But before I get to that, some background. Both of us (My lovely lady whom I have been with for over 50 years and me) started running in February this year. Both of our kids run and both of their partners do too and also all of our grandchildren. We started for a couple of reasons. One was that we knew we needed to get fit. Both couch potatoes and putting on weight. The second reason is because they all Parkrun, we would join them and make it a get together time.
OK, the bad news first..
We both completed C25K and can run easily for 30 minutes. But over the last couple of months and old adversary has reared its head again. I started to get aches in my left shoulder and arm. So off to the doctors I went and he sent me for an angiogram. I had a stent in 2005 so I thought more of the same... NO!
I have a partial (30%) narrowing of an artery and it needs doing. It is not serious enough for emergency, but bad enough. It may not be able to be stented as it is on a junction of two arteries. So it may be open heart!
Now the good news...
If I hadn't been a runner, I would likely have missed the signs until it was critical. It was the exercise that showed up the problem. For that I am thankful. OK, I have been stopped from running until I either have a stent (tests ongoing) or the surgery. Yes I am pissed about that, but I have no one to blame but myself.
Couple that with the news at the same time that my lovely lady has been diagnosed with a bleed in her left eye, causing her to almost lose her vision in that eye. She cannot run either because it may cause her to permanently lose the sight in that eye.
So as we get older, we get a little more prone to health problems, but we are thankful that at 67 and 65 we have avoided so far the real nasty stuff. But looks like we will have to do C25K again when we finally get back into it.
Stay safe folks and make sure you listen to your body, I did and now I am being fixed.