Back to Semi-Normal

I’m feeling much better after my sickness during my vacation.  In fact, I’m pretty much back on track with my workouts and eating.

Tuesday was my first real workout with my trainer Steve after being on vacation and sick.  When I walked in the door of the gym, he said “Welcome back, Champ!”  It turned out I had won the Holiday Challenge, basically just a challenge to keep people active for 6 weeks surrounding Thanksgiving.  I won a $100 gift card!  In this case, I won for highest average MEP’s (MyZone Effort Points) during a workout.

I didn't mention here before that I had been seeing a cardiologist  for my AFib and she had me wearing a  heart monitor for week in early November.  This is the thing that they glue to your chest, and when you feel any heart symptoms, like fluttering or skipped beats, you push a button.  During the week I was wearing it, I was supposed to go about my normal business, including working out.  I really didn’t have many AFib symptoms except ONCE while I was on the treadmill, I felt my heart start jumping and so I pushed the button.  Then it calmed down right away so I kept working out, still it stuck in my mind so that I remembered later.

So when I looked at the stats and saw I had my max heart rate had been 189 (which is unusually high), I jokingly said to Steve “I’ll bet that max HR was when I was having AFib.”  Sure enough I checked later, and it was!

So I texted Steve along with a screen shot of that workout...

We've been working out together for almost 5 years, and I love this guy so much, he's like a brother to me.  Not only is he the best trainer ever, we have identical senses of humor when it comes to things that could be serious, but also we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

That said, on a truly serious note, turns out my AFib is getting to be a more regular occurrence (happens with age, I guess) so my cardiologist wants me to take a blood thinner.  She gave me Xarelto which I took for a week but I HATED it.  I felt like I was being poisoned.  So she prescribed Eliquis which I haven't started taking yet because I have a medical procedure scheduled for early January and the instructions say to stop taking blood thinners for a week beforehand.  I'm still not sure I even want to take it, maybe I'll just keep taking aspirin.  I guess it's a gamble, but I really don't have any other risk factors.  And my coronary artery calcium scan score was ZERO, which means I have no plaque in my arteries. 

Anyway, it's something to ponder over the holidays.