Since my heart attack, I have not blogged much and time has slipped past going, paradoxically, both really fast and dragging slowly as I wait for my next and final assessment and can drop some of the pills I needed to prevent blood clots. Autumn eventually turned to winter and Christmas came and went followed by one of the coldest springs for some time with snow and more snow and a slow thaw until summer came along. Then it got hot, boy did it get hot and at that point we went on holiday.
So all in all, I have a lot to catch up on to bring this blog up to date.
During the weeks that followed my hospital event, I was provided with a rehabilitation program. This involved going to the Gym once a week for six weeks and going through a number of talks and exercises aimed at getting you back into shape, or in some cases, particularly mine, just getting you into shape. The exercises were quite gentle with a fifteen minute session of warm up exercises, followed by thirty minutes of a mix of different exercises. I had just spent two weeks of almost total inactivity, plus a week before the rehab started, so I was well out of shape and on the first session I thought they were trying to put me back into hospital again. During the exercises, they monitored our blood pressure and heart rate and were surprised at how high mine went initially. They were also surprised that I was not proscribed beta blockers, but I recalled the head doctor at the hospital saying my rest pulse rate was rather low, so they would not be helpful. By the end of the first session I was exhausted and stiff but managed to survive and stagger home. The next day climbing the stairs was agony, every muscle protesting that they had been badly abused. The same thing happened on the day after the next session, but over the next four weeks the tiredness and stiffness reduced until by the sixth session, I hardly noticed any after effects.
At the end of this phase of rehab, I was invited to join a phase iv group and continue a further sixteen weeks of rehabilitation. It took a while to get onto this course, I had a cold and did not feel up to doing what seemed to me to be a more aggressive session of exercises. Eventually I managed to get to join after a number of missed weeks, but since the group had a rolling entry, I had not missed anything. I was a bit apprehensive at first, but the exercises were not to different from the first six weeks and the two women who ran the rehab were really encouraging. I was soon getting into the swing of it and spent an hour each week doing all the warm up, cardiac and cool off exercises like a pro.
I was slightly amused by the antics we had to get up to in both phases. The groups consisted of mostly ageing men and I had already noticed that the typical male customer in the Acute Cardiac Ward were older men, often with a paunch and a bald head. Seeing a group of similar people, me included, stepping around in time to music and changing direction, stopping and doing some standing exercises was the stuff of comedy and I could not help but grin at the sight of all of us aged men going through these steps in a loose circle. Each with our own interpretation of exactly what we were supposed to be doing.
Once the warm up was completed to the trainer’s satisfaction we were let loose on a number of other more physical exercises with strange names which were blue-tacked to the walls at each exercise station at the start of the session. Names like reverse jacks and so on, most of which I have forgotten and of which I usually had no idea of what they meant. As a result of this regular exercise, I became reasonably fit and The Better Half (TBH) had noticed that I was exhibiting much greater energy in everything I was doing and remarked on it on several occasions.
One thing I noticed during both phases was the lack of women in each group. There were a few in the phase iii groups, but only one in the phase iv group at any one time. I mentioned this to one of the trainers and she said it was worrying that most women drop out after phase iii and wondered how they could attract them back. These exercise sessions had certainly made me feel both better physically and better about myself post heart attack, so they should really be joining in, but no one had any answers as to why they did not keep up the exercises.
During my sixteen weeks of rehab, various minor events occurred. In October, the world turned yellow. We had been shopping when this started and coming out of the supermarket, we noticed that although it was midday and the sun was high in the sky, it was red like a sunset. On the way home, everywhere seemed to be viewed through yellow glass as the light from the sun was filtered by the dense clouds.
Only having my mobile with me it automatically compensated for the redness and so this picture is nothing like as startling as really seeing a red sun at midday. When we got home, I took this picture with a proper camera to show both the outside and the TV which was in natural colour compared with the outside.
It transpired that a dust storm had swept up a lot of sand and dust from North Africa and it spread all across Europe and into the lower half of England.
October came and went with signs of autumn deepening.
By November it was only just starting to look wintry with many trees still retaining their leaves.
In December it was cold but still not too bad and we went shopping in Stratford upon Avon. There we saw a larger than usual gathering of Canada geese and a tree in a woolly jacket.
This tree was dressed for a charity, which one, I have to confess that although I read the sign I have forgotten which.
A week or so later it snowed, very pretty. So being retired and well stocked up on food, we simply sat it out and watched the traffic news on TV. It did not last long and went away well in time for Christmas.
At this point I would normally have wished everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, but because I had stopped blogging, I missed the chance, so I hope everyone did have a good Christmas and a good new year.
During the weeks that followed my hospital event, I was provided with a rehabilitation program. This involved going to the Gym once a week for six weeks and going through a number of talks and exercises aimed at getting you back into shape, or in some cases, particularly mine, just getting you into shape. The exercises were quite gentle with a fifteen minute session of warm up exercises, followed by thirty minutes of a mix of different exercises. I had just spent two weeks of almost total inactivity, plus a week before the rehab started, so I was well out of shape and on the first session I thought they were trying to put me back into hospital again. During the exercises, they monitored our blood pressure and heart rate and were surprised at how high mine went initially. They were also surprised that I was not proscribed beta blockers, but I recalled the head doctor at the hospital saying my rest pulse rate was rather low, so they would not be helpful. By the end of the first session I was exhausted and stiff but managed to survive and stagger home. The next day climbing the stairs was agony, every muscle protesting that they had been badly abused. The same thing happened on the day after the next session, but over the next four weeks the tiredness and stiffness reduced until by the sixth session, I hardly noticed any after effects.
At the end of this phase of rehab, I was invited to join a phase iv group and continue a further sixteen weeks of rehabilitation. It took a while to get onto this course, I had a cold and did not feel up to doing what seemed to me to be a more aggressive session of exercises. Eventually I managed to get to join after a number of missed weeks, but since the group had a rolling entry, I had not missed anything. I was a bit apprehensive at first, but the exercises were not to different from the first six weeks and the two women who ran the rehab were really encouraging. I was soon getting into the swing of it and spent an hour each week doing all the warm up, cardiac and cool off exercises like a pro.
I was slightly amused by the antics we had to get up to in both phases. The groups consisted of mostly ageing men and I had already noticed that the typical male customer in the Acute Cardiac Ward were older men, often with a paunch and a bald head. Seeing a group of similar people, me included, stepping around in time to music and changing direction, stopping and doing some standing exercises was the stuff of comedy and I could not help but grin at the sight of all of us aged men going through these steps in a loose circle. Each with our own interpretation of exactly what we were supposed to be doing.
Once the warm up was completed to the trainer’s satisfaction we were let loose on a number of other more physical exercises with strange names which were blue-tacked to the walls at each exercise station at the start of the session. Names like reverse jacks and so on, most of which I have forgotten and of which I usually had no idea of what they meant. As a result of this regular exercise, I became reasonably fit and The Better Half (TBH) had noticed that I was exhibiting much greater energy in everything I was doing and remarked on it on several occasions.
One thing I noticed during both phases was the lack of women in each group. There were a few in the phase iii groups, but only one in the phase iv group at any one time. I mentioned this to one of the trainers and she said it was worrying that most women drop out after phase iii and wondered how they could attract them back. These exercise sessions had certainly made me feel both better physically and better about myself post heart attack, so they should really be joining in, but no one had any answers as to why they did not keep up the exercises.
During my sixteen weeks of rehab, various minor events occurred. In October, the world turned yellow. We had been shopping when this started and coming out of the supermarket, we noticed that although it was midday and the sun was high in the sky, it was red like a sunset. On the way home, everywhere seemed to be viewed through yellow glass as the light from the sun was filtered by the dense clouds.
Only having my mobile with me it automatically compensated for the redness and so this picture is nothing like as startling as really seeing a red sun at midday. When we got home, I took this picture with a proper camera to show both the outside and the TV which was in natural colour compared with the outside.
It transpired that a dust storm had swept up a lot of sand and dust from North Africa and it spread all across Europe and into the lower half of England.
October came and went with signs of autumn deepening.
By November it was only just starting to look wintry with many trees still retaining their leaves.
In December it was cold but still not too bad and we went shopping in Stratford upon Avon. There we saw a larger than usual gathering of Canada geese and a tree in a woolly jacket.
This tree was dressed for a charity, which one, I have to confess that although I read the sign I have forgotten which.
A week or so later it snowed, very pretty. So being retired and well stocked up on food, we simply sat it out and watched the traffic news on TV. It did not last long and went away well in time for Christmas.
At this point I would normally have wished everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, but because I had stopped blogging, I missed the chance, so I hope everyone did have a good Christmas and a good new year.
This brings me to the end of 2017, so more catching up in part two.
