Slow and boring…

It’s been a while since I blogged. It has been a hectic few days. First of all, I had a fall in my house, during which I whacked my ribs against a windowsill. I thought ribs were cracked, and my breastbone injured. Lots of pain, a reassuring trip to ER, and a few days of pain: torn muscles only, and a chewed up elbow, which was in the way between ribs and sill.

After a few days, the situation righted itself, and I suffered only minor discomfort. The greatest problem was the anxiety over the possibility that I had injured the healing breastbone.

“Walking is your best friend,” said the surgeon, and so walk I do. I started with 6-minute walks, as recommended by the hospital. Three minutes out, three minutes back. At this point I am walking 35 minutes daily, seventeen and a half out, and then the same back. It’s interesting that I can walk further on the way home than on the way out. I’m warmed up, and there’s something about heading for home that stimulates the system.

Visits to my own doctor have been positive. My only problem is sleep deprivation. I have no idea why I can’t sleep. It makes no difference if I take meds or not. I lie there, looking at the ceiling, for t least two hours. I’m often up for an hour in the night, and most mornings I awaken by 5:30. A problem still to be addressed medically. I finally see my cardiologist on Wednesday coming – April 16. I have an echo cardiogram and then a stress test, and then I see him. Very thorough, and usually very positive. I’m thinking up questions to ask him.

Recovery is often a boring business. You get up, you rest, you walk, you read, you eat, and you try to sleep. And all of this slowly. It takes time, and time passes at the rate of only a minute at a time. I have started at the cardiac rehab program, and there, the physio has already discovered that I have a problem with pacing myself. On the bicycle, if I don’t watch carefully, I’m up to many more rotations per minute than I am supposed to make. It was exactly the same in marathon runs. I’d be pounding along, until I realized that my pace would kill me before the end of 26 miles. Slowing down has always been tough for me, and it still is, I guess. More after the Cardiologist!