I take a break from reporting ratings numbers and breathless remarks of sportscasters to observe an anniversary. It’s just a personal anniversary, and I don’t necessarily expect it to resonate across even my narrow readership here. So, with that warning, perhaps you want to jump on over to see what Pete has to say about the Orioles or read the latest dispatch Maese or Kevin have sent from Beijing.

Still with me?

Today marks a year since I nearly died.

To be a bit more descriptive, I did sort of die, but the four times my heart stopped, it got jolted back, kind of a cardiac version of what native Baltimoreans are given to call a “hot shot” when it refers to cars.

(An aside: I might repeat some of the material from a piece I wrote for the Sunday newspaper last year, but that was 10 months ago and I barely remember it, much less expect anyone else to.)

(An aside to the first aside: Because of space limitations, I had to cut about six paragraphs from that newspaper piece. It sort of reminded me of the often-played Jim Valvano “Never give up” speech, when his ruminations on life as cancer numbered his days were briefly interrupted by a broadcast worker signaling him to hurry and wrap it up.)

To be even more descriptive – and I warned you right at the top this would be highly self-indulgent – a case of pneumonia somehow produced an irregular heartbeat, which was somehow worsened by a medication I was given. My heart stopped three times in the hospital and once in the ambulance on the way from Carroll County Hospital to Johns Hopkins. But I was brought back by the staff at Carroll’s Cardiac ICU and by the Hopkins EMTs.

The problem was quickly diagnosed at Hopkins, and I will never forget the words cardiologist Dr. David Thiemann told me a year ago: “This is not going to kill you. Something else will kill you, but not this.”

Smart aleck. (Heart aleck?)

Any thanks I give the people who cared for me can’t be enough – the Carroll CICU staff, the EMTs and the wonderful doctors and other professionals at Hopkins. Especially the nurses.

And speaking of the nurses, one in particular put me on the road to recovery quickly. It was the day after I’d gotten to Hopkins, and as I laid there in my bed, I noticed my hands were shaking. I asked her if that were normal. Without even rolling her eyes, she told me in her German accent: “After what you’ve been through, anyone would have that.” She paused, then added: “Unless you just don’t give a s---.”

Apparently, there is no inoculation for smart aleck-ism at Hopkins.

It was almost two weeks and three surgeries before I could leave Hopkins. Among the operations I needed was a chest procedure to clear fluids related to the pneumonia. I mention this just so I can relate what, in my weakened state, I thought was a hilarious joke I told the doctors who would perform the operation: “I heard they have a special area where you chest surgeons can put your cars. It’s called Thoracic Park.”

I also left with a defibrillator in my chest. I’m not sure whether it’s the same model as Dick Cheney’s, but you probably wouldn’t want to go bird hunting with me.

I have been accused of playing “the death card” at the office – a charge I not only don’t deny, but also revel in. Just yesterday, I suggested a nice cake to mark my anniversary today. “How long you going to keep up with the death card?” was one response. “For a long, long time,” I replied.

Hey, I might as well do that in The Sun’s Sports department, because at home, I can’t get out of anything by clutching my chest a la Fred Sanford. “I almost died, you know,” I occasionally tell my wife. “Whatever,” she’ll say. “Bring the laundry basket down to the basement.”

Life is back to normal. I don’t know that I’ve become, say, more reflective. As my kids know, I have pretty much been a mushball forever. So if I choked up a little while carrying a grandson on my shoulders heading up the Ocean City Boardwalk earlier this month, that’s just me remembering doing the same for my daughter and son. And if I feel a tug at my heart – don’t worry, it’s the metaphorical one -- when I look around from my desk at The Sun and no longer see the many familiar faces who have left the paper, then that’s just what anyone would feel at the loss of colleagues who became friends. 

I haven’t become a better person, I’m afraid. And as you can certainly tell, I haven’t even become a better writer.

While cutting the grass today, I was mulling over what grand wisdom this piece could impart. Afterward, as I walked into the living room, I saw that our dachshund had left a present on the floor. There’s your insight, I thought as I scooped it. A year later, it’s the same, old poop, but at least I’m still around to pick it up.