Off to the Mall...

....but not to shop, but to walk!  I'm hanging out with a much older crowd these days...at least a couple of times a week. 

I haven't really talked much about my cardiac rehab process.  In fact, it was just two, or was it three years ago I found out that half my heart was on strike and not planning on returning to work anytime soon.  After my first stay in the hospital after a series of heart attacks over 7 months, the doctors  ran a bevy of tests on me only to discover that the bottom half of my heart appeared to be non-viable...dead.  They told me there was nothing they could do because not even a bypass would help heart tissue that was not alive.  I was sent home with a boatload of drugs, I suppose to live out my life.

Now, the Super Bowl is coming up this Sunday and if I seem a little hesitant about that it's because I suffered another heart attack after the game two, or was it three years ago and again went to the hospital.  The doctors ran a different kind of stress test on my heart and discovered that it began to work some after it was put under stress.  So they said they could help me with bypass surgery.

So at 7 o'clock the next morning, they ripped my chest open and, judging by the road map of scars on my leg, harvested veins from my leg with a rather dull scalpel and strategically placed them around my heart.  By one o'clock I was in ICU listening to the nurse tell Stacy that I wouldn't remember any of this.  WRONG!  I would remember far more of this adventure than I probably should have.  That story some other time if you're good.

I survived and as part of my recovery I actually have to excercise.  That includes walking for an hour or so three or four times a week.  So I go to the mall in the mornings and fight the traffic of mall walkers.  90 year old power walkers are not unusual, packs of blue haired ladies roaming the mall like hungry wolves looking for a steaming hot cup of black coffee.  There are some with canes, some with walkers and some young ones pushing baby strollers who, like me, are trying to get their shape back.

Today was a milestone for me at the mall.  I actually passed someone.  I think her walker might have been malfunctioning, slowing her down, but it still counts as a pass! 

I've never been much for excercise.  But your outlook changes when you find out it is good for you and may keep your surgically altered heart from giving up.  If you find that I've started attending bingo at McDonalds, then you'll know I've suffered the Stolkholm Syndrome and am now relating with my friends from the nursing home.  I'll be the one with the tye dyed afghan throw across my lap.

That is all...Peters out!