Thank you, @gloaming.
I don't know how to use this forum either, so apologies for glitches or any faux pas entry on my part. I cannot practice pediatric cardiology anymore due to illness, so I have been writing a memoir. Creative nonfiction narrative was my college major. I find that being present, acknowledging differences from "normal" experiences but not letting them lead to freak-outs, can be very helpful. Just: there. That happened. OK. I'll tell this doctor that.

But, on my own time, because right now, I'm not feeling that great, and can that be okay for just right now? I feel such a duty to "follow through" for the Mayo surgeons and docs and pacemaker docs who saved my life, and I exercise too much and get too thin as a result. Then grief, and my body nearly fully succumbs. Sounds dumb, right? A doctor should know better, right? Add in life-changing medical scares, and you have a very confused doctor-patient-mother-daughter-sister-more and things do not at all go the way you would think they would for a "doctor" with all the junk that goes with that title. We are all human. I hope my experience of all of this cardiac caper that may end me can help others. I love Mayo. They have saved my medical life. Now I have to get on with the rest of it, when I didn't think there would be that.

That is a daunting realization. And a welcome one. Blessings on you. Thx. E