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Stop And Smell My Roses

By Adam Pick on April 28, 2008

This is slightly off-topic but…

Since my aortic valve replacement operation, I have slowed down a bit. (I don’t mean that I have physically slowed down. Nope. I’m still exercising about five times a week.)

The slow down I’m referring to is my enhanced ability to better appreciate all that life has to offer – especially my family and friends. I believe the most fitting cliche for this thought process is simply, “Stop and smell the roses.”

Well… Guess what?

I decided to take the cliche literally.

When Robyn (my wife) and I moved into our new house, I decided to become our gardener and tend to the newly planted roses in the front yard. We have white, red, purple, orange and pink roses.

Although it is spring here in Los Angeles, it feels like summer. Yesterday, it reached over 90 degrees. As a result of the great weather, our roses are going into full bloom. I thought you might like to see some pictures. So, I posted them in this blog.

Come to think of it, I am heading outside right now to cut a few roses for Robyn. She is getting home late from work tonight. So, I am going to make us some dinner and the roses will be a nice touch for the dinner table.

Keep on tickin! And, keep on smelling your roses!
Adam

Written by Adam Pick
- Patient & Website Founder

Written by Adam Pick - Patient & Website Founder

Adam Pick is a heart valve patient and author of The Patient's Guide To Heart Valve Surgery. In 2006, Adam founded HeartValveSurgery.com to educate and empower patients. This award-winning website has helped over 10 million people fight heart valve disease. Adam has been featured by the American Heart Association and Medical News Today.

mercy turan says on April 30th, 2008 at 9:33 pm

Dear Adam: Your roses are beautiful, your advice, as usual, right on!
It is too bad I can’t appreciate their fragance. Home grown roses are always the sweetest,,and a big difference from purchased hybridized ones.
I just attented a Rose Show and contest sponsored by the Gainesville Rose Society (Gainesville, as in Shands Hospital at the Univ. of Fla, Gainesville). I had goosebumps while admiring the winning entries, so much beauty. They had a special section for Old Garden Roses sometimes called Heirloom Roses. Those are the ones that grow well here in central Florida with our sometimes humid, most of the times hot climate. They are the roses one sees resting on old fences surrounding old houses in this area, and planted years ago in old Southern cemeteries, hence, they grow on their own, with little care or none at all.

John is doing well, just now beginning upper body workout at the cardiac rehab gym, but he is looking forward to improvement every day, and hopefully being able to return to work in June. We’ll see. We all have a fresh and new perspective in life. And as the saying goes in Spanish, “No hay mal que por bien no venga” (also the name a Gloria Stefan song!). Roughly translated it is “every cloud has a silver lining”. Gob Bless.
Mercy, mother of John Turan.