Our new trumpet player, Nick, is gay.

I'm only pointing that out because it seemed important to him to let me know right away, so I'm letting you know right away.

He had to work on me a bit, as I didn't catch his drift immediately. He mentioned his 'better half' as being a dancer, named Tami (that's how you spell 'Tammy' these days), on the ship he just came from. Well, that's what I thought he said. Actually, the dancer's name is Tommy, as I realized after a few moments of confusion during which he referred to this dancer-partner as a 'him'.

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that the cruise line likes to keep couples together if both of them work on the ships. Our pianist's girlfriend is one of the dancers on our ship, as a matter of fact. It seems this applies to gay couples, too. Or so says Nick. He's expecting Tommy to join him (us)in April when one of our dancers leaves.

Nick is the second gay musician we've had in the orchestra, the first having been an alto player who was here for only a few weeks, and whose name was, coincidentally, Tommy. I have a feeling that being a gay musician is more common on ships than it is on land. But maybe I'm just out of touch.

Nick also mentioned his recent 'operation' last March, and I wondered what he was talking about, as he looked unaltered to me. No noticeable protrusions in the chest area or anything like that.

But the operation he was talking about was a heart operation. He has a scar running from stem to stern, just like I do. But his operation was to fix the perocardio something or other – the sheath around the heart – a stiffening of which had been caused by Lyme's disease. You know, the disease carried by ticks.

Like me, he's lucky to be alive. The operation he had, which involves shaving away the outer sheath around the heart, has only been performed for the last few years. Before this operation was available his condition would invariably result in death.

Heart surgeons are doing some incredible work these days, let me tell you! Remind me to call mine when I get home...

Nick was lucky he didn't have to pay the bulk of the cost of the operation, which was $225,000. He said the VA (veteran's administration) covered 75% of the cost (which still leaves over $50,000 he and his family had to come up with).

It surprised me that he was a veteran. I thought the armed forces refused gay recruits. What happened to the 4-F designation? I'll have to ask him about that.

I'll also ask him what would have happened if he hadn't been able to afford the operation.