Flutter

I have had a number of episodes over the past couple of weeks. I went back to the cardio doc early last week because I was concerned that even after giving up all sin (no caffeine, alcohol, etc.) that my flutter is back and driving me crazy. He is sending me over to see Dr. Kay at UAB who is a leading doc in the area of catheter ablation. I told my cardiologist that I did not relish the idea of long term medication that may have other complicating factors depending on the regimen. The doc put me back on a Holter monitor to track my flutter which has been frequent as of late. Basically I either trigger the device to record or it picks up an irregular heartbeat and automatically starts to record. I had several auto starts in which I did not detect any unusual heartbeat. Usually I can feel the flutter, but I wonder if I am having episodes that I cannot feel...that thought is a little distressing.

I explained all this stuff to Tom when we met this morning. In fact, I had an episode or two this morning after church and I used the land line phone in his BOQ room to transmit the recordings. The monitor transmit the recording over the phone and you can actually hear the recorded heartbeat and detect the irregular beats! Now if I can just get in to see Dr. Kay in a timely manner rather than wait a number of months. He is pretty popular and I found out that to make a regular appointment would take up to 4-5 months.

My Friend Tom

Here is a pic of Tom (Captain, USA, Chaplain) and me in Columbus, GA. Tom is attending jump school at Fort Benning and will be jumping out of perfectly good airplane this coming week. Tom and I met when we attended Naval Officer Candidate School in 1985; in fact, we were roommates the last half of OCS. Tom spent 4 years active duty Navy, got out, had a couple of jobs, attended seminary, pastored a couple of churches, and then joined the Army as a chaplain. He spent about 10 months in Iraq and returned in late in the summer (or early fall) of 2007.

I drove over to Fort Benning this morning and we attended church together at a base chapel. We spent the rest of the time eating and catching up. We had not seen each other in nearly 19 years. He and his wife (Jeri - great pair of names) attended our wedding and that was the last time we saw each other. We have kept in touch via email and Christmas cards over the past years.

Good luck Tom on your jumps this week. He is in great shape, but like me, he is 45 and past his prime (even though he probably tougher than most of the others in his class).

Beautiful Day

Today was a great day to be off and outside. I got up early this morning to assist with my church's 5K race. We had a great turnout of about 350 runners and walkers. Yours truly came in 4th overall with a time of 19:35ish (haven't found my official time online yet). After the race, I headed to Barber's motor speedway to help with a criterium (Live to Ride). We had nearly 300 cyclists racing around the speedway (not all at once of course). The entire day was sunny and warm. Really a beautiful pre-Easter day.

My flutter has been in remission for the past few days. I have been working hard to remain fully hydrated and I think the prior couple of weeks was stressful due to some issues at work that have since been resolved. I have an appointment with cardio doc on Tuesday and I am thinking of canceling. I will see how things go over the next couple of days.

Anyway, I am here watching some crappy made-for-TV movie on SciFi and I am tired. So I think I will wrap this up and head to the rack. I am not planning on getting up for the sunrise service and will go to the regular 0830 instead. Then I have to head to the airport to pick up the family as they return from Ft. Lauderdale. Someone had to stay at home and work and take care of the dog.

Bedtime

Not going to write much since I am ready to hit the rack. After another episode of flutter today, I decided to go back to the cardio doc. I could not get in until Tuesday afternoon. I am having too many occurrences to not do something more. I have been running over the past week. I did registration for a local criterium on Saturday and ended up with a case of flutter later in the day and I did not even run...I did have a couple of margaritas that night that did not help! I am not looking forward to seeing the doc because he will put me on some medication and I really don't want to do that. I figure I must give it a try to see what effect it has on me and whether or not it will stave off the flutter for longer periods.

Wife and kids are out of town on spring break while I am here taking care of the mutt. What a joy!

I have another busy weekend with a 5K on Saturday morning and helping with another crit at Barber's speedway (yep racing bicycles on a world class motorcycle track.

I will keep this blog updated as I go through another round with the cardio doc. TTFN (ta ta for now).

A Beautiful Day...Fluttered Away

Today was a great spring day. Due to the time change, my kids and I did not make it to church. However, my wife did!

We pretty much stayed around the house and go things done. Yesterday, we went to my son's track meet and it was miserably cold and windy. Today, the sun was out and it was warm.

Now the down side. My flutter was in and out most of the afternoon. I was planning to run a 5K at 2 PM and it seemed that I was going in and out of the flutter quite regularly. I don't know if was thinking about the run that was triggering the episode or the fact that I had been outside working in the yard (spraying poe anna (?) and other weeds as well as trimming the crape myrtles). I ran the race at 2 PM and felt pretty good. I could not tell if I was fluttering during the race or not. I did finish 3rd (sometimes just showing up can yield good results) and my time was 21:34. We ran on a local cross country trail that is a bit hilly especially the 3rd mile. After I was done, I fluttered off and on until later in the day when it finally went away.

Sometimes I think I should quit running/exercising to see if this stuff will ever stop. I am not drinking any alcohol or caffeine, taking blood thinner, etc. Body...HEAL THYSELF! Not sure it worked.

Well the day is drawing to a close and with the time change, it will be long day tomorrow. I have a hard time with the spring change. You would not think that an hour is that big a deal. It is...just ask my kids who I will have to drag out of bed in the morning. TTL!

Got a new toy

Playing on a MacPro. Like it so far. Just trying to reconcile the differences between it and Windows. Any suggestions for a good training site that explains the differences for and old hacker like me.

Not running much and working toooo much.

My cousin "complained" about the lack of comments regarding my visit to SD. Sorry cuz...I will try and post some pics (not of the visit because I did not take a single stinking picture).