To Whom It May Concern:

If you never hear from me again, it’s because I died on the operating table sometime Thursday.

You see, I’m suffering from atrial fibrillation – although “suffering” is an over-dramatization of my situation.

In layman’s terms, my heart sometimes beats faster than normal and/or in an uncontrolled pattern. But, truthfully, I have no idea when it’s happening because I’m not experiencing any symptoms.

But, take it from me, I don’t plan on dying any time soon. I have way too much to do before my ride on the Toonerville Trolley.

I already have eleven years’ worth of projects on the drawing board and told the doctor that I plan to finish every one. So I expect to be both bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by the time the Broncos-Chiefs game comes on at 8:25 Thursday night. By the way, I’m taking the Chiefs.

I go into the hospital Wednesday morning for some preliminary prep, and then they do the deal on Thursday.

In the old days, they’d be performing open-heart surgery on me – splitting me wide open and cutting through who knows what to gain access into the inner sanctums of my heart. But today, thanks to the miracles of modern medical technology, they’ll be taking the Cape Route into my right atria. Today’s procedure is called cardiac ablation or catheter ablation.

A small rig will enter my body through a tiny incision in close proximity to my – pardon my French – nut sack, and then the rig will snake its way up and through my veins or arteries until it reaches its target.

The doctor will then make a 3D map of my heart’s electrical system, find out which cells are transmitting bad signals, and zap the faulty cells into oblivion. And if all goes according to plan, I’ll be done in a couple hours and my heart will return to a normal rhythm.

Soccer Game

Earlier this evening, Tuesday, my favorite son Ed and I went to see my favorite grandson Zack play soccer – I misspell Zack’s name on purpose because I prefer the “ck” form of Zack over the “ch” form.

It was a conference game in Division III. Rosemont versus Delaware Valley – Rasheed Bailey’s school. We just found out the kid’s on the team. Seems he never told us because he knows we don’t like soccer. But guess what, kid? We like you.

So we went to the game and met up with my favorite Ex Gretchen.

Photo by Anna Kurzawski Bottoms-Bickel

The kid hasn’t played soccer since he was around five, but he started in goal and that made it exciting for us – even though the goddam game was nil-nil through two 45-minute halves and two 10-minute overtimes. The fact that one goal would decide the game heightened the suspense.

There were a couple of close calls – the last of which came in the last minute of play – which would’ve been devastating. But the kid made every save and pitched a shutout for 110 minutes.

We were actually looking forward to a shootout – to see how well the kid would do – but there was no shootout because it wasn’t a conference game.

I don’t know how many games he played already or how he did in those games, but he looked like a million bucks tonight.

Barry Bowe is the author of:

• Born to Be Wild
• 1964 – The Year the Phillies Blew the Pennant
• 12 Best Eagles QBs
• Soon-to-be-published sexy, police procedural Caribbean Queen
• Soon-to-be-published novel Stosh Wadzinski
• Soon-to-be-published novel Polish Widow
• Soon-to-be-published Birth of the Birds