Wednesday 17 August 2016

They tried to make me go to rehab I said yes, yes YES

I guess it is fairly obvious from the reduction in frequency of my posts that life is getting busy!  Thins seem to be going well, and I'm hoping that when I see the cardiologist on Friday he will discharge me, and that things are looking good for the future.  I've still got a lot of work to do to address some of the lifestyle issues that got me in this mess, but I'm working on it - slowly.  I think I do need to up the ante a bit and improve my diet and also put a plan in place for continuing the exercise started in the cardiac rehab classes.

I've been really impressed with the cardiac rehab - it has definitely done what I wanted it to do in terms of giving me the confidence to exercise and get out of breath.  My bp has generally been behaving itself and my heart rate has been really good.  It is slightly lower than it would normally be due to the beta blocker, so my maximum heart rate for exercise is slightly lower than it would otherwise be.  I've met some really nice people all going through similar experiences - some have had heart attacks like me, others have needed bypass surgery, valve replacements and some are learning to live with things like heart muscle spasms.  What has surprised me is that all are capable of some sort of exercise, and all seem to improve as the sessions go by.  What has also surprised me is I can now jog for a minute!  That doesn't sound like much but I definitely couldn't do that before I had the heart attack.  I'm going to miss the camaraderie of it when it finishes. 

We do 2 circuits with 10 stations per circuit.  We warm up and cool down and we work at each station for a minute.  Some are much easier than others, but what one person finds easy others find hard and vice versa.  My nemesis is the one where I have to step forward and lift a 3kg ball above my head repeatedly for a minute - my arms kill at the end of that minute.  I find the stepper ups my heart rate more than most of the other exercises.  I'm on level 3 exercises for most things now after starting at level 1.  All of the exercises can be done at home and don't require expensive equipment, which I think is a really good idea.  

I've been doing a lot of walking around too - some of that is playing Pokemon Go, which I have got myself addicted to, but also taking the boys for bike rides to the common.  Hopefully I'll be allowed to get my bike out after talking to the consultant on Friday!  I'll report back then... Fingers crossed some fizz will be in order and I can put this scary episode even further behind me.  

No comments:

Post a Comment