The morning of Dec. 2, 2009, dawned cold and clear ... wait a minute ... I don't know that because my flight for San Jose, Calif., took off before the sun came up. I assume it came up.

In any event, it was cold and dark and a chill (ill?) wind was blowing when I arrived to head west on my annual December trip to visit my son.

The trip has become a tradition since Paul moved from Pittsburgh to San Jose more than three and a half years ago to serve as manager of hockey technology for the Sharks, San Jose's National Hockey League team. My visits last 10 to 12 days, and this one was due to end Dec. 14.

Instead, I returned Feb. 9 -- two major surgeries, a blood transfusion and countless blood tests later -- and found about 30 inches of snow on the ground. Talk about a bad trip ...

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It was late afternoon the Saturday after my departure when the medical nightmare began.

It started with painful prostate spasms that required the first of what turned out to be many trips to a hospital emergency room. A catheter was inserted to alleviate the spasms, which it did. It was the first of several catheters, all of which caused me varying degrees of pain when I walked during the eight weeks they were my constant companions.

It became obvious I needed a urologist, but I was 2,590 miles from home and did not know any in the neighborhood. That's when my son's connections paid a major dividend. He contacted one of the Shark's doctors, John Chiu, who lined me up with a urologist in a San Jose suburb and also ordered me to come in for a checkup at his San Jose office.

Dr. Frank Lai's urological examination confirmed a need for surgery to reduce my prostate's enormous size, which was triggering the spasms.

"We'll make an orange into a walnut," he said, evoking a vivid image.

But, first, I had to answer a critical question. Did I want to return home for surgery or have it done right after Christmas in San Jose? While I confronted that question, Dr. Lai advised me of some risks inherent in a return flight.

I chose surgery in San Jose. It was a fateful decision.

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It started with a flinch ...

The checkup by Dr. Chiu was rocking along in a normal manner, a gentle poke here, a less gentle probe there. But, as the doctor made some heart-related checks, he suddenly flinched. I sensed trouble.

He said it might be nothing or something serious and admitted he did know which.

Dr. Chiu quickly arranged an appointment with a cardiologist for an extensive examination. On an unforgettable Friday afternoon, I endured nearly four hours of tests that also began my rapid involuntary transformation from self-acknowledged wuss into a trooper when it came to needles.

The following Monday, the results arrived and I was scheduled to have a stent inserted to clear a blood vessel near my heart. But as the surgeon began to put it in, he stopped short. He detected three major heart blockages. Two were 100 percent, the third 92 percent.

Those are bad numbers. So, in less than 36 hours, my situation morphed from prostate surgery to a stent to triple-bypass heart surgery. Talk about an emotional earthquake ...

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Dr. Chiu, a.k.a. my favorite Sharks doctor, likely saved my life. Had I undergone the prostate surgery first, I was told later, there was a good chance I would have had a heart attack on the operating table and, given the extent of the blockages, it could have been fatal.

This was not the first time Dr. Chiu likely saved a Pittsburgh man's life. About six weeks earlier, Penguins trainer Chris Stewart realized team president David Morehouse was having a heart attack as the team's flight from San Jose to Boston prepared to take off. Mr. Stewart called Sharks trainer Ray Tufts. Within minutes, Dr. Chiu was on the job and Mr. Morehouse was soon out of danger.

As for me ...

Dr. Chiu quickly found a prominent heart surgeon, Dr. Ramin Beygui, to do my triple bypass on short notice.

In a freshly renovated, state-of-the-art suburban San Jose hospital, where scores of nurses gave the term tender lovin' care new meaning, the food was much better than passable and meaningful sleep was hard to come by, the surgery took place Dec. 23, barely a day after I found out that I needed it. I went back to the same hospital for prostate surgery Jan. 19.

I returned to work Feb. 23 and have lost between 25 and 26 pounds. I walk three to five miles a day five days a week and adhere to a new, low-fat, low-salt, low-cholesterol diet. My heart is doing fine.

Cartoonist Rob Rogers does "Rob's Rough," an early look at his work and his creative process, exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.