Now that medical science has figured out that my anxiety, stress and fear of dying comes from having had a heart attack and two years of angina [1]--by the way, thanks guys--I've resolved not to have any more heart attacks or angina. I should also thank medical science for having caused the heart attack in the first place, resulting in all this personal growth. (I wish there was a sarcastic smiley. I'd wear it out, though, so its absence is probably a good thing.)
Part of the plan is to get more exercise. The problem is, the aforementioned fear of pain and dying. More ranting on the flip.
When I was on Toprol, a very strong beta blocker, I couldn't get my heart rate past a certain point without angina, sometimes angina that would drop me to the floor in agony. The doctors' response was to give me more Toprol, because they had me misdiagnosed with a blockage in my heart. (Nope, it was spasm brought on by beta blockers! thanks for playing, docs!)
I've been off beta blockers for a while, and off the diltiazem that made me spacy, gave me more PVCs [2] than usual, and left me very tired. But while the drugs are gone, the fear lingers on.
My uncle--my dad's stepbrother--is a retired ER doc. He's had six heart attacks. He is my touchstone, and thank God for him. His ongoing advice for me has been to let go of anger and to exercise; he says that being a lifelong jock is what's kept him alive, that and resolving some anger issues. He bugs me every time I call him and I always have to hang my head and admit I haven't been doing much. I finally called him to talk about it. I've been scared, quite frankly. You have enough of these episodes--even though it never happened on a treadmill--and you begin to be really afraid of doing much of anything but sitting.
One of my goals--note "goal" not "resolution"--is to walk on the treadmill twice a day for 15 minutes each session. I'm going to start with 5 minutes once a day for one session and move up from there. I just did my first session for 2006 and I'm still alive, no angina. I even got my heart rate up a little.
One way I got myself to do it, and it's any port in a storm my friends, is I put this damn laptop on the ironing board and read while I walked! Whatever! I did it! I was scared, and frankly I'm still scared, because most of these attacks came after the fact not during, but I did it.
Categories: exercise [3], heart_attack [4], medicine [5], treadmill [6], snark [7], fear [8], stress [9]
Technorati Tags: Chronic Illness Support [18]