A St. Patrick’s Day Story; Pea Planting in the Hospital
During last year’s Pittsburgh Home and Garden show, I walked briskly across the Convention Center floor carrying a lightweight bag of Pitt Moss. I only needed to go a few hundred yards from the loading dock to the stage, but was forced to stop and catch my breath a few times, which was strange.
I didn’t know what was wrong with me last year when appearing at the Pittsburgh Home and Garden Show.
During the 10-day run, I found myself struggling during my speaking appearances, even sitting down during one (a first) and calling up a guest during another until my lungs recovered.
I figured it was some kind of respiratory infection and in a few days, I’d be fine. At night, fluid would build up in my lungs and I was forced to sleep in a sitting position. I thought it would pass though.
When the show ended, the problems persisted for the next couple of days, my wife worried and unbeknownst to me she even said a prayer for me. That might have been what made me walk through the doors of the emergency room that day, a decision not made lightly.
It was packed, I figured it would be hours before I would be seen. When I explained my symptoms, told them I was 62 years-old, I was immediately hooked up to an EKG even before leaving the reception area and then laying in an exam room within 10 minutes.
After a few more tests, the doctor came in, explained my heart and lungs were surrounded by fluid and I was going to be admitted.
Over the course of the next five days in the hospital, I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, the same thing that killed my younger brother. I also had a clot in one side of my heart.
As I laid naked on an operating room table before a heart catheterization, one of the team explained they followed my garden work. She introduced me to the rest of the people in the room and I answered garden questions until the sedative kicked in. That conversation put me at ease, but what a time and place to get recognized. How interesting it can be to be a minor Pittsburgh personality.
A team of doctors came up with a plan and assured me that all was not lost over that week.
On St. Patrick’s Day of 2022, I laid in a hospital bed lamenting the fact that this would be the first time in 40 years I had not planted peas on the holiday. It’s a tradition my grandmother swore by, and the importance of that sowing, always stuck with me. In reality, it wouldn’t matter if the peas were planted a couple days later, but the nostalgic stories of gardening have me under their spell.
That afternoon, my wife arrived for a visit carrying a packet of pea seeds and a small plastic pot of planting mix. I can’t tell you how moving that was, that she understood the importance of getting those seeds planted on St. Patrick’s Day.
I planted the peas on the windowsill and a couple days later, took them back home. I gently teased the sprouting seeds out of the pot and set them down into a soft bed of compost, where they thrived.
We both laughed that spring when I brought in a basket filled with those peas. It’s the most meaningful harvest to date and I know grandma wouldn’t just be proud of me, but overjoyed with my wife’s loving gesture.