Steve and Judy's Travels!

  He says keep doing what we’re doing.  We’ve been careful with altitude since the surgery.  No restrictions there; just be careful with exercise at altitude.  It’s okay to go see the dermatologist, but stay away from the dentist for at least 3 months.  He’s going to get us started on some Cardiac Rehab.  I asked what the estimated useful life of bypass arteries was.  He responded “Guaranteed for the life of the patient!”   A walk in the Loveland Sculpture Garden.     Half a burger and a small chocolate malt for lunch.  OMG, that stayed with me the rest of the day.  Hard to get my appetite back for real.  Food starts to sound good again.  I eat.  Then it doesn’t sound good anymore.   Overall, today was just what the doctor ordered.  More of the same.  

  We got to visit with John B, friend since elementary school, and Kip. We’ve logged a lot of years together.   On the way back home, we made a surprise detour into winter.       There was a black cloud hanging down next to us, then suddenly we were getting pounded by hail.  We pulled over.  It was deafening!  That black cloud spawned a few tornadoes to the east after it passed us.     Tomorrow is a big day for us.  Our first follow-up with the surgeon.  He’ll tell us how we’re doing.  

  Suck on the coughing machine.   Cough.   Range of motion exercises.   A drive.   A walk in the park.  (Covered all of a half-mile today.) Looks like we wore Henry out!   A nap.   Judy did some errands.   Something for dinner.   Suck more   Cough more.   Exercise more.   Baby steps.  

  During that long approach to the lane closure on the freeway, (this was a few weeks ago) knowing it was the left lane that would close, we stayed in the right lane.  That’s not an attractive proposition, staying in the lane that you know you need to be in, because that’s what most people do.  As we wait in line in that lane however, we have to watch all those people speeding by in the left lane, to merge ahead of us, knowing that every car that passes us to merge ahead of us puts us that much farther back on our slow-crawl journey to the pinch point.  There are already two lanes merging into one.  Every car that drives on past slows us down even more.   It would be nice if everyone drove all the way to the final merge point, then alternated, but that is never the way it happens.  It would be nice if everyone saw the merge coming and got over to the appropriate lane early on, but that is never the way it happens either.  It’s always an inefficient mix of the two.   But this time was different.  A trucker about 20 cars ahead of us, and a trucker about 20 cars behind us, each took positions in the left lane and only advanced at the same speed as the right lane, effectively establishing early merge points and eliminating that maddening rush of cars passing by.  We’ve no way of knowing what happened to the traffic behind us, whether it proceeded orderly or not, but the trucker’s actions certainly straightened out the traffic in front of us.   Thank you, truckers!  

    It looks innocent enough, right?  And it is, if you’re in normal health.   This machine tests lung capacity; not by blowing on it, but by drawing on it.  In a long slow breath, you draw as much air in as you can.  Your progress measures with a float in the tube on the left.  I’ve messed with these before and in normal health I can peg it at 4,000 cc’s, no problem.  Not so now.  Now I’m lucky to get to 2,000 cc’s before erupting in a coughing fit.   This is pure evil designed to cause coughing and pain.  The doctor says I can’t let up.  I have to breathe through this several times a day until it doesn’t hurt to do it any more.  Stretching lung capacity after surgery and anesthesia is highly recommended.  I’d like it more if I got to wait until my ribs and sternum were healed, but no.  They say no problem, do it now, just hug the pillow and cough as much as you can.   Almost two weeks into my recovery, I can feel the progress.  I breathe better and deeper than I did a week ago, but it’s still not fun yet.