Another Day again

I found out last evening that my neice Stephanie had a new baby girl. Her name is Charley Dru Manning. She weighed 7# 3 oz. and is 19 inches tall. Another neice, Emily just found out that she is having a boy. Both of these babies are my sister, Joy's, grandchildren.

I booked out tickets on SWA for April 12 to go to Phoenix. We want to be there at Easter time so we can attend the Easter pagent their at the Mesa temple. Since my health is so much improved, I decided this would be a good year to do it. We will fly out of SLC for $437.20 for the round trip for both of us. We will take the shuttle from Blue Sky Airport to Richard & Téa's after riding the shuttle (Trailwayexpress) from IF to the airport. It will be $55 round trip a piece for us. That way we won't have to worry someone else about taking us to the airport nor parking our car there at the airport either. It would have been $200 to $250 a piece to fly from IF. By booking it now it can be paid for before we go. That will be good.

I mentioned in one of my other blogs that I went to talk to Eric Jackson and he suggested that I hire a personal trainer to help me build more muscle mass. Well, I met with Elena Pack the first part of November. She started me right out on the treadmill at 2 mph. She told me to tell her if it got to be too much. I told her than on a scale of 1-10 10 feeling like I was dying that I already felt like I was between a 7 and an 8. I told my carotid pulse and it was only in the 60's which really puzzled me because I could feel a heaviness in my chest and was breathing hard and could tell my heart was working. She slowed me down and eventually showed me some exercises with some weights. I then went down to my water exercise class. Afterwards, I was sitting in the hot tub for 5 minutes. It dawned on me that the last time I was on a treadmill was at Dr. Lijenquist's office and at that time without increasing the speed or the incline or even going anywhere near three minutes, I went into bigeminal PVC's (premature ventricular contractions) which don't profuse or cause a pulse. I wondered if that was what happened. I called and talked to the nurse at the Dr.'s office and she suggested I go in and see him. So on Wednesday morning, I went into talk to the Dr. He ordered an EKG. I told him it wouldn't show anything but a right bundle branch block. And I was right. He also did a bone scan at that time. Since the EKG was negative he ordered a Thalium Stress test. That 's where they insert an IV lock and inject Thalium, which is a radioactive isotope, and have you hooked up to an EKG to monitor your heart beat also. They also have a cardiologist handy to observe as well. That was scheduled for Thursday morning. I wasn't looking forward to it at all and decided I might as well get it over with. Well, I did go into bigeminal PVC's again. (The bigeminal means every other beat.) But Dr. Maley said to keep going so I did and after about a minute I went into a regular pulse. I was comferted to see that. My pulse went up to 138 and the results of the test was Normal heart. Dr. Liljenquist sent me the results. the IMPRESSION was:
1.Good function
2. Frequent PVCs
3. Nondiagnostic electrocardiographic response (I'm not sure exactly what that means)
4. No scintiographic findings of sichemia (lack of oxygen) (which was very comforting because my last resting stress test about six years ago said there was.)
5. Normal left ventricular function. (That was comforting too.)
When I saw that I worked thro' the PVCs, I told the tech my theroy was that my arteries were still slow to dialate (the explaination given six years ago for the ishchemia) but since they eventually did dialate, there was no ischemia.) She said she didn't knpw anything about it but since the results were normal with no ischemia I think that that is as good an explain as any.

A week after having the bone scan I got a letter in the mail stating that it showed significant loss of bone calcium content. When I went to the doctor, I asked about it and I was told that my hip bone had 20% less bone content than two years previously. My wirst and ulna bone were normal, so......He took a Vitamin D test and instead of being 60 which is the low normal, it was 36. So I now take 50,000 units of Vitamin D a month. Since Calcium can't be metalobolized without the Vitmain D that could explain the bone loss. He said they would do another bone scan in two years. I hope that takes care of it. My next doctor's appointment will be March 31. I go in every three months. Karl has been going in every three months also, but at this last visit the Dr. told him that he was doing so well that he could wait to come in for six months. That was good news.

Today we left for the spa shortly after noon so I could workout up stairs on the machines before going down to my water exercise class. My biceps are stiff and sore from doing pushups at my pilates class Monday. I wondered how much I should do today if they were still and sore but I didn't want to go thro' that again so I did everything as I had been doing. I use the chest press with 30#, the rowing machine with 30#, and the leg press with 75#. I tried just 15# the next lowest weight and it was like nothing so I just did what I had been doing. I am still challenged at that weight. I also did the curl ups and step ups and two more exercises that work the triceps and the upper shoulders with an elastic rope. I will do these two times a week on Wednesdays and Fridays and that should build up muscle mass. I weigh in at the New U clinic again on February 15 and will be able to tell for sure. If it doesn't have the desired affect, I'm afraid much of my motivation will go. Time will tell.