Yesterday I did my #shortdayout long walk, with the intention of reflecting on my year. What a year, it all started so well but in typical schadenfreude way was quickly, in the blink of an eye, upended late January, with an emergency admission to ED and then into the coronary care unit of the cardiology ward which would be home until Mid March!I did have two days out for bad behaviour. Being transferred between hospitals seemed not unlike those prison vans you see going up and down motorways, and I was plotting my escape! The bad behaviour was to ask the cardiologists whether they were curious what was causing my problems given their dead cert (!!!) predictions had been misplaced and I was in the outlier category. The remedy was clear, an ICD for protection, discharge. Cause - idiopathic sounds good.
Absolute diagnosis remains uncertain but I do know what hadn't caused my sudden cardiac arrest while running a parkrun.
The summer was a time to regain some level of fitness. Being a week in hospital is a bad thing but just short of 7 was awful. I was technically confined to my bed in CCU but I disconnected myself twice a day to walk the long hospital corridor. After some disagreements, I was tolerated under licence and strict conditions! Just over a km return, a slow 20 minutes. I dressed everyday too, absolutely no reason to look like I was ill!!!
But as autumn arrived and driving was still some way off a mood descended on me that was not pleasant. Lethargy, purposeless, sharp tongued, that any amount of self counselling and reproach couldn't get to grips with. Deeply harmful to self and others. Their forbearance was heroic and loving.
A long, long planned house move was imminent and stressful in itself. So the probably last biannual poo test arrived for people of a certain age three weeks before our moving date. My wife has survived bowel cancer and the surgeon at the time had said to me that even if we shared lifestyle completely the chance of me getting it was one in a million. Imagine my surprise when a few days later a letter popped through the door and a telephone call came to say I'd passed the blood test, ie tested positive, which was a fail and I needed to go in to see the screening nurse to arrange for a colonoscopy! Seeing your working innards through a camera is interesting, moreso than a glimpse of the angiogram or echocardiogram screens. Seeing polyps, adenomas being excised and clipped and diverticuli is not welcome 5 days before a house move. And then there was the lethargy and symptoms too of the last three months. Perhaps ..... Gladly no cancer was revealed, but the wait for histology results was awful. The diverticulitis I have to live with.
So here I am on the 20th December, three weeks in to my new home and environment, back in to a fitness regime (modest I hasten to add) and completing my first longer walk with some elevation for a while.
I always hope and wish for a magical moment on these walks. An uplifting surprise. As a boring pragmatist and practising sceptic magic is not part of my thinking. But sometimes magic just happens and you can be as boring as hell trying to explain it but why.
My health journey started almost three years ago with a stroke out of the blue. The road to recovery was a fitness regime and my first magical moment which became my healthunlocked name #chinkoflight. And with some sort of symmetry on this day of reflection, year end summary there it was again. And here it is for you. Thanks for reading. On my positive side I am an optimistic person. I hope you too have got to the end of this year and may be can lift your spirits just a tad to say thank you, all of you, who have helped me find my #chinkoflight.
Don't Delay Too Long
Hello from a new member! :-)
So Many Pills to take! Are they safe with the Vaccine?
myocarditis 
Am I expecting too much?
