The Past The Blessing Life

 The Past

The Blessing

Life

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

The song, the Boys of Fall always takes me back.

The lyrics capturing the smell of fresh cut grass, butterflies, call (it) in the air,

sweat and blood, talking trash and I’ve got your back all have significance the football

field. Being from last century Silver City the smell of fresh cut grass was one of the first

things we noticed. Not all of us had yards, much less fresh cut grass to smell.

In those days, Pumas and Adidas hadn’t arrived and the day we picked up our

equipment we converged on the box that once held a washing machine and dug through

the shoes that had been worn by a hundred boys before us. If we found a decent pair that

fit, we grabbed them and retreated before more competition arrived.

Helmets and shoulder pads were no different.

When two-a-days started, we thought the heat at 5900’ was intense, but that

would pale to the first games played in El Paso where the difference in heat was

suffocating. Before that, though, it was a week at Camp Thunderbird and those awful

trails over the hills. Meals were together in the cafeteria and our parents were invited to

eat supper with us the last night of the stay.

The first game in early September was high drama and we got to wear our jerseys

to school on game day and the pep rally. Upper classmen had first choice and the

numbers became ours alone. Indeed, we felt like kings of the school as we walked the

halls to class in scattered groups.

At home in those years, we played in that grand old ball field on the campus of

Western New Mexico University, James Stadium. The smell of fresh cut grass greeted us

as the pieces of the current team gathered for warmups on the south end of the field. In

unison, the voices echoed across the field as the crowd studied the current year’s field of

athletes.

The memories are many.

Regrettably, most of those teammates are scattered and lost from communication.

The memory that lingers most vividly is the walk across the field on the last night, the

last game, and the last time we would be together as Fighting Colts. There was dread of

reaching the bus to drive across town to the new high school to shower and then walk out

onto the gym floor together for that last game dance. She was at my side holding my hand

as we walked. We were surrounded by near silent friends that had grown to be brothers

sweating blood and talking trash.

Indeed, we were the Boys of Fall, and, to this day … that past was much better

than we gave it credit for at the time.

The Past

In a recent return to California, the immensity of agriculture created by American

ingenuity and guts was again witnessed. It was surprising how it affected me. I had never

witnessed the winter vegetable country of Yuma and the south end of the Imperial Valley.

My experience was north in the Central Valley, but the look and the general cleanliness

were all the same.

Big time, American agriculture!

Free and independent men walked the earth at the time when those first grand

water projects were conceptualized and built. Since that time, the population of western

states and particularly California has exploded and grown exponentially. Those same

projects have sustained that growth and increasingly are denigrated as the strife

associated with the mob and its climate change church has been allowed to prevail. The

realization that growth is no longer predicated by upward push, but, rather, downward

suppression has long been the trend of secular and career-based leadership. It’s

everywhere, and there is one thing that emerges and runs parallel to the chuzpah of all

forms of past achievement.

The past was much better than we gave it credit for at the time.

The Blessing

Debating whether to talk about my experience, a statistic has been discovered that

has consequences beyond any personal case. It needs discussion and Dr. Timothy

Fernandes of the UC San Diego Hospital, and pulmonary hypertension team is part of the

reason. His bovine lecture sealed the deal.

Yes, this renowned human pulmonologist gave a bovine lesson!

The attendees included our team PA, Angela Baptista, our nurse for the day,

Kirsten, and seven or eight surgeons following Dr. Fernandez around on his grand rounds

observing and learning the lifesaving procedure medical science knows as Pulmonary

Thromboendarterectomy. His lecture began with the reminder that the patient was a

rancher from southern New Mexico and cows and humans only have a small number of

common diseases. The ailment of discussion was what cattle suffer at high altitudes in

northern New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.

That ailment is high-altitude sickness, and it is manifested by blood clots plugging

the lungs and the inability to support oxygen levels in the blood. He informed the group

that I had a severe case of high-altitude sickness, but in the human form and termed

pulmonary hypertension. In the form I had, it cannot be treated medicinally and that is

why the trail led to UC San Diego. That gifted team of surgeons and staff have developed

the expertise, the surgical processes, and the tools for removing the blockage and

restoring heart and lung health.

If the surgery is successful, the cure is immediate.

The statistic mentioned is an estimated 100,000 Americans die annually from the

disease. Too many cases are not diagnosed, and opportunities for solution are even less.

Untreated it is a death sentence. The victims’ heart shuts down trying to pump blood

through the lungs, and the death certificates indicate heart failure as the cause.

The journey began in Las Cruces, but the acceptance by the National Jewish Lung

Hospital for the diagnosis and referral in Denver was the game changer. A good friend

from Iraan, Texas is credited with opening the door to Jewish National through the

successful treatment of very serious lung issues within his own family. The angel of

mercy, however, came in the form of Dr. Patricia George of National Jewish who

diagnosed the form of pulmonary hypertension and then used her influence for getting

our case in front of the acceptance committee at UC San Diego. Without Dr. George, this

story would have ended much differently.

Finally, contacted by an ambassador from San Diego, we were invited to come for

a preoperative review starting the week of April 24. That ended with surgery on April 28

and an abbreviated departure schedule for May 6.

When I awoke up from an induced coma on Monday, May 1, Dr. Victor Pretorius,

the cardiothoracic surgeon who did the surgery, was shortly in my hazy field of view. He

announced to me that I would be discharged on the following Friday if my progress

remained consistent and that I would shortly be standing up. My pessimism about

accomplishing that was met with a stern reminder from Dr. Pretorius that I would also be

walking the following day.

He followed that comment by looking me in the eye and pronouncing, you are

cured (and my bed was needed for sick patients waiting in line!).

I became patient number 4789 to survive and be placed on this team’s register of

successful procedures (at the time of writing this article another 35 patients had been

treated). The magnitude of that is humbling. If the number of deaths annually is 100,000

that equates to 1,500,000 American deaths since the start of the program, and, there have

only been 4789 patients saved by the end of the day April 28. Consider what that implies.

This is a dreaded disease that suffers from the shortfall of diagnosis with even less chance

of cure.

Many times, during the fall of 2022 I was told I needed to go somewhere else

other than the avenues we were pursuing. Mayo Clinic was one of the suggestions

repeatedly. The fact became that the days before my surgery a cadre of Mayo Clinic

surgeons were following Drrs. Fernandez and Poch around on their grand rounds

observing the protocol and the surgery. The Tuesday after the surgery a surgeon from

Cedars-Sinai was with Dr. Fernandes when he came in to check on me. The last time I

saw Dr. Fernandes that group of Pacific Rim surgeons were following him as the

ambassador to the teaching hospital mission of the UC San Diego Hospital. In their game

of life, that team is actively sharing its knowledge and their calling. Theirs’ is a mission

of hope and life.

There is no greater gift.

The question now is what the Boys of Fall and American Agriculture have to do

with pulmonary hypertension. The answer is there is vacuum in life that is filled

variously. It can be filled with human achievement or human failure. It can be projected

with commitment or despair. It can be measured by achievement, or it can be rendered

mute by surrendering to this woke nonsense of doom.

Life is a team game.

If you are lucky, you get chosen to be on the good side, but the key is to present yourself

for the chance to compete for success. The combination of the experiences hereinabove

has contributed to what and who this rancher from southern New Mexico is.

Each has left a mark, and, over time, they have merged into one thing for sure …

God has blessed us.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico.