I had a big to-do list this last weekend. I had every intention of taking down all of the Christmas decorations and packing them up. My wife and I had some shopping to do, as we both had gift cards on the verge of expiration. I had intended to make pizza dough, which requires getting an early start. I had a blog post that I was late putting up. Lots to do.

And as I lay there, staring up at the ceiling of room 43 in the emergency department of the hospital, I thought about how at this point I’d be happy just to be home.

My wife was right next to me, holding my hand, being soothing, but occasionally reminding me how much I’d scared her earlier.

It all began the week before. I’d called my doctor to schedule an appointment to follow up on my blood pressure medication. While I talked with him, I brought up another unpleasant medical issue, one that a lot of men face when they start getting on in years. While I did not relish the thought of the exam that would be necessary, I did hold out hope for a long term solution.

At the end of my exam my doctor prescribed a new medication.

“It’s an alpha blocker. Should help with your blood pressure too,” he said, cheerily. That’s good news, I thought. Anything that helps get my blood pressure down sounds good to me. Before I left he gave me the usual admonition to get out there and exercise, and check into the Mediterranean Diet for help with my nutritional intake. He’s very encouraging when it comes to being healthy, starting with diet and exercise. Gotta like that approach.

My wife picked up my new medicine on Friday. It’s a cute little periwinkle pill. “It might make him sleepy,” the pharmacist said, “so be sure he takes it at night before bed time.”

Sleepy. I always prefer sleepy when it’s bed time. They go together well.

After taking the aforementioned little periwinkle pill and climbing in to bed, I relaxed… but soon noticed that I wasn’t all that sleepy. In fact, my heart was pounding a little.

But I eventually drifted off, and slept well.

My wife and I woke at nearly seven-thirty Saturday morning. I felt great.

“We slept in!” My wife observed happily. “To some, seven-thirty is the crack of dawn. For us, it’s sleeping in,” she went on. We both laughed at the thought.

Our conversation turned to other topics, and I got up to use the bathroom. I was standing there, listening to my wife’s thoughts about the academic situation we’re facing with one of our teenagers, when suddenly things changed.

The world started getting dark. It was as if someone were lowering the shades on my eyes.

My heart gave a couple of plaintive skips, usually a precursor to arrhythmia.

“Oh, shoot,” I said. ”This isn’t good.” The thought of “I need to sit down” had almost finished crossing my mind…

Dreaming: something urgent and incomprehensible…

Now I hear a loud snore, one that I recognize as my own.

My wife is screaming. “I’m calling 9-1-1! Tom! Can you hear me?”

I realize that I’m waking up, but I’m not in bed. There is lots of pain. I am curled up against the bathtub, staring at the Easter Island Tiki head planter that’s now lying in the tub, along with every other tropical-themed knick-knack we had set up along the edge of the tub.

“Wha?” I slur.

“YOU PASSED OUT! I’M CALLING 9-1-1!”

“I did? Why? Where am I?” Stupid question, and so cliché. But honestly, I couldn’t be sure of much at the moment.

Little by little I did regain my faculties and with her help clambered to my feet. She helped me out of the bathroom and to the bed.

“We’re going to the hospital. Let me get S up so she can take care of Michael,” she said. While she was gone I reconstructed what must have happened: when I stood up to go to the bathroom, I must have fainted.

Ladies and gentlemen, this guy does not faint. I have never fainted in my life. I have been through three births and two weddings. My entryway into sleep has always been one of choice and comfort.

So… off to the hospital we go. My wife is concerned that there may be more going on that just a reaction to the medication, and because I’d struck my head a good one, she was more than a little worried that I might have a brain bleed or something.

The scans and tests and everything came back fine; no clots, no brain bleeds, no abnormal med levels, normal sinus heart rhythm, all that. Doc handed down a diagnosis of “vasovagal syncope” – which is a fancy way of saying that I fainted. He added something else that was news to me: when you urinate, your blood pressure drops. In my case, it was fast and severe – enough for me to lose consciousness.

Didn’t know that. Would have been nice to have read that on the medication fact sheet, had that little tidbit been there.

I had plenty of time to ruminate while we waited for the “all clear to leave.”

I’ve been a guest of this hospital too many times. For heart arrhythmia episodes, back surgeries, and now this. I shouldn’t be a frequent flyer here, I’m only 46. Inside I still feel like a dorky kid, one who’s been around for a few years.

But most of the time my body feels like that of an old man: tired, pale, weak. I remind myself of a doddering codger, ashen grey and scarcely able to stand, let alone walk.

I know it shouldn’t be this way.

And I know that the one thing that contributes to all of these problems, and so many others, is something I have full control over: my weight.

I am too fat.

It’s that simple.

And I have had enough of it.

What makes it worse is that I know better. My wife had a heart attack just a little over a year ago, but apparently I haven’t absorbed that fact deeply enough to truly change my own behavior, which largely consists of too much junk food and not enough healthy; too much sitting and not enough moving.

It is up to me to change. I have to, because my wife and kids need me. I have the will, and I have the motivation right now. I pray to God that it’ll stick this time.

That old saying “Today is the first day of the rest of your life” always bugged me. But it’s suitable, and I’ll claim it. Today is the first day of turning the ship around, heading toward “health” and ordering all engines full.