arguments.  He really needs to hear from LGBT members and allies in Platte County.
Rep. Jerry Paxton  I have not had a chance to visit with him yet.  I'm hearing that he is moderate and persuadable.  His district includes parts of Albany, Sweetwater, and Carbon Counties.  Emails and phone calls of support would be great.
Rep. Gerald Gay  A 100% no vote.  Don't waste your time on lobbying efforts.  This is the guy that publicly stated on the house floor that out of respect to his last name "we should call these people what they are, homosexual sodomites... not gay."
Rep. James (Jim) Byrd  100% yes vote.  Co-sponsor of both bills.
Rep. Matt Greene 100% yes vote.  Co-sponsor of Domestic Partnerships and supports marriage equality.
Rep. Ruth Ann Petroff 100% yes vote.  Also co-sponsor of both bills and an absolute delight to work with.
Rep. Dan Zwonitzer 100% yes vote. Co-sponsor of both bills and a tremendous ally.

Much more here.

Wyoming Republicans look to the future with Dick Cheney as keynote speaker

Watching the inauguration festivities on Monday in D.C. made me feel old and out of it. A wonderful African-American First Family with their two beautiful daughters and Richard Blanco reciting a poem celebrating the 21st century in America and a huge crowd of people of all ages and ethnic backgrounds and origins. This is the future and this old guy wants to be a part of it as long as possible. The Republicans, on the other hand, have proved themselves to be the political party of old ideas and old ways and selfishness. There may be hope to Repubs in the likes of Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal and those who look ahead instead of back into the previous century. Even some of the young leaders are burdened with the hatreds and prejudices that were born in the pre-Civil Rights era, back when I was a kid growing up in the American South. Nothing says outdated and old like having a remnant of the latest Repub administration as the keynote speaker at your annual banquet. Here's news from the Wyoming Republicans:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney will be the guest speaker at a Wyoming Republican Party dinner next month.  

Cheney will speak Feb. 9 at the dinner being held at the Little America Hotel in Cheyenne. The party says the event is open to the public. 

Tickets are available by contacting the party's office in Casper at 307-234-9166.

"In the Shadow of the Buddha" author to be keynote speaker at WY Dems' Nellie Tayloe Ross banquet

Matteo Pistono will be the keynote speaker at the Wyoming Democratic Party's Nellie Tayloe Ross banquet on Saturday, Feb. 16, at the Plains Hotel in Cheyenne. A cocktail reception starts at 6 p.m., followed by dinner, awards ceremony and keynote at 7. Get more info at http://wyodems.org

For more than a decade, Matteo Pistono has lived in Nepal and Tibet, and worked in the fields of human rights and religious freedom. Matteo Pistono has been heralded as "The James Bond of Tibetan Buddhism" and has worked with some of the world's greatest teachers, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Sogyal Rinpoche, and the late Khenpo Jikmé Phuntsok.

President Obama's inaugural address aimed at all of us progressives who elected him

It's worth watching again...

UW Days of Dialogue features screening of film about civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin

The Martin Luther King, Jr., Days of Dialogue at the University of Wyoming in Laramie features a full slate of events Jan. 21-25. On Tuesday, Jan. 22, 6:30 p.m., there will be a screening of the film, "Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin." It will be followed by a reception with the Cheyenne NAACP. Location: Wyoming Union West Ballroom. FMI: http://www.mlkdod.com/

Celebrate Mardi Gras without leaving Cheyenne

The Cheyenne Little Theatre Players will raise some funds and have a great time on Feb. 2 at the Atlas Theatre downtown. Get a little taste of New Orleans at the Mardi Gras Bash.  

President Obama: “We are going to need to work on making access to mental health care as easy as access to a gun”

This is but a small part of President Obama's Plan to Protect our Children & Communities, which was announced this morning. I'm including it because mental health is one of my blog's key issues. And tackling the many gun parts of the document is too much to bear. Read more here.  

IMPROVING MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES 
Though the vast majority of Americans with a mental illness are not violent, we need to do more to identify mental health issues early and help individuals get the treatment they need before dangerous situations develop. As President Obama has said, “We are going to need to work on making access to mental health care as easy as access to a gun.” 
• MAKE SURE STUDENTS AND YOUNG ADULTS GET TREATMENT FOR MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES: Three quarters of mental illnesses appear by the age of 24, yet less than half of children with diagnosable mental health problems receive treatment. To increase access to mental health services for young people, we should: o Provide “Mental Health First Aid” training to help teachers and staff recognize signs of mental illness in young people and refer them to treatment. o Support young adults ages 16 to 25, who have the highest rates of mental illness but are the least likely to seek help, by giving incentives to help states develop innovative approaches. o Help break the cycle of violence in schools facing pervasive violence with a new, targeted initiative to provide their students with needed services like counseling. o Train 5,000 more social workers, counselors, and psychologists, with a focus on those serving students and young adults. 
• ENSURE COVERAGE OF MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT: The Affordable Care Act is the largest step to increase access to mental health services in a generation, providing health coverage for 30 million Americans, including 6 to 10 million people with mental illness. The Administration will take executive actions to ensure that millions of newly covered Americans, and millions more who already have health insurance, get quality mental health coverage by: o Finalizing regulations to require insurance plans to cover mental health benefits like medical and surgical benefits. o Ensuring Medicaid is meeting its obligation to cover mental health equally.

Glad to be here after brush with heart failure

I began the year with heart failure.

On Jan. 2, I was rushed via ambulance to the emergency room. I couldn't breathe. Pain radiated down my sides and into my stomach. Vitals and X-rays confirmed congestive heart failure. The cardiologist wanted to take me to the cath lab but I couldn't lie flat for the procedure because my lungs were clogged. Two days later, I was in the lab getting a stent in my main trunk artery which was blocked. This is the LAD artery, sometimes melodramatically known as "The Widowmaker."

I'm lucky to be here to tell the tale. Credit goes to the the skills of Dr. Chapman and Dr. Khan and staff of the Cheyenne Regional Medical Center's cardiac unit. After a week of excellent hospital care, I went home last Wednesday wearing a LifeVest, which monitors my heart and will shock it back into rhythm, if need be. I have a sackful of medications to help my heart heal.

I have no history of heart disease. My family has no history of heart disease. I dropped 40 pounds this year by swimming three times a week at the YMCA and eating right. Annual blood tests did show high cholesterol levels, something I never paid much attention to. That may have led to the plaque build-up and blockages that almost killed me.

So glad to be here. So glad to be anywhere.

During my hospitalization, the Wyoming State Legislature lurched into session. I missed most of the fun the first week and now will be playing catch-up. It may be difficult to duplicate the zaniness of last year's session -- or will it?

Listen live tonight as Radio Meg counts down the top 25 albums of 2012

Meg's fab tunes & prog-talk now available from Boulder to Birmingham, Tehatchapi to Tonapah:

Tune into 93.5 KOCA tonight, 10 p.m.-1 a.m. and keep your dial locked for fab music + Legit Conservative + d-bag o' the week. Our special guest tonight is fellow music aficionado Cameron L. Maris, who will help us count down the Top 25 Albums of 2012! Oh, and don't forget to send The Legitimate Conservative some questions -- it IS the last show of the year! Listen online and talk to us in the live chat! Check out http://myradiostream.com/cognitivedissonance to listen at 10 PM and http://chat.myradiostream.com/FSHs11p6864/ for the chat! Taking your requests for songs, dedications & d-bag nods til 8 PM. Laramie Civic Center, rm #255

In the pink, but still a bit blue

I've been off the blog for more than a week. I do have a good excuse: pneumonia. Gave new meaning to the term "sick in bed." Racked with pain and weak as an overcooked noodle. I was going to say "weak as a kitten" but then thought of all the kittens I've ever known. They may be small but weak? I think not. It's sobering to be sick for both my 62nd birthday and Christmas. This aging road may be as rocky as they say. I've spent the last nine months losing weight, eating better and swimming laps three times a week at the Y. And one tiny no-see-um bacterium sneaks into my lungs and knocks me down. Thank God for antibiotics and health insurance and good doctors and helpful pharmacists and my loving wife and good friends and understanding coworkers.

I've watched a lot of movies, not all good. I did finally see "The King's Speech" and really enjoyed it. Geoffrey Rush was brilliant as an engaging, irreverent speech therapist to a king. I'm no friend to the British Royal Family, but I wanted to belt out a few huzzahs for Colin Firth's tongue-tied Edward VI as he made his first war speech. I watched a number of films set in wartime. "Joe and Max" was a biopic about the Joe Louis and Max Schmeling boxing matches of 1936 and 1938. Joe was America's "Brown Bomber," knocking out one white fighter after another on his way to the championship. The entire time was being ripped off by his white promoters. Schmeling's Jewish-American promoter got the fighter a match with Louis in New York. Herr Goebbels calls in Schmeling to dissuade him from the fight, wondering how it would look if a fighter from National Socialist Germany got beat by a negro. Max would have none of it; he figured he was bigger than the Nazis and could do what he wanted. In a way, he was right. He won the match by decision with the American crowd shouting "Max" instead of "Joe." He returned home a conquering hero. When the crowd yelled "Heil Hitler" and raised the Nazi salute, so did Max. He wasn't a member of the party and didn't think it mattered. That all changed two years later. To get permission to go to America, Max has to sign a manuscript, "Boxing as a Race Matter." It's a racist screed against non-white athletes. This time in New York, he'd beset by anti-Nazi protests that turn very personal. The crowd is pro-Joe this time and Joe KOs Max. Nobody's waiting at the airport for Max when he returns this time.

The two fighters both serve in the war. Joe fought bouts to sell war bonds. Max served in combat. They kept up a relationship until Joe passed away in 1981. Joe was broke from millions in IRS debts, so Max paid for the military funeral. Max was pretty well off, working for Coca Cola in Germany from the 1950s until retiring in 2000 at the age of 95. Max Schmeling says drink more coke, ya'll!