Green Light

I went to see the man with the keys to my squad car yesterday. That would be my cardiologist and he gave me the big thumbs up. He said everything is going along according to plan. He released me to go back to full duty with no restrictions on Sep 21. Way cool.

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The lab somehow didn't do all the tests on my blood that they were supposed to, so I don't know what my lipids are doing yet. I have to go back in and have another blood test done in a week or so. They did determine that my liver has tolerated all the meds.

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The doc also took me off the medication that has been causing me all the aggravation. He put me on a lower dose of Statin. The one I had been taking was kickin' my butt. I haven't slept well since the heart attack and every day my body feels like I slept on the cold ground. Both are side effects of that drug. Hopefully that will correct itself quickly. He also took me off the blood thinner.

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I continue rehab and have finally reached the point where the nurses are really pushing me. Yesterday they changed my target heart rate range to 135-145. It's an unusual way to work out. While I'm on a particular piece of equipment, a nurse will ask how difficult the activity is. Then they check the computer (we are wearing telemetry monitors) and if the heart rate is below your target they have you raise the level of difficulty. My nurse finds it amusing to walk over to my machine and start pushing buttons (figuratively as well as literally) to crank up the difficulty. So now I'm walking on the treadmill at 4 m.p.h. at a 2.5% grade. Not exactly mountaineering, but I do get the heart rate up.

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I was feeling pretty good about myself yesterday, I was cruising along on the treadmill without too much trouble (pretending I was going up Granite Creek in Wyoming), then riding a bike and moving on to a rowing machine. I was all warmed up thinking I was the man (the theme from Rocky was playing, you know how that it is). Then Seventy something year old Delores broke out the jump rope. Holy smokes. I hung my head in shame.

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I did turn in my lowest blood pressure reading so far though, 104/64. So I got that going for me.

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In other news,

The Colorado trip has been modified. The official camping vehicle, the Durango, required about 1.2 million dollars of work in the past two weeks. This has diminished the travel budget to a large extent (ok- it totally emptied it), so we scrapped that trip and instead are going to head north to the U.P.

This also would have been impossible, but the man, the myth, the legend, my bud Steph jumped in and saved the day. He did 80% of the work on the truck for us for the cost of parts. There's no way we could have had it done otherwise. Steph rocks. And Suzie too...she found the appropriate camouflage attire for the girls.

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Today's wacky daughter photo;