Second week at the Weird Gym

I am happy to say that my real class at Cardio Rehab is nothing like my first visit for orientation.

Mostly, it is like going to a real gym. It is still a lot quieter, and you have an older population  than 24 Hour Fitness. My class is mostly men and they wear gym clothes. They sweat. Well, mostly. They know how to work the machines and in fact, most of them, exercised quite a bit in their lives.

My class consists of 10 or 11 people. One day there were three women in it but most days there are two.

I have only met one other person who had a similar procedure as me, valve replacement. Talking to Meg ,she had many complications. I don’t want to scare anyone but it made me very happy for myself and very compassionate toward her. She seems fine now, but it has taken quite a long time for her to get back on her feet. She now has a mechanical valve that seems to be working, and she can once again care for her 3 year old. I think that gives her a lot of peace of mind and it is easy to root for her.

The others in class can be divided into open heart for by-pass procedures, people who have had a heart attack, and people who have not had a heart attack yet and are there to try to avoid one.

We don’t talk much about what happened that brought one here because it can easily turn in to “I can top that.” (If so, Meg would win and I mean crush.) Everyone just supports each other and treats all cases as equal. It is true we are all working toward the same thing. Getting our lives back to normal in a healthy way and learning how to deal with the new reality we face. For me, this is just getting back to normal in a gradual way. For others, it is learning new things.

The class also has a lecture one time a week. This week’s sessions was on anger management and how to control stress in your life. The lectures are optional. So far, I have not attended mostly because it would add an extra hour of waiting to whoever is driving me. Next week, I will drive myself so I might attend. Most of the classes do not pertain to me. My diet is pretty good. I understand a lot of what to expect because this is not my first time around. I already treat my mental health, for example, because I was depressed the first time. Now, I have a lot of resources for building my own resiliency.

I look forward to the class and got my heart rate up to 135 in my third of fourth class. That felt good and safe. I still have sternal precautions until next Wednesday so I’ll be able to use something other than 3 pound dumbbells.

I am off all my medications. That proved to be something of a roller coaster. I am having a bit of something like withdrawal from the beta blocker, mutoprolol. As a result, my heart rate is somewhat elevated at rest and a bit sticky. If I raise it, I have to really sit down and get calm for my body to slow it back down. And, my BP is hard for them to measure. At first, they freaked out a bit. They ended up taking it with a Doppler so they can really hear where the pulse changes.

After a bit of a tense day, and several calls back and fourth to my cardiologist, it appears to be a temporary condition that some people have and perhaps just a idiosyncrasy in measuring my BP.

My heart is loud. Other doctors and nurses have remarked on this too. It probably won’t change much and that’s just my physiology. I certainly can feel that my pulse if faster than normal. That did get my attention. However, I have been assured that it is normal in some percentage of people when they stop this drug. In the meanwhile, we keep tabs on it by measuring a bit more often, and I know what the numbers are when we call someone.

Talking to people in the class is good for me. Mostly it is just what you might expect. Guys who are a little bummed to have needed a bypass but grateful that it was caught in time. These two guys both look healthy and were athletic. One guy was actually riding his bike to prepare for STP when he noticed going up hills  was a lot more labored. The other guy had a similar observation while hiking. So you never know. Keep tabs on it. Get check-ups and if you feel weird, go get it check out.

Both guys are not anything you would call fat. Both guys are in their 50s maybe early 60s. Neither is challenging about this. They both want to get back to normal and start doing things they did before and will work hard in class.

Some of the heart attack and heart disease people (non-surgical) are overweight but not all. They are not all as chipper about being there. I think it is a wake-up call and maybe a bit embarrassing but they do the work. One guy worries me. If anything he works too hard and occasionally is told by coaches to throttle it back. I don’t get it. There is some kind of denial going on there.

I will be a bit happier myself when my body works through the withdrawal. Then I’ll have a better understanding of where I am. And next week, maybe even 5 pound dumbbells.