Remember my story about talking to the surgeon just before I went back into the Cath Lab? I asked him to not only save me, but to make me better than I was before. He did. He put in a couple new stents, and he also opened up that collateral artery that had been blocked off by a stent the first time around. I have better endurance now. If I’m slow and careful, I can run a few comfortable miles on the beach; no chest pain. Sea level. No shoes. It works. It works well enough that I’ve started checking my measured mile times. At first I was barely breaking 20 minutes. Now, though, I’ve broken through the 10 minute barrier. That’s not my long-distance I-could-do-this-all-day pace, just my one mile speed, but my last timed mile was 9:40. That’s actually running, not just shuffling along! I have my energy back!