The Choices We Make

The Choices We Make
The Choices We Make
What choices have you made today?

  • What you’ll eat for breakfast?
  • Where you’ll go for lunch?
  • What you’ll do this weekend?
  • Where you’ll vacation this summer?
  • If you’ll go to work tomorrow?

We make choices all the time. Some are easy, some are harder. Some we don’t even think of as choices. Like that last one above. It really is a choice you make each day to go to work. You may say you have to go to work, but is that your only option? It may be far and away a better choice than anything else, but it’s still a choice. Going to work changed for me the day I began to understand that it was a choice.

Yet few of those choices are considered life-or-death. Some may be and we don’t even know it. The decision to text while driving is a choice many make; one that has been known to result in death. Even though the texter isn’t consciously choosing death. I choose life, so I choose not to text while driving. That also keeps me more aware so that I can hopefully avoid those around me who have decided to text while driving.

Rare, though, are the choices we make that we know at the outset are life or death choices. I’ve had to make one of those choices in recent weeks. And the choice was easy. As I said before, I choose life.

The decision I had to make? To undergo surgery to have my aortic valve replaced. It seems I have something called Aortic Stenosis. That valve just isn’t working right, there appears to be calcium buildup, and the opening is about one-fourth of its normal size. Left untreated, it will eventually result in heart failure. So that decision is easy.

There are a lot of other decisions to make related to this surgery. Such as whether I want a tissue valve or a mechanical valve. Somehow, at this point, all the other choices become easy.

Living with the thought of impending surgery is another matter. I’ve tried to read up on the surgical procedure, but quite honestly it’s a bit scary. Just the words “open heart surgery” are scary to me. But I have an excellent surgeon and the date is set for this coming Friday – May 22, 2015. Recovery is long, but as my husband often says “It does beat the alternative!” I’ll post occasional updates here, as I am able.

So tell me, what difficult choices have you had to make?

Barbara
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