The procedure

 I hate hospitals and all things medical. But I guess if you live long enough you have to learn to put up with a few.

 Old age sucks😡.)

Having developed a few Arrhythmias, (https://joan-myviews.blogspot.com/2026/01/reflections-on-biology.html?m=1) including AFib and SVT, the cardiologist thought it more prudent that I  have an ablation rather than add more  drugs to my growing list. 

When I heard the procedure was no worse that filling teeth, I said run with it, despite the $134, 000 price tag. (Thanks President Obama, for without Obamacare, people like me would just have to watch the heart deteriorating as the drugs became ineffective. In Canada a similar procedure is around $21,000  and maximum $15, 000 in Mexico I hear!)

So here am I doing a report on the procedure while waiting on my daughter in law to pick me up.

 She had to drive down from West Palm as my grandson was at work, so I took an Uber to Cleveland Clinic. For its their policy that while you can take Uber or whatever to get there, you must be picked up by a known and trusted person as you remain groggy afterwards.

When they prepped me at the hospital, I had an all Caribbean nursing team, one Jamaican, one Trini and one Haitian, all caring and pleasant professionals.

Another nurse who took me to the operation theatre was also Jamaican.

So I felt at home until I got into the theater (it was extra cold😶‍🌫️) where four or five nurses were inside waiting. But I never got the opportunity to delve into their ancestries as they immediately got to work strapping me down to the bed, even tying arms and legs and I was almost immediately out of it!

 My cardiologist Dr. Parishit Sharma, is a specialist Electrophysiology from India. He is reputed to be one of the best in the fields of  Atrial Fibrillation, PSVT, Arrhythmia and pacemaker implantation.

The fact that it all went smoothly and I feel on top of the world a few hours later, proves it.

In fact,  my only discomfort was having to lay totally still on my back for 3 hours in recovery.

My biggest problem will be staying reasonably inactive for around 10  days while the holes in my groin heals.

All's well that ends well🙏.

Link: https://joan-myviews.blogspot.com/2026/01/reflections-on-biology.html?m=1.

Note

Heart ablation (catheter ablation) is a generally safe, minimally invasive procedure to fix heart rhythm disorders, considered effective but carries low risks of complications like bleeding, infection, blood clots, or minor heart/vessel damage, with severe issues  experienced electrophysiology team significantly lowers these risks. 

In Summary: It's a serious procedure with potential risks, but often a very effective treatment with a favorable safety profile compared to the risks of living with afib.

IF OBAMA HAD DARED TRY THAT!

America is a flawed democracy, yet despite that it has operated as the "policeman of the world," supposedly trying to make democracy worldwide practice.

The lack of democracy in the USA did not arise with the recent Trump instigated attempted coup in that nation's capital which saw a handful of racist thugs invading their parliament. The fact is, in the USA, the majority has never necessarily ruled, although that is what democracy is all about. So, in 2000, George W. Bush 'won' against Al Gore although he only got 47.9% of the votes cast while Gore got 48.4%. In other words, Gore got the majority of the votes cast, resulting in over half million more votes than Bush, but Bush became President. 

The same situation occurred in 2016, only the disparity was much worse. For in those elections, Hilary Clinton got in excess of three million votes more than Trump, yet he ended up as president. No wonder the autocrat Trump can insist he should remain president in 2020, although he got almost eight million votes less than Biden!

Trump is nothing but a fascist, potential tin-pot dictator though, for from 2016, he has consistently declared that if he did not win the election, it would be because of corruption! And he came back with the same song and dance in 2020, and this time it became a crescendo since November 3rd, because he was rejected at the polls. 

Amusingly though, he quickly accepted the representatives in his own party, who got elected in the states he was disputing and under the same system he calls corrupt.

I think Trump is the most corrupt politician in the history of modern America.

In his very first term, he was impeached, though not removed, for trying to strong-arm Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to come up with fake information on his opponent Joe Biden, for use in the 2020 election campaign. Then after he lost the popular vote in 2020, the electoral college votes, every challenge in the courts, he tried to strong arm the Secretary of State in Georgia to find him votes to overturn the results in that state and find him some votes so he could be declared the winner there.

When all that failed, as a last desperate attempt, he ordered his Vice President to lie about the number of votes he earned from the electoral college, despite the fact that the Vice President had no such power, as his job was basically ceremonial, going no further than declaring how many votes there were coming from each state.

So, like a modern-day Papa Doc (former Haitian dictator), he turned to his thugs, the Proud Boys, urging them to turn to violence. Those Proud Boys, are a far right group of white supremacists, who he told on the 29th, September 2020, to "Stand back and stand by." 

Well on the 6th January 2021, they were given the command by the president of the USA himself which led to the violent assault on Capitol Hill. When the smoke cleared, one female insurgent was found dead, a policeman was killed, four others died from other causes, many were injured and pipe bombs plus a car with explosives found nearby.

When this pathetic failed coup was met with national and international condemnation and Trump censored by Twitter and Facebook, the barefaced president in his typical self-serving fashion, threw his stupid supporters under the bus, declaring; "Those who violently besieged our Capitol are the opposite of everything this administration stands for."

What a scandal. In a civilized country, Trump as the instigator of the riots he belatedly pretended to condemn, would be arrested.

Anyway, despite the USA having a flawed democratic system, they do have strong and tested institutions, the most outstanding in this situation being the courts. For at every level, despite the fact that Trump had appointed the majority of the judges, they stood up for the constitution. 

 But back to the failed coup; I have to wonder if General Michael Flynn had still been in the army, if that attempt to violently overthrow the democratic system in the USA might not have succeeded in at least starting a civil war?  For using tactics like those of their hero Vladimir Putin, Flynn could probably have been able to mobilize enough troops under his command to do some meaningful damage. For he had even suggested after Trump lost the November 3 election, that he should declare martial law and rerun the elections in the states he lost under military supervision! Although since Trump consistently used bone spur as a medical excuse to avoid military duty and called soldiers suckers and losers, between the both of them, they probably couldn't find enough white racists to sacrifice their lives for that loser. 

 But who knows, for although he is clearly delusional, he found millions of even more delusional Americans to vote for him!

 But I am straying into conjecture.

What the attempted coup in Washington on the 6th January 2021 further exposed, is just how racist a society the USA is.

Can you imagine if President Obama had become stark staring mad and had dared to mobilize a mob to take over the capital city after his second term had ended and he was obliged to give up power? I guarantee that not only would a significant number of his supporters have been shot on sight, but Obama himself would most likely have been lynched and so would any other black man that the white racists encountered for days and probably weeks to come! 

Although the democracy in the USA is very flawed as it can make the will of the majority irrelevant, Trump and his mob ha now taken away the ability of the Americans to ever again try and lecture any other county in the world about democracy!

But maybe that's not such a bad thing is it?

https://youtu.be/xpk-DCCgYqI