A Mother’s Worry

As I mentioned in a couple of posts my 16 year old, Jacob has been having cardiac tests. Their concern was that he had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or HCM. This is a congenital condition of an extra thick heart muscle. The most common symptom of this undiagnosed condition is SCD or Sudden Cardiac Death! Great! Just what a mother wants to hear. The cardiologist helped some, he seemed to think that Jacob was just EXTRA healthy. Did I mention that he is a nationally competitive speed skater? He trains very extensively. That’s actually how we got him checked; his coach noticed that he got light headed frequently.

The cardiologist was pretty sure that he just had a super healthy heart and a strong vagal nerve. The vagal nerve is what controls our heart rate. We can learn to stimulate our vagal nerve through bio-feedback and breathing exercises. This would actually explain a lot. Through Jacob’s training we have had a hard time getting him to maintain a high heart rate. It seems as soon as he stops he heart rate returns to normal very quickly. He has actually had coaches not believe that he had skated his hardest when he could talk calmly within 1 minute.

Still the cardiologist wanted to do a stress test and an echocardiogram, just to check. The stress test seemed to show that he was good. They managed to increase his heart rate normally. Everything looked good. The echo would just confirm that everything was ok. Then we didn’t hear for almost two weeks!!!

Finally the call came, “we need to schedule an appointment to discuss abnormalities in his echo”. What? Jacob was leaving in two days to train for Indoor Nationals; he would be back for the Fourth of July, then gone again for more training and Outdoor Nationals until August. What “abnormalities”? Does this affect his training? His life? They had no answers and left a message for the doctor. He didn’t call back until the next day. THAT was a stressful 24 hours! Jacob has two congenital heart defects, a bicuspid aortic artery and a mitral valve prolapsed. Basically, one valve has only two flaps, when there should be three and the other valve has a floppy flap. The only time that these can be dangerous is in an un-healthy person. He may be more likely to have heart disease later in life if he doesn’t practice a healthy heart lifestyle.

All of the sudden God’s blessings became clear. Because he is an athlete we were able to discover this now AND he already lives that healthy lifestyle. He will probably always have a cardiologist to check on him on a regular basis. He may or may not need heart surgery as an old man but that is many, MANY years from now. So he is cleared for training as hard as he wants or I should say as hard as his coaches want and we will meet with the cardiologist in August to find out more details but for now, a mother’s worry is calmed!

I'm living on the eighth day, right now!

Heart

Ok, so where did these goals come from?   Let’s start with Heart, Physical, Health/Finances.  This is fairly obvious.  The most common New Year’s resolutions are: lose weight and make more money.  My reasons have a little more history.

Ten years ago I was bed ridden with Fibromyalgia.  The doctor wanted to prescribe a series of addictive narcotic pain killers that “may or may not help” and he told me that I would just need to change my activity level.  I couldn’t do anything aerobic again, no exercise, no sports, no skiing, etc. etc.  At 36 years old that wasn’t acceptable.  I got busy, I found herbal alternatives, I researched Fibro, and I started walking EVERY day.  I got back into shape.  Then I got pregnant with my little Oops blessing!!  My youngest son is now 7.

After having him at 39 years old, I had trouble with my “baby” weight.  Actually, I gained weight, month by month after having him and the Fibro got worse until I finally stepped on the scale and saw 179!!!  I was officially obese!  (The cut off from overweight to obese for my age & height is 178)  I also had two dear friends that were honest with me.  When I said I had 20 pounds I wanted to lose, they said, “20??? You need to lose at least 30!!!”  (I actually needed to lose 40)  Hence, the abandonment group was born.  We wanted to “abandon” the weight because if you “lose” something that implies that you want to “find” it back again.  (I've just gotten word from abandonment group ladies - they are "in" for the 30 pound club)

The group worked well.  We followed the BLI newsletters from Dr. Chet, which were the basis for the Trim Advantage program in our business http://www.daniels.mychoices.biz/ .  We supported each other through emails and we had specific goals.  Over the next nine months I abandoned 42 pounds.  (I hadn’t been below 140 for 20 years)  I started inline speed-skating with my son and felt like an athlete again.  I have to say I was buff!  Then I blew out a knee and had to give up skating (honestly, I don’t really miss it).  But that was the excuse.  Instead of intensely working out, I have just been maintaining.

So here it is six years later and I have crept back up to 160.  My exercise is sporadic, my eating has way too many treats and the Fibro has “good days and bad days”.   Now Dr. Chet came out with the 30 pound club!  Perfect!  That’s exactly what I need to lose, um, abandon.  That’s how I came up with the goal of 30 pounds. 

Daily disciplines:  I know that 30 minutes of exercise seems to be a magic number.  It is also VERY easy to put into my daily life.  I also know from experience that 30 minutes of exercise gives me at least 3 hours of additional energy a day.  In terms of eating, I have noticed that I have not been filling up on good stuff so I put bad stuff in my mouth.  If I eat more fruits or veggies, first of all, I get more antioxidants and vitamins in my body and secondly, I fill my tummy with good stuff.

That is the first part of Heart, tomorrow I will discuss finances.  

Until then I’m living on the eighth day, right now!