You Gotta Work Out

To be fair, I was only in a wheelchair for a couple of days last year after I got out of the hospital. Although I accept a ride from my room to the car after my heart surgery Friday to fix my Afib. The procedure is called an ablation and works by burning nerves in your heart to basically get them to calm down. But, I digress...

It's been a rough month or so. I caught pneumonia or something like it. It set back my lung progress a year or more. We were travelling and attending some blues fests when I came down with a fever and difficulty breathing. After we worked our way home I checked into the emergency room and had some tests. I didn't have any of the current diseases so they chalked it up to pneumonia or the fact that I had missed some of my meds we ran out of, while travelling. Specifically the Lasic which keeps fluids down in the body. Got home and and had real problems with my air until the fever went down. I had been at 2-4 liters but had to go to 8-10 and use a high flow mask. This lasted a couple of weeks and I knew the Ablation was scheduled so I was working towards getting better for that.

The day finally arrived and I went in for the procedure. Got there at 10 in the morning for prep. The usual stuff, couple of IV's a bit of manscaping and of course a hospital gown. I look good in those. Actually they are quite computable. It took until 1 to get me into the operating room. There were a bunch of folks in there who put ice cold patches all over me , tied me down to the table and then put me to sleep. Not too sure what happened then but I woke up after 5 and they had me on an Bipap machine. That didn't make me happy as it's the precursor to intubation and I've had my fill of that!

Anyway, had to spend the night and convince them that the cpap machine I brought with me would do a fine job. I was able to do that and spent the night with little sleep since they come in a lot and check on you. Also my wife stayed and slept on the inroom recliner. That was nice. she's very helpful!

As I mentioned, I rode the wheelchair to the car in the morning and headed home. I decided that I need to take matters into my own hands. With my heart fixed, I should be able to start exercising and seeing if I can get my lungs back in a usable condition.

The first day, I walked back and forth inside the house 8 laps using high flow oxygen and a mask. Day 2 15 laps Day 3 20 laps, Day 4 30 laps Then day 5 walked outside .6 miles! Day 7 1 mile outside. Day 8 1 mile inside since it was raining. Also lift some light weights on day 6.

It's amazing how fast your body comes back! I think as you move forward it becomes more difficult to show improvement but I have along way to go before that's an issue. The next goal is working up to two miles with some reduction in my oxygen needs. Combined with that is a reduction of prednisone which helps with the breathing but also had a bunch of bad side effects.

E-bikes are in our future as well.