We've lost another character that made his mark on Interchange, Pete Gates, the paint chip expert. His wife Ann wrote to me that he had been sick for several months, but refused to see a doctor. Finally, on June 14th he was feeling bad enough to allow his family to take him to the hospital, and he became unresponsive as they loaded him into the ambulance. He never woke up, and passed away at 1:30am on June 15th. His wise comments will be missed.

I have no information on any funeral arrangements, but my guess is that Pete didn't believe in anything like that. Goodbye old friend, may every switch in the hereafter be lined for you, and every signal be green.

Sad news, indeed. Godspeed and high greens!...................mld

Wow. I didn't know he wasn't OK or I'd would have pestered him to get checked. My sincere condolences to Ann.

I swear the #1 cause of death for men over 60 is stubbornness. Terrible.

If you’ve been through an insidious life threatening condition, you don’t t attribute the failure of a person to respond to a developing condition as “stubbornness”.
As you get older-and I mean over 40 (40 is the old age of youth, 50 the youth of old age) you start to experience the “indignities and infirmities of old age”. You have to thread the needle for vigilance without going full hypochondriac.

I remember reading a sports column about a major league baseball player who hit a home run at age 47, the author he too was 47 and had just added bran to his diet.
The vast majority of these episodes are transient and insignificant.
Eight years ago, I started to have a series experiences, that lacking any medical training I found insignificant and unrelated.

In April 2018, I was on the engine crew of the 26 and found myself completely gassed breaking the bank. It was early in the morning, I was in my 50’s, had just driven two hours, was operating on about five not very good hours of sleep, hadn’t had food or coffee, it’s an oxygen-deprived environment, and despite being a gym rat, there’s no exercise that duplicates heaving the spike. That summer, I began doing cardio for the first time in years and just couldn’t get the increased performance I had obtained in the past. Occasionally, I would stand up and I would experience vertigo.

I had no idea I was pancytopenic (low blood counts in everything). In October, I had my third and final Q-trip for Road Conductor. We went to Bridge 60 tower to meet with the D-L dispatcher. After climbing those four flights of steps, I just couldn’t get my breath. Again, it’s early. Long drive..I’m toting 30 pounds In my grip. The rest of the day, completely uneventful.

Two days later, I’m getting ready for bed and my leg is blown up like a balloon. I thought it was a gym injury from the 1000 pound leg presses I was doing at the time. The next day my boss saw my gimp and asked me what’s up. I told him, and he said let me see. He said dude, get thee to a doctor.

Since I was one of the people who didn’t get to keep his doctor, I went to a ready care, who dispatched me to an imaging center, who sent me to the ER.
As it turned out, I not only had a DVT (deep vein thrombosis) but a double pulmonary embolism or PE (all fancy names for blood clots). I knew how serious a PE was, I had an uncle die at 28 with a bun in the oven because he was immobilized after contracting pneumonia from walking to get help when his truck was disabled during one of those 1950’s hurricanes. They didn’t account for “venous stasis” much then, and not at all with otherwise healthy young men.

So, in October 2018, my initial oncologist announced “no evidence of cancer”. (wrong, clots in active people are). Since my B-12 levels were on the low side of normal and I had some tingling in my fingers, he gave me B-12. I felt great, but my blood levels barely budged. I had to argue to get biopsied. In April 2019, and it turned out I had an extraordinarily rare chronic low-grade lymphoma.

Still, he jerked around, fixated on my “D-dimer” levels, keeping me on Eliquis. On
December 13, 2019, I got the worst back spasm I ever got. Since I couldn’t use Advil, I went to the ER. By that time I was critically low. I had no idea I was working out with a 7.5 hemoglobin and a lot of interns and residents were astounded. But was telling was the hematologist on duty told me “good thing you decided to come in yesterday, or you’d be dead by Christmas”.

I was lucky enough to be lucky. That said, don’t be stupid. Get a CBC, A1C, PSA and everything else your doctor recommends, but don’t forget no matter what, you will get older until you die.

Very much agree. A lot of us here are either becoming, or are already "of the geeze". Knock wood I'm still healthy. 30 years ago, the wife cajoled me into going to the ER after a hellaciously bad flu grew into a hellaciously bad headache. After a spinal tap and three weeks of intravenous antibiotics, I made it through meningitis. That taught me to pay attention to my health and maintenance. Moral of the story: If something seems to be going wonky, get it checked sooner than later. That thing making you feel miserable just might kill you.