After working last week in sweatpants to ease the pressure on all the wounds and scars, I was able to go for a motorcycle ride on Saturday and Sunday. I'm a novice rider and I don't jump or go blazing through the jungle. I ride along trails to find places with great views or places to eat that I wouldn't otherwise find or be able to get to. Dr. Arata told me to really take it easy if I was going to ride, and said he'd prefer I didn't do it at all, so I went with two friends again....one to pave the trail and look for problem areas, and one behind me in case I fell.
We had a lot of fun. It was a little rainy (rare here in Vegas), and we went out of Boulder City toward the Hoover Dam. It was a rocky trail, so the rain didn't really wash it out or make it too muddy. Traction was good and we had a great time.
My heart was in rhythm all weekend too, and it's amazing how different I feel when it's in vs out. I felt alive on the bike, both days. I felt capable, worthy, and human. I didn't feel like the guy who just spent 240 hours lying around in various hospital beds wondering where my life was headed.
I accidentally had a little too much fun on Sunday on the bike,and inadvertently upset my family by failing to return home in time to do some other things together. I felt bad about doing that, as these are the people who take care of me, but while I was on the ride, I felt like for those 2 hours nobody really needed to take care of me. And that part felt good. I came home and we made up by going out to dinner and a movie together, and we're also heading to Phoenix this weekend to watch some spring training baseball. Supposed to make 80 degrees down there this weekend.
So feeling great as the work week began, I wore jeans to the office to look like the construction company owner I am. The office folks all noticed and asked how I was doing. I was smiling after a nice weekend of feeling good, and we went about our work day. After work, my partner and I went to dinner and I had a salad and water, which is pretty much all I eat in restaurants for dinner. I went home, still feeling good, and went to bed, only to wake up with my heart in A-fib again. It was a little strange, as Kathy had asked about how my heart was doing and right up to that point I was doing well.
Heart was out of rhythm for Tuesday and a little bit of Wednesday. I worked, went to appointments, and did what I could, but that reduction in cardiac output really takes a bite out of my ability to concentrate for extended periods, and I found myself quite tired at the end of each day. As I write this now, it's back in sinus rhythm, so I feel great again.
The master cleanse was cut short this time around because I felt I needed a full compliment of nutrition to recover from the hospital. I'm using an iPhone app to monitor my calories in and out, and that seems to help with the weight in making food choices. Kathy, of course, did some more research on the causes and controls of A-fib, and the latest discovery is the causal relationship between calcium and potassium/ magnesium levels. We started taking more potassium and magnesium, so we're hopeful that we will see some evidence over time of this. The idea of an ablation or living on arythmia medications is as horrible a thought as living on the MS medications I have avoided like the plague.
So the roller coaster continues. Some days I feel great and alive, and others I feel like my heart is popping out of my chest, causing all kinds of anxiety and fear about how long I can go on like this. My legs don't have much stamina, but they do feel like my gait is more normal when I am walking on fresh legs. I figure it's going to take another 4 to 8 weeks to recover from the hospital stay and get the Coumadin out of my body so that we can determine if all my veins are open. Once that happens, I can really then better determine if the CCSVI vein opening is having any effect on my MS condition. I think it is, but it's really hard to say at this point.
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