I spent my early working life as a writer and reporter for various newspapers and for United Press International.  I later became a lawyer and spent five years practicing mostly criminal defense law before I was disabled by the first of nine heart attacks.  In 2005 I underwent a heart transplant which  went terribly wrong in ways no one could even imagine.  I was in a coma for two months and on life support.  When I came out of the coma I was totally paralyzed -- couldn't talk, couldn't swallow, could not move a muscle.  While I was in that totally helpless state, my wife announced in a telephone call she didn't "sign on for all this" and had left me and moved to New York.  Her action made me only more determined to recover as much as possible, so I devoted myself fanatically to physical therapy and especially to the mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual aspects of recovery.  When I finally was released from the hospital after almost nine months, my wife asked to come back and I foolishly agreed to let her.  Two years later, however, I again became deathly ill and found myself back in the ICU and on life support.  This time she left for good after authorizing the doctors to pull the plug and let me die.  My nonfiction book, "Surviving the Bitter Old Hag of Death" tells how I not only survived, but thrived.