Wednesday, August 1, 2012  How Do You Mend a Broken Heart?  My
heart is broken. Literally, it doesn’t work. At least not until
last Thursday when I went into the hospital for a procedure
meant to cure the old ticker. Here’s how it went: I’m lying on
the table, cold white stickers all over my body to monitor my
heart rate and other things.  “You’ll be awake during the
procedure,” the nurse informs me. “You knew that, right?” Dr.
Marvelous injects the area of entry, numbing the region until it
feels like ice.  “Cold, then a flush of heat,” he says. “Now,
the pressure.” Suddenly, there is a wire in my groin, inching
past my intestines on its way up to my broken heart. Above me is
a futuristic TV screen the length of a football field,
displaying the surreal imagery. I avert my eyes for a second but
can’t look away from the long, hot wire bobbing around my
insides like a fishing lure atop a sunlit lake. “Is that my
heart?” I ask the nurse.  “I can feel it,” I tell her. “I can
feel the catheter.” “Just try to relax