I am Ready for Rehab

Jumping headfirst into the final installment of The Tribune-Democrat’s American Heart Month project, Becky and I joined the cardiac rehabilitation group this morning in the gym.
Well, we went to the gym at the same time the cardiac rehabilitation participants are exercising. They get first dibs on some of the machines, but it’s encouraging to see their enthusiasm.
I got a few compliments again in church and elsewhere about Sunday’s stories on cardiac surgery, a research project and heart patient Joe Taresco of Roxbury. I do have to apologize to friends, family and patients of Dr. Jacob “Jack” Kolff for mistakenly identifying him as “The late Dr. Jack Kolff.” Jacob Kolff’s is still alive and retired. His father Dr. Willem Kolff, inventor of the first artificial kidney, died in 2009.
This week, we will look at “Living with heart disease,” with stories about cardiac rehab and other programs that teach patients how to reduce their risk of more heart attacks, or at least improve their overall health to survive with a positive quality of life.
My own weekend was a wonderful respite. The day on the farm lived up to expectations and I even got to have lunch with my very-pregnant daughter, Colleen, at her favorite restaurant featuring a Chinese menu.  I resisted the buffet, but got enough food to take home almost a second meal. Even though blood pressure has not been my problem yet, I tried not to think about the amount of sodium.
The planned sittin’ and moseyin’ was moved indoors due to cold, windy weather, which failed to cancel the walk in the woods. The walk, however, turned into a fairly brisk hike around what our family has always called the Four Mile Circle – a circuitous route along back roads leading back to the farm. I think it actually measures about 4.1 miles. Or is it 3.9 miles? And was that measurement before, or after, the mining company slightly altered its route during strip mine reclamation in the 1980s?
These are the questions you ponder on the road while observing all the deer and turkey tracks frozen in what was the road’s muddy surface just a day or two earlier.
Also things like: How long has that new house been there?  And: Is there anything left of the stone building’s ruins? The one where my cousin Tommy fell from the wall while catching a snake.
But the most vexing question of the day was Becky’s: “If we are walking in a circle, how can the (cold, biting) wind always be in our face?”
Besides the value of a good healthy workout, we were rewarded near the end of the route with a spectacular view of two separate herds of deer, totalling nearly 30, along with a flock of more then a dozen wild turkeys led by a huge gobbler.
Sunday found me working on a home-computer project that took longer than it should. I mixed the leftover Chinese food with some leftover Spanish rice soup for an intercontinental lunch.
Today started with another hard workout at the gym, where the electronic scales said I lost two pounds since Thursday. Good job for me, because I usually gain over a weekend.
Then I met with exercise physiologist Gary Pagano to talk about cardiac rehab for this week’s installment. He also informed me that HealthStyles is not a “gym” but a “medical fitness facility.”
Maybe that’s why the locker room doesn’t stink like the ones in high school.