Spider and Jeanne Robinson. Photo copyright by Greg McKinnon.

Spider Robinson reports encouraging health news, for both himself and his daughter, in his current blog post:

At the end of August, I began experiencing an odd sense of queasiness. It didn’t interfere with appetite or digestion, and was only annoying, but it wouldn’t go away. After three days, on August 31, a Saturday evening, the queasiness intensified and changed, moved slightly up my torso, and became more like chest pain.

But not very bad chest pain—perhaps 5 or 6 on a scale of 10. I very nearly blew it off, took a couple of Tylenol and called my doctor in the morning. Good thing I changed my mind: I would unquestionably never have awakened.

Instead, with great reluctance, I called Dr. Susanne Schloegl at home. She saved my life with four words. “Call 911. Right now,” she said.

So I did, and less than three minutes later, kind strangers wheeled a gurney in my front door.

Then things accelerated for a while: a water taxi ride to the mainland at near hydroplaning speed, followed by two high-speed ambo races through a town full of drunks on a Saturday night, first to Lion’s Gate Hospital, where heart attack was confirmed, and then immediately to St. Paul’s in downtown Vancouver, which happens to have one of the best heart units in the country. I have nothing but praise for the emergency-response system that serves Bowen Island; by their haste, they did as much to save my life as anyone else. If the water-taxi had been out of service, they had a chopper ready.

Then things slowed down again for awhile. My left anterior descending coronary artery was found to be completely and totally blocked. So a Dr. James Wood, whom I have not yet met socially, sent a tiny videocamera in through my femoral artery, kept pushing until it was inside my heart, and fixed matters from there, re-opening the shut artery and installing a stent to keep it open. I was awake the whole time, blindfolded, and never felt a thing. Hell, I didn’t even miss Breaking Bad the following evening. A week later, I could no longer find the mosquito-bite sized mark that was the only sign left by life-saving cardiac surgery.

On Saturday September 7, they sent me home, where I’m typing this, acutely aware that I am very lucky to be doing so. They said if I’d arrived at St. Paul’s as much as half an hour later, the consequences would have been catastrophic; instead, I am expected to make a full and complete recovery.

So that’s my own good news. Then there’s my daughter’s, which makes mine seem a comparatively small thing. Hers is a no-foolin’ miracle.

First, I cannot tell you how much joy it gives me to announce that, for the time being anyway, Terri, uh….well….she doesn’t seem to have breast cancer anymore. It went away. For now, at least.

Don’t bother telling me that’s impossible, because I already know it. When you’re Stage IV, it’s way too late to hope for much but a merciful end. Established metastases don’t just….ungrow, not ever. Certainly not in several widely separated locations, all at once.

Make that hardly ever.

Hers all went away someplace, leaving only the original two tiny tumors in her portside breast, and after a pause to recover from the shock, her doctors gradually realized there was now a point to a mastectomy after all. That was done, and now the last of the reconstruction surgery is finally over with and recovered from, and she looks and feels great. For further info, see Terri’s superb blog at www.gracefulwomanwarrior.com.

They’ll be testing her at regular intervals for the rest of her life, of course. Fingers crossed. But the shadow has passed from that house for the time being, and all rejoice.

Elsewhere in that post, Robinson talks about his current and upcoming writing projects, several old books available in new formats, and much more on his career. The full post is worth reading for any Robinson fan.