Cardiac Rehab

I attended an orientation cardiac rehabilitation session this morning. The first procedure was a pinprick to a finger to draw blood for a cholesterol check. The result was excellent. My HDL (High Density Lipoprotein cholesterol...the good stuff) reading is within normal range, but the attendant would like to see it even higher. So although I have been taking fish oil gel supplements, he recommended increasing the dosage and adding more fish to my diet. My triglyceride and LDL (bad cholesterol) levels are, pleasingly, very low.

Since I couldn't have food before the blood test, the next order of business was eating a muffin, banana, and milk, I'd brought along for breakfast. After that, came checking my blood pressure and oxygen saturation, listening to my heart and lungs, completing lots of paperwork, and taking a quiz. The quiz determined my level of cardiac knowledge...I got 90% on that.

Then I was hooked up to a portable heart monitor and asked to walk on a treadmill for six minutes. The attendant slowly increased the speed to a point that felt moderately brisk to me (3.2 miles per hour). Then he checked my BP and other vitals again. He was very pleased with the results, remarking that my level of fitness was better than most cardiac patients he sees...better even than folks younger than me.

I was told to expect this initial session to last three hours, but it only lasted two. Before I left, we set a schedule for me to attend sessions three times a week, on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, at 9 a.m.

So I'm looking forward to getting into some serious exercising tomorrow morning.