What a diet! Truly a benefit of getting 3 steel tubes in your heart arteries is that it motivates you to make changes in your diet that you never would have made otherwise. I haven't had red meat in two weeks, haven't drank a beer, haven't eaten a donut, haven't used a salt shaker. I am now addicted to Soy Milk, a handful of almonds is golden, my favorite snack is a celery stalk dipped in Frank's Hot Sauce, and oatmeal rocks.
Workaholic. Somehow I let my client work load escalate to a Point of Know Return. 14 billed hours this weekend just so I can to get to a place to transit into other projects tomorrow. The new diet and ongoing exercise regimen help me keep the pace. I walked out of the office last night at 3:34 AM and thought there was no way I was making Sunday School at 9:00 AM, yet I opened my eyes at 8:30 raring to go.
Death Awareness. It's a good thing to reminded that we can be dead at any moment. Blood is flowing freely through my coronary arteries and the steel mesh stents draping my heart should last a good long time, but its still the real deal and the heart can freak, fibrillate, stop...and I'm dead. Death Awareness is healthy. I'm finding it helps me smile more and listen more intently.
Lacin' em up for 5-1/2 miles. Today we enjoyed temps in the low 30's, unlike the 10's and 20's of the past few weeks here in Vermont. So instead of going to the club today I laced up my sneakers and ran 5-1/2 miles. The miracles of modern medicine. Seriously, I had 90% blockage of a primary artery to my heart. A doctor inflates the vessels and inserts two steel tubes. A week later he goes into my heart to insert a third steel tube. A week later I'm running 5-1/2 miles on a Sunday afternoon.
Cardiac Rehab On Tap. I begin my cardiac rehabilitation sessions tomorrow, Monday, with a stress test at 8:30 in the morning. Follow-up session on Wednesday. My primary focus from the Cardiac Rehabilitation sessions will be on diet and nutrition, but the baseline stress test is a good thing to do. That reminds me that I need to watch American Flyers again and the scene where Kevin Costner's little brother played by David Marshall Grant does a fitness test and collapses after beating Costner's record.