Eleven more days in France

November 4, 9:04 AMSF International Living ExaminerPatrick Mattimore

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Picture of the Jura Mountains
MEPHOTO

My scheduled departure for my new digs in Beijing, China is November 15. This will likely be my last report from France, though since I received my Mandarin set of Pimsleur tapes in the mail today, I’m pretty sure I’ll be looking for excuses not to study those.

This is what I'm leaving. The photo on the left is a picture from out kitchen window taken last week and the picture below was taken about the same time on one of my favorite walks around here.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the fact that I’ve got a funny blip in my heart rhythm (not of the emotional kind) and today was my scheduled day in the hospital to see if they could push the electrical reset button. Here’s some background.
http://www.examiner.com/x-10851-SF-International-Living-Examiner~y2009m10d1-A-personal-take-on-the-Swiss-health-system

So, to make a short story long, this is what happened.  After picking, prodding, weighing, measuring, fitting me out on a bed and one of those attractive hospital unis, and drawing blood, one of the doctors decided I needed another week to ripen.

Really confusing stuff. At first, I was to have a chemical procedure but one doctor decided yesterday that based on the thickness of blood around the wall (or something) that there was little chance of success and they were going straight to the shock. That was okay with me as long as the anesthesiologist didn’t screw up.

Then this a.m. they changed plans and decided to give me a down the throat stop breathing procedure today to check something or other before doing the shock tomorrow. I wasn’t wild about that, but that got tabled anyway because another doctor decided he didn't really want to do the deep throat thing but that he needed my blood thinned out at least one more week. Bottom line is I go back next Wednesday for what will hopefully be shock only and release.

I’m wondering whether these guys are watching too much House as everything seems to get decided by committee. Oh well, those of you who have Duke our 15-year-old dog in your SF International Living longevity poll might want to put down another fiver on the canine.