Same song, second verse

Same song, second verse. Could get better, but it's gonna get worse.

As you're soon going to hear, this has been quite a quarter of a year for Barbara and me.

Going all the way back to August 30, when Barbara was life-flighted to Kearney with a sepsis scare, we have been looking life and death squarely in the eyes.

So have many of you. We know that now. While we people -- day-by-day -- act like living is no big deal, the real truth is that every minute of every day is precious for every one of us.

What I'm telling you -- ladies and gentlemen -- is that life is both precious and priceless. Yours. Ours. Everyone's.

That said, let's skip back to Gene's "second verse."

As some of you read in my "Morris on Norris" column, I suffered a heart attack and had a heart catherization and a stent implanted last week.

"No big deal," I wrote, "since medical miracles are now a routine occurrence."

But our God, trickster that He is, had more in store for the Morris family.

This past Friday -- after huffing and puffing for a week or two -- I just about passed out but, luckily, just in the nick of time, my wife, Barbara; my daughter, Chelle; and my friends, Natalie and Roger, were by my side and, within minutes, had me loaded up and car-lifted to the now familiar E.R. beds at Community Hospital.

Once again, the E.R team performed its magic.

Melissa, Kristen, Lindsey, John and others whose names I didn't catch hovered over me, bringing me back from breathlessness and helping Barbara, Chelle and me face the new truth: I have C.O.P.D.

As most of you know, that stands for Chronic Oppressive Pulmonary Disease.

Doctor West gave me the news. "Gene," he explained, "after 40 years of smoking two packs a day, combined with your heart attack, the C.O.P.D. comes as no surprise."

You might think this is a bunch of bull, but C.O.P.D. will be easier for me than almost anyone else.

"Why's that?," I'm sure you must be asking." "Because," I explain, "my three favorite things to do are write, read and think and I still can do all three as completely as I could before."

In fact, in a way, I'm better off now because I'm freer of distractions because I can write, read and think at home, rather than at the office, where calls, orders and questions continually take time away from my thinking and typing.

So, you think, this is just Ole Gene's way of making the best of a bad situation.

Hey, you're probably right. But it's like Give 'em Hell Harry decided after the flood, "The trees have been stripped away, but that sure makes it easier to build lakes."