Rich Z (WebSlave)

Well, my cardiologist seems to feel I am in pretty good shape. But I finally did get him to admit that I had heart damage during my heart attack. He wants to prescribe something to help the heart to heal. Actually blood pressure medication, but he says it will help heart tissues to heal as well. I thought I had read somewhere that heart tissue doesn't heal after being damaged, but heck, he is the expert. I guess I would rather believe him than to believe I have been permanently damaged and am now kind of an invalid.

So does that mean I have to be more couch potato than not in the future? I asked him about that, and he just suggested that I give it another 4 weeks before resuming the outside activities I described to him that are normal for me. Connie told him that "normal activities" for me are NOT what is normal for someone 70+ years old. I am sure she is going to be a mental wreck for quite a while when I am working outside.

Because I am a mean machine when I get that extended hedge trimmer in my hands. And it is quite a workout. But once I get started, I just find it hard to stop. Just one more area and I'll call it a day....

I also need to be using the trencher I bought to put some barriers in to control the bamboo that is intent on getting into areas I would rather it stay out of. Rickey (my friend with the tractor) got an attachment to cut a trench, but although the attachment can cut down to 24 inches, his tractor can't pull it much beyond 8 inches in depth. And I am sure that will all the roots in the areas I need to cut, it would not do all that well. The trencher is a sort of thing that I have to pull while walking backwards via a harness wrapped around my body. Kind of awkward, but it gets the job done. It will cut through rather thick roots, but I have already had to break out a chain saw when I have hit roots beyond it's capabilities. Again, this is a rather strenuous workout. But a heck of a lot easier than trying to do that sort of work with a shovel and a hoe.

Anyway, I am guessing I will have to gradually ease into the workload after that 4 more weeks is up. Well, this Summer sure went up in smoke for both Connie and myself.

Getting a stent put in really isn't all that bad, but I really would rather not have to go through it again. In a pamphlet that they gave me describing the stent procedure, it also goes into heart artery bypass surgery. Now THAT I could really do without!! Gave me the willies just reading about it.
 
Well, I did read that heart tissue can heal itself, although it may form scar tissue that won't be as flexible as the old muscle used to be. And I read that full recovery may take as long as 6 to 8 months. :ack2:

So perhaps my cardiologist was being a bit optimistic with his estimate. And here I was thinking he was being overly cautious. Perhaps reality is somewhere in the middle. I guess there are various levels of heart attacks and the methods undertaken to treat the patient. Having my chest opened up would likely have been worse case, whereas just having a couple of stents put into my coronary arteries isn't as harsh. Wishful thinking, maybe?

Yeah, I know I shouldn't have been out there clearing brush and vines from around the well pump just 1 week after that second stent was put in. But at least it didn't happen right after my heart attack. Not sure what I would have done then. Probably would have done the same darn thing, to be honest. :eek:

On the plus side, Connie says I need to eat more seafood. :D :D :D
 
WebSlave said:
Perhaps reality is somewhere in the middle.
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:iagree: and :exactly:. At least, based off my experience and my experience, with others.


WebSlave said:
Yeah, I know I shouldn't have been out there clearing brush and vines from around the well pump just 1 week after that second stent was put in.
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All I will say is this: Connie needs to watch you better. :yesnod: :D

WebSlave said:
Probably would have done the same darn thing, to be honest. :eek:
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At least, you are honest!

WebSlave said:
On the plus side, Connie says I need to eat more seafood. :D :D :D
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Did you enjoy the seafood?
 
Dyscophus antongilii said:
Did you enjoy the seafood?
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Had some grouper yesterday. I may need to make a run down to the market to get more shrimp. Connie normally checks with them to see when they have some fresh stock in the cooler. Maybe this week.
 
I am getting really antsy just doing nothing. Connie and I have been taking walks around the path, so she can get some exercise, but it is really getting overgrown. Had a tree fall down near one section that has put some grape vines and branches over part of the path. I REALLY need to get out there to clear it out a bit so Connie can feel like she can take her walks more often and more easily instead of pushing aside weeds and crap.

When I saw my cardiologist last, he sent in a prescription for a drug that is supposed to be for lowering blood pressure, even though I don't really need it for that. He says it will help the heart to heal quicker too. But when I picked up the medication, I read the side effects and warnings and one of the warnings stated that I should not eat citrus and other foods containing potassium while taking this medication. Yikes! When our citrus is ripe in a few months, there is no way in hell I am going to just let them rot on the trees. So I put in a call to ask about this dilemma. I did get a call back, and the nurse said she would have to talk to the doctor about it. Well, never heard back and it has been a few days now. I didn't start taking the medication yet. So if the tradeoff is having my heart heal sooner and NOT being able to eat the citrus, or have my heart heal slower and enjoying the hell out of the citrus, if that is my choice, not sure which one I would pick. The dosage is the smallest dose that medication comes in, so perhaps the citrus won't be an issue? :shrug01:

Guess I need to try to contact the cardiologist again so see what he says.

All in all, physically I feel fine. Emotionally, well, not so much. But that is from worrying about Connie and not concern for myself. Well, to be brutally honest, I guess even that is a bit about myself too. What do I do if she doesn't make it through this cancer stuff? Certainly the thought of living the rest of my life alone is pretty depressing.
 
Well, heck. So shoot me already. I did some light work outside today. The weeds were growing up around the satsuma trees, so I took out my extended hedge trimmer and trimmed around them. While I was out there, I also trimmed some weeds and grass growing in front of the garage apron. And heck, while I was at it, I trimmed up and down the driveway. I took it nice and slow and easy, so my heart wasn't even beating hard at all. Rather muggy out, so I was sweating like crazy, but in these kinds of days, you can break into a sweat just standing around doing nothing.

Was only out there for about an hour, so that shouldn't have been an undue burden on my heart. I needed to do something anyway, and this was good exercise.

Connie has been spending some time outside too, as she was told by her oncologist to be more "ambulatory" to try to get rid of that superficial blood clot in her left leg. So she has been walking around, and doing some light yard work picking up palm fronds that have fallen off of the trees, and keeping the bird feeders stocked up. Skeeters haven't been bad at all, but I did kill one last night in the bathroom that was full of blood. No idea which one of us it got, but it definitely got one of us. Really pisses me off when one of those blood suckers violates the sanctuary of our home. Wish I could kill them more than once.

Well, time to sit back and read my book for a while, and maybe doze off into nap land. It's been raining outside, so good excuse as any to go into couch potato mode.
 
Not planning on going overboard. But I do need to get some exercise. Just laying around the house can't be all that good for me neither. Besides, I am bruising easily from that blood thinner I am taking, so I tend to be careful of that. Heck, I have a bruise on my arm just from carrying a rifle on it. So I can't be banging on branches and limbs working outside, otherwise I will look like a victim of a serious physical assault.

My weight has gone back up to 154 lbs, no doubt from the lack of exercise and the fact that Connie got worried when I started losing a lot of weight and is trying to keep stuff like ice cream readily available. She does know my weaknesses. Umm, Klondike Bars..... :D
 
Well, my arms are telling me that they are definitely not used to labor. Ouchie!! I should have gone out and did a bit more today, but had some errands to run, then it started raining in the afternoon. So I just took a nap. :D

Been reading an interesting book by Immanuel Velikovsky called Earth In Upheaval, but even that isn't enough to keep me awake. I read Worlds In Collision earlier. I think I may have all his books and plan to read through them all, even though I have read some of them a long while back. Fascinating topic matter, but I guess my brain has gotten soggy with age and I just have trouble staying awake no matter what I am reading. Most of his books have been reprinted rather recently, and since some of mine are paperback, I bought the hardbacked versions, as the print is just easier to read.

Damn... WTH? I have a bruise on the thumb of my left hand. Only thing I can think of that caused that was I had to press a bullet into the magazine of my "squirrel popper" Savage A17 rifle the other day. Damn I bruise easily from that blood thinner crap. And I have to take it for a year. :ack2: Heck, my right arm has a bruise on it just where I had the rifle laying when I carried it. I don't like this bruising so easily even one little bit. Honestly, when I had the second stent put in, I was pretty nervous about my veins and arteries being weakened by the drug I was taking. Would have just ruined my day if my heart artery had ruptured installing that stent because it had been weakened.

The cardiologist says my veins aren't weakened by the blood thinner, but damn, isn't ruptured veins really what produces bruises? Now this has got me thinking that maybe working hard at all while on blood thinners might not be a real hot idea. Oh yeah, I am taking a small dose of aspirin every day too. From what I understand, I am supposed to take one a day for likely the rest of my life. Something like 81 or 85 mg. :(

Up to just recently, getting old didn't seem so bad to me.
 
Damn..... Seems like I have recently been turned into a "morning person". :ack2:

The world just doesn't look right with sunshine coming from the wrong part of the horizon.

Did increased blood flow to my heart change me?

Or maybe it is the afternoon naps? :D
 
WebSlave said:
Did increased blood flow to my heart change me?

Or maybe it is the afternoon naps? :D
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Probably the better blood flow - oxygenated red cells, more energy. Also, you've both had catastrophic changes to your lives. Your normal sleep patterns have been disrupted due to stress, medications, demands on your time, etc.

Afternoon naps make me stay up too late at night, then I don't want to get up at 6:30-7:00 a.m., which is my normal time.
 
Heck, I went to bed last night at 1:00am. I NEVER go to bed that early! But I could not keep my head up while working on the computers in the den, so I just stopped fighting it.

Connie got up at 6:00am to take some pills and I was wide awake. I laid there for an hour trying to force myself to go back to sleep, but no go.

Anyway, I was feeling antsy again today, so took the hedge trimmer out and cut some sections to our walking path that was getting REAL overgrown. I think I was out there an hour or so. Enough for the battery to go dead, anyway.

So I came into the house and stripped all the wet clothes off, and damn if I don't have two lumpy bruises on my left thigh. I recall I was using my thighs to brace the trimmer as I was cutting through some sections, to give me a bit more leverage and take the strain off of my arms. I thought I might get a bruise, but didn't expect the lumps. Bruised muscles, perhaps? :shrug01:

This blood thinner crap is going to be the death of me yet.

Speaking of which, I finally heard back from my cardiologist's nurse today about that Ramipril prescription. She said he really doesn't know how much potassium fruits will be providing to my system and doubted that would have any negative effects with the medication. So we left it that I should take the medication, and just look for negative symptoms and if any, stop taking it. Gee... Well, I would say the easy bruising with the blood thinner and aspirin is a negative effect, but I don't think they want me to stop taking them. I really don't like that one little bit. It makes me feel that my entire vascular system is just weak and feeble.

But in any event, most of the path looks pretty good now, so Connie can walk through it more easily when she wants to. She is trying to get more exercise each day, so I really wanted to get that path cleaned up. Makes for a pretty good walk because the minor elevation changes give you a bit of a workout. It's not all just completely flat land, and from what I measured from the garage and back again along the path is about a half mile. So a pretty good walk.

Damn... wonder how purple those lumps on my thigh are going to get.... :(
 
Ramipril relaxes blood vessels, and lowers blood pressure. My mom took it, and I didn't see any bruises on her. Are you taking any other thinners besides the aspirin? Your bruising seems excessive.
 
I am not taking the Ramipril yet. I wanted to speak to the cardiologist about the dietary potassium in fruits possibly being an issue first. He is prescribing this to me (1.25mg tablets, 1 per day) because he said it would help speed up the healing of those damaged tissues in my heart from the heart attack.

I will start taking it tomorrow. I will be watching it closely in case it drops my blood pressure too much as well as the laundry list of other side effects I have read about. Maybe in November when the first of the citrus will be ripening, I can get off of that stuff anyway.

The blood thinner I have been taking ever since the heart attack on Memorial Day is Prasugrel, 10mg tablet once per day. I did tell my cardiologist about the ease of bruising and he claimed it was normal. Everything I have read online pretty much says that a blood thinner and aspirin are pretty much a requirement after a coronary stent placement. Blood thinner for a year, and aspiring pretty much for the rest of my life. :(

I am also taking Atorvastatin (80 mg, once per day) for cholesterol control, even though my yearly blood work results haven't shown that to be a problem. But I guess SOMETHING caused my coronary arteries to close up.

I believe most doctors just like to prescribe medications. Not sure many of them really pay close attention to the side effects and the interactions with diet and other medications and supplements. I did take a list of the OTC supplements I am taking to him, so he does have that list on file.

Basically they just ask you if you are allergic to anything, and that is that.

I don't see the lumps on my left thigh getting any worse looking, but they are tender to the touch. I have been using that extended hedge trimmer the same way I did today for a few years now, without having this sort of problem doing so. Heck, in the past I could have whacked myself hard with a ball peen hammer and not gotten a bruise from it. So this is really irking me.

Darn, I don't think I am going to make it to even 1 am tonight. Between getting up early and then working on the path, I can feel the bed calling my name. I didn't have a nap today, so maybe that is why. Connie and I took a brisk walk along the path I had partially cleared after dinner. Not sure if I will work on it again tomorrow or not. Maybe I should give myself a day or two between the yard work. But Thursday and Friday are going to be tied up taking Connie for her tests. Even though tests don't take too long, they do tend to tie up the entire day.
 
:face_palm_02:

Just happened to glance at the main page and noticed the thread title I had just posted that was supposed to say "Do you think I might get some rain?"

Well, the way the text had gotten truncated, it appears I was thinking about doing a REAL stress test on my heart..... :rofl:
 

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For those of you who don't know what Nick and I are referring to, a couple of nights ago I was really feeling down in the dumps and decided to change my avatar to reflect this state of emotion I was going through. I found one that seemed appropriate and changed it late at night. The following morning, when I looked at it, well, it actually seemed obscene if looked at from a different perspective. Suspecting that others might see it in that light, too, I reverted back to my original avatar.

That image is attached below, for anyone interested in the "backstory". :D
 

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