It seems to be coming tradition now to go out and celebrate the anniversary of my Open Heart Surgery ( Fall of 2018).
A quick recap on that: In the Spring of 2018, I ended up getting a sepsis infection- infection in the blood system. After a week of what I thought was the Flue, I ended up getting checked into the ER at Porter Hospital in Denver. Turns out I was two days away from death. Three weeks later, I was finally out of the hospital and on to recovery. Though we never found the cause, the source of the infection wound up being my VSD (hole between two chambers) that I’ve had my whole life. So, the docs said close it- after recovered from Sepsis of course. Being that the VSD was congenital (had since birth), I got in with Children’s Hospital of Denver. Was an added bonus that one of my best friends that I’ve know since elementary school is Pediatric Cardiologist at Children’s and was actually on the team for my surgery.
The first year after surgery, just seemed to be focused on getting back to work. Last year I started the tradition of going out and celebrating my Open Heart Surgery Anniversary- making a long weekend down to Kebler Pass and Lost Lake, outside Crested Butte to celebrate.
For my 3rd year post Open Hear Surgery Anniversary, I headed down to Chama for a long weekend. I booked a day to ride the Cumbres and Toltec on Thursday, with plans to chase and photograph the train on Friday. I booked a few nights at the Chama Hotel and Shops– right across from the train yard. It was fun staying in Chama and an added bonus, my pal Dan and his family were doing there annual family train ride gathering, so after a fun day of photo taking with Dan and Nancy, headed over to join the family for a fun dinner get together.
Saturday mornings drive home would end up being one of the more magical ones I’ve had.
Act 2: The Chase out of Chama (and back)
