By Susan Clark
Well, life has its interruptions. I haven’t written in a while mostly because of the usual demands—work, family, and more work. My workouts haven’t completely fallen to the way side, but I had an incident a few weeks ago that slowed me down. I kept feeling a “pinch” right in the center of my chest—on, off, on off, all day. A million messages and headlines went through my mind regarding women and their heart health, but I had no other alarm symptoms so I regarded the flurries as a peculiarity, not worthy of a trip to ER and yet hmmm……I even held my arms over my head, made sure I could smile, and all those things they tell you to do if you think you are in trouble. That was a Sunday. Monday, the “pinches” dwindled to just a few, same with Tuesday, and Wednesday. By Thursday, they disappeared.
I had a full physical scheduled with my doctor, who happens to be a cardiologist I had seen once years before, and I decided to move it forward. Meanwhile, even my friend Lissa (yes, your Lissa) said “this might not be a good time to exercise.” (can you believe she said that?) I did begin walking again after the “pinches” disappeared but decided not to push my time or speed. Long story short, I went to my exam, got my blood work first and once I met with my doctor we went over my numbers. He was pretty sure my “pinches” were muscular-skeletal but with my mother’s previous heart history, he decided I was ripe for a nuclear stress test, which I did the following week. In this test, they inject you with an IV fluid and scan your heart and chest area. Then, you walk on a treadmill at various speeds while hooked up to EKG monitors and a blood pressure cuff.
I am happy to say I passed this test with very good results. My blood work was pretty good too. No need to go on cholesterol medicine and although my blood sugar was a little high, he reassured me I could arm myself with diet (decrease bread and sweets) and EXERCISE! Why, of course…
So I’m back! I guess it’s like when you are on a walking or running path and you circle off the path long enough to see something different, and swing back on. If anything, I feel like I have a new, clean, wonderful bill of health and if I want to be running in a couple of months, I now know there is nothing to hold me back (other than a bum knee) but myself. So, yes, I slowed down, but didn’t give up, and now I’m back to walking every other day or so and next blog, I’m returning to my roots and trying out the new Jane Fonda workout CD…..more on that next time. Some of us (I’m giving away my age here) worked out to Jane in the 1980s so it’s a bit of a full circle.
Hey, what did I learn from this? We’ve read this time and again, but it really is a good idea to have a full physical before starting a new workout plan. And, although my outcome was a positive one, women should always pay attention to their hearts and any symptoms that seem out of the ordinary. Never hesitate to call you doctor! I was glad I did and now I notice a little more skip to my step. Until next time……
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