Working out

As far as rehab goes, most if not all of my rehab has been in the pool, although all the walking I did in the first 2 and a 1/2 months is technically rehab as well (although not as sexy as swimming....) Am up to 30 min swimming 4-5 times a week, and have been getting more vigorous each time, so given now I'm 4 and a 1/2 months out post-op, it seemed a good time to add some other exercises to the mix. Being a mechanical valve patient with an aorta wrapped in Dacron, heavy, heavy weights are out of the question. However, given how important maintaining muscle mass is as we age, as well as the well-documented cardiovascular benefits of moderate weight lifting, I decided to add very low weight training to the mix. Benched 55 lbs total on incline bench-press, and did about 65 lbs on squats. Pretty low-level stuff for any fitness level, but damn....I'm weak. Little-girl weak. Did about 30 bench presses in sets of 10 and about 25 squats, and wow. Wow as in, I really had more trouble than I was expecting. Of course I was trying to keep things light to minimize effects on the heart from lifting heavy, but it still felt way heavier than I would have thought. Even weirder was the DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) I had starting when I woke up today. At least I know it had an effect on my muscles and wasn't just in my mind.

The plan now is to keep up the swimming and repeat the low weights in a day or two, only adding low increments as the soreness and heaviness go away. Getting Prison Quality Fit, one day at a time.....

Rehab Update

Been very busy with work and travel, hence the lack of updates. Good news is, besides being busy, my overall health has been great! With a trip to Paris and Stockholm that was fun, but involved a ton of walking, as well as long days at work, plus trying to be consistent with exercise for rehabbing, I was pretty concerned I was going to either overdo it, or in other extreme, not be rehabbing effectively. Seems like things are on track for the middle path, where strength and energy levels are returning, even faster than I was expecting.

Besides the Bataan Tourist March I felt like I was on overseas (which was good, since I got to see a ton of great stuff) swimming has been about 4 times a week, at least 20-25 laps each time. HR has been at 120-130 peak during the swims, and it hasn't been the repaired heart slowing me down as much as the muscles in my arms and chest and especially my shoulders. I'd like to add more laps, but have been finding the muscles don't really want to cooperate at about lap 26 or so.

Honestly, the biggest part of my rehab so far has been my back and shoulders, rather than the chest and heart. So energy-wise I feel about 80 plus percent most days. Strength and muscle-wise I'm still pushing about 60 percent. But that's why they call it rehab, isn't it?

Rehab update....

Well, so far, so good. Have been rehabbing per doctors orders, with swimming every second day, with an increase of 5 laps each time. Had a break of a week and a half, which was due to travel, but even then I was walking pretty much every day, all day, as I was playing the tourist (Paris and Stockholm are very pedestrian friendly cities) so, while not the same as swimming, I was pretty happy with how I held up, given the number of miles that were walked as well as suffering the cramped economy class (6'3" or approx 190cm doesn't make for the most comfortable of trips in those seats, at this stage of post-op) at various portions of the trip.

Happy with my weight too; when we travel, a lot of us, myself included, may tend to eat more, and eat more of the wrong foods. Luckily a) there was tons of walking, and b) the portion sizes in Europe are far smaller than in the US, so an entree/main course + dessert + glass of wine, doesn't destroy your calorie/kcal count for the day. Still I put on almost 1.5-2 lbs (almost 1 kg) which was a little disappointing, although not unexpected. Body fat is still around 19-20% so that hasn't changed much, and hopefully once the rehab gets into full swing, I'll start to put some muscle back on. 

Anyway, off to the gym.

The PQP program: Prison Quality Performance Program!

It's time to get into some prison quality shape!

Well, it's almost 10 weeks post-op now. The valve seems to be working well, getting quieter all the time, BP and HR look good, and all the recent doctor's appointments have been going well. With some luck, I should be cleared for an increased level of rehab at my follow-up with the cardiologist this week. The docs have been holding me back because of the issues post-op with inflammation, but I have still pretty much passed the point where conventional cardiac rehab would be useful ("You can go up 3 flights of stairs? The nurses in rehab won't know what to do with you!") given that the rehab in my hospital is geared more to patients who are having problems returning to normal activities, rather than getting back to the fitness levels that a lot of younger, more active patients might have been used to pre-op.  So, fingers crossed, I can get back into the gym pretty soon. So, lets look at some baseline numbers: