Dang. Now I’ve got the Sonny and Cher song stuck in my head. How cool was life back in that day if you know when that song came out. What a great time to grow up. But this column isn’t about the variety show version of life or worldly spices sprinkled all over its smorgasbord of entrees. I’m talking about the beating of one’s heart — literally.

Of all of the aches and pains and symptoms and side effects resulting from my heart surgery, one stands out above all the others. But let’s take a moment and review the ongoings going on. Simply because this column is my groove. While not —  actually, while —complaining and in no particular order, let’s spin some 33 1/3 RPMs of fun resulting from bypass and valve replacement surgery.

Up front, my sternum still aches most days. I’ve been informed this might never go away. Perhaps I shouldn’t have put so much faith in hearing it takes 10 weeks to 12 weeks to heal. It doesn’t. It was that long before I could start to rebuild strength and become as active in life as I was before surgery, Healing fully is a whole other subject. Like the concrete in Hoover Dam, being fully settled will take longer than my lifetime. I have plenty of twinges and spasms to remind me.

How about those legs? I’ve always been told I have great legs, especially my calves. OK, too personal. But speaking of calves, mine are constantly tight.
Maybe it’s from all the walking I do now. Daily walking is another side effect you don’t pay any attention to before surgery. It’s 3 miles a day, five days a week (sounds like a local paper, heh).
So perhaps that’s explainable. But how about my thighs? While leaving the weird stuff aside, the right thigh still aches where they took out a vein and now has aches all the way up to where the vein is no longer located. My left thigh has numbness that comes and goes and sometimes affects the whole leg. Some non-doctor, internet-related research shows it’s from the “frog leg position” one is put in during surgery. Mine lasted nine hours. Ribbit.

Speaking of hospital positions, oh my aching back. Ten days in a hospital bed will do it to you no matter the hospital or bed, as my walks constantly remind me. Then there’s the constant runny nose — sometimes a little bloody — that probably results from the several medications I’ll be on seemingly forever. Or my jaw, which goes numb from time to time. Or just how weird I feel from being split open and put back together. Humpty Dumpty’s got nothin’ on me. Except he’s still fat, while I’ve lost 30 pounds and kept it off. Wait, there’s a bonus in all this? It’s little comfort when my blood pressure shows high. That makes taking my blood pressure just another way to make my blood pressure high.

I wish I could have concluded at the time of my 12-week (non)healing this is how things go now in life number two I get the privilege of living. And during that privileged time, I can address all of them and make things better. While they irritate me and work on me mentally in my first year of needed grace and healing, it’s comforting to know these too shall pass.

With all of that said, there’s one ongoing symptom that poses quite the hurdle. To paraphrase Edgar Allen Poe: “It’s the beating of my hideous heart.” After ignoring it for more than 60 years, believe me, it’s weird to feel it nearly every waking moment whether hectic, peaceful, anxious or just watching the game. Making this new aspect of my life even more entertaining are premature ventricular contractions. My heart decides skipping a beat is something it wants to do 20 percent of the time. Imagine taking your pulse and one of the thumps doesn’t thump. So, what does one do when all one can hear is their own heart while living with a condition where seemingly everything is related to the heart?

Well, you make your heartbeat evidence you’re living. It’s easier, yet also harder, than you think when you’ve ignored your heart for much of your life. Today, my unique heartbeat tells me I’m alive. I say unique because according to a book I read, I’m fearfully and wonderfully made — and for a purpose. No matter how many folks tell me my heart condition is due to my beliefs, my beliefs tell me I’m here for a reason. After all, it’s why we ask: Why am I here? Why am I the way that I am?  Why do I think the way I do?

I don’t have all the answers for me or you. But I do know this: They are the right questions in seeking the creator of you as a creation. Put another way with am old-school reference, “I like this heart, Dick (Clark), it’s got a nice beat. I’ll give it a 10.”

May your life be a hit. Because it’s a one-hit wonder. That said, I got you, babe. So perhaps it’s two hits.

Craig Hall is owner and publisher of the Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com