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Healthier Than Ever, a Certain Columnist Straggles Back to the Keyboard

You didn't think I could keep up this disappearing act forever, did you?

Hello again from a guy who missed you readers more than you could ever miss me. I'm back at my cluttered desk after nearly two months off to recover from heart surgery. I'm not 100 percent yet, but I'm closing in by the day. I look forward to inflicting columns on the waiting world for years to come.

You can't imagine how much your get-well messages cheered and propelled me. My cup doesn't just runneth over — it sloshes all over the room. To the many hundreds of you who said it ain't quite breakfast without Bob Levey's Washington, much gratitude.

But of course, there would be no gratitude, no newspaper column, nothing at all if it weren't for the terrific medical care I received. To Dr. Albert Pfister, Dr. Steven Boyce and the whole crew at Washington Hospital Center, a ringing round of applause.

These people removed an aortic valve that no longer opened and gave me a piece of Dacron that should click (in every sense of the word) forever. Then, 16 days later, they performed a second operation to undo complications from the first. Throughout, they made the whole process seem easy.

They also made me appreciate how great it must be to save lives, almost routinely, every day. The rest of us are just fish who swim around in the tank and try not to smack against the sides. As I told Dr. Pfister one morning, he and his comrades redirect destiny. In my case, they gave me a running shot at 25 or 30 more years. What could be better, or more basic?

And what could be better proof of how blessed we are to live in Washington? When I needed this surgery, I didn't have to spend weeks chasing down the right way to go. I picked up the phone and made exactly one call, to a hospital three miles from my home. Within minutes, some of the most talented heart surgeons in the world had me scheduled.

It's as if I called Tiger Woods, asked him to play a round of golf and heard him say, "Monday at 10?"

Thanks, too, to the many colleagues who filled all this space all these weeks. And a special salute to the captains of this newspaper ship for telling me to take as much time off as I needed. Not every boss would say that, or has said it.

How do I feel? Much better than before, in the ways that count.

I can walk three miles a day — and do — without the slightest strain, without even having to draw a deep breath. During the first three months of this year, just before the surgery, I could barely manage a mile, and I'd have to lean against a tree, gasping, at least four times. I don't (and won't) need any special rehabilitation, drugs, equipment, diet or faith healers. I'm doing what I always did, and always could do, with much less difficulty.

I'm also ruminating a lot about how fortunate I am to live in 1997. Aortic valve replacement surgery wasn't even invented until 1969. I can hardly wait for the first fool to tell me how great medical care was in the good old days. I'm living proof (phrase carefully chosen) of the advances medicine has made.

How will I feel as time goes on? As you know if you've ever had major chest surgery, it's the slicing itself that whacks you hardest.

When they lay open your breastbone, it never knits the way it was. Reaching for a can of soup on an upper shelf is still a daunting experience, seven weeks after the initial surgery. I have aches and pains across my upper chest 24 hours a day, and I can expect them for many more months, the doctors say.

But the pain has slowly shifted from stabs to pangs. It has become discomfort, not debilitation. It's a charley horse of the chest, and no longer a raw wound.

If I want to lift a full basket of laundry, I can now do it, easily. If I want to throw a baseball, I can now do it, without more than a slight twinge. The combination of Tylenol and time should keep me headed in the same happy direction.

My bottom line on the whole experience: Your maiden aunt was right. If you live carefully, eat carefully, don't smoke, don't overdrink, you will have reserves to call on when you need them. I would never be doing as well as I am if I puffed a pack a day, ate ice cream whenever I felt like it and then lobbed myself at the medical profession and cried, "Save me!"

What's ahead in Bob Levey's Washington? A summer of columns about this dizzy home town of ours.

Our 17th annual Send a Kid to Camp campaign begins on Monday. Our monthly neologism contest concludes (and a new one begins) within the first few days of June. There will be a series on bosses — what makes them good, what makes them bad. Around the edges, you can expect the usual collection of chuckles, goofiness, hometown tales, people caught in the act of being people.

As always, I welcome your calls and scribbles. My phone number is 202-334-7276. My address is Bob Levey, The Washington Post, Washington, D.C. 20071. My e-mail address is leveyb@washpost.com. Let me hear from you. Meanwhile, thanks again for your caring, your kindness, your wonderful loyalty.