Seventh Week of Recovery

This seventh week of recovery since my surgery has been pretty uneventful. I've stepped up my daily walks to 45 minutes for the first walk of the day and then 25 minutes for a second walk when I can get it in. I've continued to walk at a pretty brisk pace and I've started tracking my heart rate during the walk. I've been maintaining about a 110-120 beats per minute rate during my walks. According to what I've read, for cardiac rehabilitation I should be keeping my heart rate between 100 and 117, so I'm operating in the right range. I've had no real issues with this level of effort (except for the usual aches and pains of a 53 year old couch potato :-).

We did get some bad news this week. We just found out that my best friend from high school lost his mother-in-law to cancer. I went to high school and junior high with my best friend and his wife and we've stayed in contact throughout our lives after high school. We will be traveling back to my old hometown in Iowa for the funeral this week. Deb and I will be leaving Tuesday afternoon and returning Wednesday evening. We are extremely sad for Brian and Claudia and we really hope that we can help them some little bit just by being there for them.

This trip to Iowa should be a pretty good test of my endurance! I'm going to share the driving duties on this trip, but don't expect any complications. I'll be rescheduling my doctor appointment to sometime just after we get back from Iowa so that my doctor and I can factor my level of fatigue from this trip into our decision about my coming back to work on Nov. 16. I still feel like I'm on track and ready to start with somewhat shortened days to get back in the swing of things. We will have to see what my doctor thinks about that idea.

I also have another checkup on my coumadin and anti-coagulation levels this week. I will be moving my anti-coag appointment to sometime before we leave for Iowa so that I can adjust my prescription before we travel if necessary.

Saturday this weekend was another busy day. I accomplished several tasks around the house that need to get done before winter. Our youngest daughter, Nikki, and our oldest grandson, Jacob, came to visit on Saturday. Jacob helped me with some of my tasks and he also helped grandma pick apples at the neighbors house. He even chowed down on a couple of the apples he picked! We watched the Alvin and the Chipmunks DVD and we played some. Then grandma and grandpa needed to have some downtime so we could rest up for an evening of fun with friends. We met at our house and then went to dinner in Forest Lake and then back to our house. We had good conversation with good company. I was pretty tired at the end of Saturday, but it was a very good day in every regard!

I've failed in my efforts to catch up on my thank yous, so this next week will require me to focus on this task. I know I can get this done - wish me luck :-)

This next week will see me preparing myself mentally to get back to work. I'm looking forward to getting back in the swing of things, but this is the longest I've been out of work since I was about 16 years old. I'm just not sure how rusty I'm going to feel when I start back. I have a feeling next weekend will be a pretty quiet weekend for me as I pre-charge by batteries.

Last week away from work (probably) coming up!

Jon