The very consequential week

Ten years ago this week as very consequential for me. This week in 2016, I unexpectedly recived a stent in a 90% blocked coronary artery, and because of that, I’m still here to talk about it.

The story began on Monday, August 15, 2016 I went to my doctor because I thought my medication was making me feel bad. Nigel coached me on what to say, how best to stand up for myself. Neither of us expected that I’d be sent to the hospital in the back of an ambulance, let alone that they’d admit me so they could give a treadmill stress test the next day. That test was stopped after only a few minutes due to the readings. I was scheduled for an angiogram for the next day, Wednesday, andwhen they discovered the blocakage in my coronary artery, they inserted a stent. I went home the next day, Thursday, August 18, 2016, and on Friday, back at home, I mostly just rested and relaxed.

I talked about this story in great detail a few days after I got home, and in that post I said:

All of this came about because my doctor listened to me and investigated my complaints, but the reason I complained was because Nigel both nagged me and coached me. Without his support, I may not have pursued this, and there’s no way of knowing whether I’d have had another chance.

As I've said many times and in many ways, Nigel was my rock, my trusted advisor, my advocate, my coach, and the one person I could always count on—including taking me for treatment when my heart started acting up, like the two times I ended up in hospital. I spent the three years after getting the stent dealing with tachycardia, then atrial fibrillation, and also trouble with several prescriptions, and Nigel was there every step of the way.

The last time I was admitted to hospital (so far…) was around four months before Nigel died. In fact, when he was first admitted to hospital in September 2019, we joked about how it was his turn and the Middlemore “spa” (the hospital name is Middlemore). Ten days later, he was gone.

Around a month after Nigel died, I had a follow-up appointment with the cardiology team, who recommended me for cryoablation treatment to try to fix my afib. That appointment was the first medical thing I’d done after Nigel died—and suddenly realised I had to figure out who to name as my emergency contact, after a quarter century of Nigel being that person for me, and me for him. It was an incredibly difficult moment for me, but I managed to not cry in the waiting room.

Three months after that cardiology appointment, I shifted to Kirikiriroa-Hamilton. A couple months after that, we had the first Covid lockdown. In December 2020, I finally got my cryoablation procedure at Waikato Hospital (a day treatment), after months of delays caused by the insurance company I had at the time taking many months to finally decide to decline the claim, then there was Covid, and the fact I needed to see (and pay for) a private appointment with a cardiologist here in Hamilton to get onto the waiting list for the procedure.

When the day finally arrived, my brother-in-law drove me to the hospital, a my sister-in-law Barbara picked me up afterward (both because I wasn’t allowed to drive due to receiving a light anesthesia). Also, my sister-in-law Carolyn stayed at my house that night (in order for the hospital to let me go home, they required that I have someone stay at my place overnight—just in case, I guess). The procedure seems to have been a success, since I haven’t had any afib incidents since. But the we also lost Carolyn to cancer in February last year.

My story underscores several things. First, paying attention to one’s body is extremely important—obviously. It’s also important to have people on your “team”, and, as so many of my stories have underscored, when I married Nigel, it meant becoming part of a large family, and I know that if I need help again in the future, they’ll be there. However, I have to be honest: It’s not even remotely the same as having Nigel with me, in sickness and in health—though that particular phrase wasn’t actually part of our civil union or marriage vows.

I’ve had other health challenges since Nigel died, some scary (like the cryoablation procedure), others merely annoying, and most were just kind of meh. The family was, of course, there when I needed them to be, and I’ve been deeply grateful each time. I know, though, that if Nigel had been with me over the past nearly seven years, my journey would have been so much easier. Even so, there’s one thing more: I also know that Nigel would be proud of me for having successfully navigated the challenges of my health journey, things he never lived to see, and especially that I’ve been working hard on trying to prepare myself as well as I can for my elderly years. He’d also be sad that sometimes my journey’s been really difficult for me, but mainly he’d be happy that I chose to thrive well into the future (if the fates allow…).

In so many ways, this week a decade ago was a turning point, though some of what my journey was to become was utterly unimaginable for me back then. Even so, I’m still here, and still pushing forward. Sure, Nigel would be proud of me for that, but maybe more importantly, I’m proud of myself. That really is just like ten years ago.

Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 18

Sorry, one week off and I nearly forgot that 40 weeks agot today there was another song that reached Number One on the Billboard “Hot 100”. On August 16, 1986, “Papa Don't Preach” (video up top) by American singer Madonna hit the top of the charts. The song, which would be Number One for two weeks, was the second single from her third studio album, True Blue (the first single was “Live To Tell”, which was the subject of Part 11 of this series back in June).

I liked this song well enough at the time, but if I’m truly honest, that was at least in part because of the reactions of two different groups of people (I could be contrarian that way). The Wikipedia article linkd about describes it well:

The song sparked controversy upon release for its subject matter, drawing criticism from women's and family planning organizations, who accused Madonna of glamorizing teenage pregnancy. Conversely, pro-life groups praised it for seemingly endorsing motherhood over abortion.

I distinctly remember rolling my eyes at back then, snarling something like, “It’s just a fucking song, for fuck’s sake”. I had no more patience then for what I thought was over-reacation than I do now. Some things don’t change. Mind you, my snarl was only in my mind because I hardly ever swore back then—okay, some things DO change. Apparently.

I also well remember the music video, and part of the reason for that was the actor who played Madonna’s boyfriend, actor Alex McArthur, who I thought was quite pretty (he’s just under two years older than me). However, I also recognised Alexander from promotional materials from the 1985 lesbian film, Desert Hearts—even though I can’t remember actually seeing the film. None of that has anything to do with the song, really, but it was a thing back then. Watching the video now, I was struck by the times that the Twin Towers appeared in the background of the shots filmed in Staten Island. I doubt I paid any attention to that back in the day, but now it was the first thing that stuck out for me. Time can change some things.

“Papa Don't Preach” reached Number One in Australia and Canada, Number 3 in New Zealand (Gold), Number One in the UK (Gold), and Number One on the USA’s “Billboard Hot 100” and “US Dance Singles” charts, as well as Number One on the Cash Box “Top 100” chart and the Radio & Records “CHR & Pop” charts. It was certified Platinum in the USA.

The album True Blue reached Number One in Australia (4x Platinum), Canada (Diamond), New Zealand (5x Platinum), and the UK (7x Platinum), as well as reaching Number One on the USA’s ”Billboard 200” chart and on the Cash Box “Top 100 Albums” chart. It was certified 7x Platinum in the USA.

This series will return in two weeks, on August 30, with the final Number One for August. How will September go?

Previously in the “Weekend Diversion – 1986” series:

Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 1 – January 18, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 2 – February 15, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 3 – March 1, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 4 – March 15, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 5 – March 22, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 6 – March 29, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 7 – April 19, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 8 – May 3, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 9 – May 10, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 10 – May 17, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 11 – June 7, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 12 – June 14, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 13 – July 5, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 14 – July 12, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 15 – July 19, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 16 – July 26, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 17 – August 2, 2026

A project finally ends

Today I finished a project to install a wardrobe shelving system in my guest room wardrobe (this is the project I mentioned a couple weeks ago). The short video above shows the project.

This sort of project would normally take me two or three days, but this one took four weeks. Part of the reason for the extra time was that I had to make a LOT of repairs to the walls because the supports for the former single shelf were glued and nailed to the walls, and when I removed the supports, it tore chunks out of the wallboard.

However, the main reason it took so bloody long was that I started the project during the time I was taking that ill-fated prescription I talked about a couple weeks ago, and it’s taken time for me to feel like my usual self. Today I was determined to finish the project—forcing myself, if necessary—and I succeeded. My guest room is again neat, tidy, and ready for guests—FINALLY! This evening I turned on the bedside lamps so I could see the room as it should be every time I walked past the room. Kind of my reward, I suppose.

The video was made automatically for me by the Photos App on my iPad, including adding the backing music. I’d placed all the progress photos and videos I took over the weeks I worked on the project into an album I created, and then the App put all of them into the video, in order (though I rearranged a few photos because I’d added them to the album out of order). And, of course, the photos and videos are all mine.

The stuff of life

Many years ago (up to 15, I think), I switched us to the soy and linseed variety of a supermarket bread called Bürgen. It was for specific health reasons, and that decision meant that bread was a part of the life Nigel and I shared. Today it was announced that the Australian owners of the Bürgen brand are withdrawing it from New Zealand. That baked up some memories.

I suggested to Nigel that we switch to the bread because its soy and linseed were good for heart health, and especially because at the time it was the only low GI bread sold in supermarkets (this was well before my cardiac stent). Nigel and I ended up having some nearly every morning after that—in fact, it was part of Nigel’s weekday breakfasts for the last several years of his life (usually prepared by me): Peanut butter and jam on toast, and put on a plastic plate so he could bring it in the car on his commute to the office, and he’d use an old tea towel as a bib so he wouldn’t drop any on his work shirt. Because he’d often forget to bring them back into the house when he came home, he’d sometimes bring in a stack of plates and tea towels for me to deal with—and several times I had to go out to his car to collect them myself because we were starting to run out of the supplies (I mentioned all this in a a 2023 post (forst iterm).

After Nigel died I moved to Kirikiriroa-Hamilton and noticed that particular variety of bread was getting harder and harder to find, especially at my local Woolworths, where it was often out of stock (I could get it for more often by home delivery from Woolies, or from the nearest New World). So, I started using my breadmaker sometimes, and then started experimenting with other supermarket brands, including others with soy and linseed. That led to a bit of a revelation.

I was surprised at how much more fibre per 100 grams other brands had than the Bürgen loaf we’d always bought. In fact, I thought about blogging about that, since I’d talked about the bread and it also relates to my continuing health journey. If I’d done that post, I would’ve mentioned that the Bürgen Soy and Linseed bread has 4.4 grams of fibre per 100 grams of bread, along with 347g of sodium per 100g, and total cabs of 27.6g per 100 grams. This compares to the bread I usually buy these days, a “lower carb” loaf: Fibre is 8.9g per 100g, sodium is 355g per 100g, and total carbs is 24.8g per 100g. Well, at least the fibre of the current bread is a lot higher. But, there’s more!

As it happens, I’ve been learning a lot lately about healthier eating, and I learned that if you freeze bread, the carbs are turned into what’s called “resistant starch”, which is important because the body can’t break it down as quickly as normal starch, and that means the body treats it more like dietary fiber, which reduces the bread's glycemic index (GI), reducing blood sugar spikes (and lower GI bread was one of the reasons we switched to the Bürgen all those years ago). Bonus fact: refrigerating cooked pasta or white rice overnight does the same thing for them, and that doesn’t change when you re-heat it the next day. I definitely plan on starting to keep my bread in the freezer, but I need to clear space—and I only learned about these “resistant starch” tricks in the past week, so I’m cutting myself some slack on this.

in the past couplpe years, and probably partly because it was often difficult to get the Bürgen bread here in Hamilton, I gradually became less enthused about the bread we’d had for all those years, so I doubt I’ll miss it. However, the Bürgen slice size was smaller than most supermarket breads, and that I will miss.

Seeing the announcement this morning made me think of two things. First, how even something as small (literally) as a loaf of supermarket bread can be a constant in our lives. The other thing was that I really ought to resume trying to find a breadmaker recipe that I actually like (the results have been mostly “meh” for me for several years, which is why I hardly ever make bread any more). I know I probably won’t do that, though—there are far too many other things demanding my time, attention, and my sometimes limited energy. Besides, there are plenty of options available already made for me.

Yes, all that. But what I wouldn’t give to still be making peanut butter and jam on toast for Nigel. Of course.

A good day’s adventure

I had a good day today. The big event for today was that I was meeting-up with some of the family for lunch at the casino in central Kirikiriroa-Hamilton. First things first: Getting there was a challenge for me. Several challenges, actually.

The big challenge for me today was the fact that I’ve never driven myself to the casino before, and I usually get pretty anxious about driving somewhere I’ve never been. In this case, it was especially true because I’m not familiar with the streets in Central Hamilton. Nigel always drove us to places like that, and he never seemed to have the same issues that I do now. It's just yet another thing I need to work out on my own. Nevertheless, when faced with tasks that make me uncomfortable or anxious, I try to force myself to do things (like today’s trip), despite the unease I feel, because I refuse to let fear, great or small, stop me from doing things I want to do (except when I do let it do that, of course—it’s a journey…). Nigel was often impressed (surprised?) when I'd "feel the fear and do it anyway". Maybe because it wasn't often enough? 

As it happens, I only made two wrong turns, both of which were my fault, and not the GPS’ (because I’m not familiar with the layout of the streets, I twice turned a street earlier than the GPS commanded, but I guess that at least I became slightly more familiar with some of the streets in the area?). When I turned onto the street that I knew led to the casino carpark, Apple Maps kept growling at me with what seemed like increasing annoyance (though reason tells me it was probably just increasing frequency…), over and over again demanding that I “return to the route”. Instead, I ordered Siri to “cancel navigation”, and silence again reigned supreme.

Today was the birthday of one of my sisters in law, which was the reason for our gathering. I thought the food was nice (I had the fish and chips, for the record, and the fish of the day was snapper). One odd thing, though, was that if a customer doesn’t finish their meal (And, again for the record, I absolutely finished my meal), they can’t take the leftovers home. It supposedly has something to do with food safety, but I’ve never heard of a NZ cafe doing that.

In general, casinos aren’t a draw for me, mainly because I’m not the least bit interested in gambling (unless you count me buying NZ Lotto tickets, where the profits are returned to the community, not shareholders). The Hamilton casino is much smaller than Auckland’s, of course, but it has a strong advantage for Hamilton in that it’s pretty central in the CBD (aka “downtown” in Americanese). But both the Auckland and Hamilton casinos are mainly about gambling, and so, they aren’t places I’d go to except for occasions like today’s.

All joking aside, I had a good day today, and I got myself to my destination and back home again. Actually, I already knew how to get home from the casino, and that means that next time I’ll also know how to get to the casino, too. So, it turns out that today’s mission wasn’t just a travel adventure, it was also a genuine learning opportunity.

Today was a good day. But I still didn’t gamble—well, apart from the drive to the casino, maybe.

Framing my egg choices

It’s not unusual for me to revist ttopics I talked about in previous posts, and it’s usually because something’s changed or I have new information. This post is about both. I actually had two cooking-related posts planned for last month, but only one made it onto the blog, and that one was without the relevant photos. I worked on the other one at the end of last month, and it was meant to be about revisiting my past—until I discovered something that meant I needed to start over, and that’s where this story truly begins.

In two different posts I talked about a breakfast meal Nigel called “Toasty Eggs”, which is basically a fried egg cooked inside a piece of bread with a round hole cut in the middle. It’s unhealthy, but also really nice, and I’m sure part of that is just because of the nostalgia. Both of the posts I mentioned the meal in were about memory.

In the first of the two posts, from October 2023, I talked about it in connection with my memories of Nigel and also form my childhood, and I talked about two things that struck me when I looked at the post last month. In that post, I mentioned how challenging I found making it because:

The hole in the bread had to be big enough to contain the egg, but not big enough to compromise the structural integrity of the bread frame—it was delicate work. Then, I had to flip it at exactly the right moment to cook the white on the other side without breaking the yolk, and then cooking it just long enough to cook the white without overcooking the yolk.

The second thing I noticed was that I mentioned the children’s cookbook we had in the house when I was growing up, which I later found a facsimilie edition of that cookbook, something I talked about back in January, and I even referred to my 2023 post and how the cookbook had comfirmed my memory of the book calling the dish “eggs in a frame”. However, neither in January nor since did I never actually read the recipe—until I was getting ready for the July post that didn’t happen, and it was all because I wanted a photo of the recipe page.

When I actually read the recipe (at right), I saw that it said to cook the bread one side and flip it over before putting the egg into the whole. When I made it in late July, I thought about doing exactly that because I thought it might make the bread stronger before I added the raw egg. When I saw that the recipe said to cook the bread on one side first, I also realised that it would make it unnecessary to flip the bread.

When I make ordinary fried eggs (or poached eggs, for that matter), I break the raw eggs into a ramekin first, both in case the yolk breaks and I need to switch to scrambled eggs, and to make it easier to pour the egg into the pan. For fried eggs, I then add a teaspoon or so of water to the frypan and put a lit over it. The point is to let the steam cook the top of the egg while the hot pan cooks the underside (I saw some TV chef advise that). The lid I use is see-through, and I can watch until the yolk and white is properly set, and over time I’ve worked out by watching it when I can turn off the heat and let the residual heat finish the last few seconds.

I did basically the same thing with the “eggs in a frame” in the photo up top, and it was far easier than it was at any other time in New Zealand: The bread was, indeed, stronger after frying one side first, and the final result was more like a fried egg in a frame, which was the intent. The thing is, though, I know that when I was a little kid I followed recipes precisely, and that means I probably cooked the bread on one side first (and that I probably used butter to fry it in…). And I simply forgot that detail in the decades between when I made it in the USA and when I started making it again in New Zealand. If Nigel minded my mucked-up method, he never said anything—but I know he’d prefer it done the “proper” way.

When I was researching the post in July and read that 2023 blog post, I realised something else: I spelled it “Toasty Egg” because in my mind it was toast-and-egg. While Nigel never wrote down the name (and never had any reason to, of course), I think he’d probably have spelled it “Toastie Egg” because a toasted sandwich (sometimes called “grilled” in the USA, though there are differences) is often called a “toastie” in New Zealand, as in “a cheese toastie” instead of the USA’s “grilled cheese”. In my mind, Nigel used a common NZ term for something with fried bread to name this meal, while I made the name from the two elements in it, not directly connected to any other dish. Nigel would sometimes tease me, joking that, “you Americans are a simple people,” and this is exactly the sort of thing he’d tease me about—and I now know that he wasn’t wrong (to paraphrase a common Kiwi saying).

Back in July, his post was going to be about me making a meal I made as a kid, then again decades later on for Nigel, and more recently for myself. I wanted to add the specific cookbook reference I mentioned in 2023, and that led me to a whole bunch of realisations, all of which I may never have connected together if it wasn’t for this blog. And that right there is why I still blog.

Eggs, cooked whatever way, are optional.

Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 17

It’s a new month, and time for the song that reached Number One on the Billboard “Hot 100” on August 2, 1986: “Glory of Love” (video up top) by American musician Peter Cetera. It was Cetera’s first song after he left American “rock band with horns” Chicago, and it would be Number One for two weeks—the first song that wasn’t a one-week hit since the end of June. The song was the lead single from Cetera’s second solo studio album, Solitude/Solitaire. The was also on the soundtrack album for the film The Karate Kid Part II.

I liked this song well enough at the time, though the music video did nothing for me, in part because it included a lot (in my opinion) of scenes from The Karate Kid Part II, a movie I never saw, nor wanted to (or any other version, for that matter). I had nothing against the movie—it just wasn’t my sort of film. By the time this song came out, I’d been very familiar with Cetera for many years because of his work with Chicago. In fact, one of the first albums I ever bought was the band’s 1972 album, Chicago V. After that, Cetera continued to be part of Chicago up until Chicago 17, the final album he recorded with the band, a recod that is still the band’s best-selling album.

Having said all that, and even though I heard Chicago’s various singles on the radio (I’m an Illinois native who lived in the City of Chicago for a dozen years, after all…), I was probably more aware of Cetera as a solo artist, beginning with this week’s song. Unlike with Phil Collins, I never confused Cetera’s solo work with his work with Chicago, and while I don’t know for sure why that is, it’s probably because his Solitude/Solitaire album was released a bit more than two years after Chicago 17 was released. That’s unlike Phil Collins who had solo albums out contemporaneously with Genesis albums.

“Glory of Love” reached Number 9 in Australia, Number One in Canada, 25 in New Zealand, 3 in the UK (Silver), and Number One on the USA’s “Billboard Hot 100” and “US Adult Contemporary” charts. I didn’t receive a certification in the USA.

The album Solitude/Solitaire reached Number 75 in Australia, 20 in Canada, 56 in the UK, and Number 23 on the USA’s ”Billboard 200”. The album was certified Platinum in the USA.

The The Karate Kid Part II soundtrack album reached Number 96 in Australia, 86 in Canada, and 30 on the USA’s ”Billboard 200”. The album didn’t chart in New Zealand or the UK, and wasn’t certified in any of the five countries I include in these posts.

This series will return in two weeks, on August 16, and it’s another two-week Number One. August will definitely be less work for me.

Previously in the “Weekend Diversion – 1986” series:

Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 1 – January 18, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 2 – February 15, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 3 – March 1, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 4 – March 15, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 5 – March 22, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 6 – March 29, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 7 – April 19, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 8 – May 3, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 9 – May 10, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 10 – May 17, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 11 – June 7, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 12 – June 14, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 13 – July 5, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 14 – July 12, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 15 – July 19, 2026
Weekend Diversion: 1986, Part 16 – July 26, 2026