Hi All (sorry this got a little long)
Luggagelady- Welcome to the group.
Carrie - Congratulation on the Tri
Jim - Here's hoping the weather breaks for you. Hot here up north so I can't imagine how bad it is down there. Although We've had about 3 cooler days this week.
Amanda- I hope you are feeling better. My dad had food poisoning one time and it took him a few weeks to get over it. But he wasn't good at trying to control the symptoms early on and ended up also getting dehydrated.
Boy it's been a long and at times worrisome couple of weeks. As you might remember, on June 16th I started taking blood pressure medicine. The good news is that the meds have seems to regulate my blood pressure pretty well. Other than at the Doctors, my blood pressure has been 104 to 120 / 60 to 84.
As for the worrisome part, that Monday and Tuesday, I had some discomfort in the Sternum and Shoulder that would come and go. Tuesday after work, even though I wasn't feeling anything at the time, I decided to go to the ER and get it checked out. Over the next 4 hours, I had an EKG machine hooked up, chest x-ray, and a pair of blood tests for cardiac enzymes. All of the results came back negative. They kept my most of that time because of wanting to run the second blood test 3 hours after the first one as the cardiac enzymes can had a couple of hours after a heart attack to show up in the blood. The ER Doctor recommended I contact my family doctor to get a stress test run to make sure it wasn't something activity related.
I went to my family doctor a week ago Friday and He told me to take a baby asprin as a preventative measure and scheduled my stress test at the hospital for the past Wednesday. I went to the hospital on Wednesday and so far the results look good. I had the stress test where they injected the radioactive dye into my vains and take a scan of my heart. Then did the treadmill test where they injected dye again. Finally, they took another scan of the heart. The cardiologist said the EKG during the treadmill test looked good. And right now, all I have left is a followup appointment with the family doctor to review the findings of the heart scans.
At this point, I'm fairly sure It's not the heart even with results of the heart scan still out (you would think if it was something real serious someone would have contacted me by now). So, for the past week or so, every little twinge would have me thinking is it the heart or is it nothing. But in doing that, I noticed for example the discomfort in my shoulder, which was bad again this Tuesday, started in the top of the shoulder and not the chest part of the should. I'm left handed and was teaching for 8 hours and for at least the first 6 I was writing on the board all the time. On top of that, I'm carrying around a book bag that is heavy, and when I lay down and watch TV it on the left hand side (which I was doing because the doctor told me to rest). So, I'm thinking it really is something with the shoulder and the discomfort would come and go with certain positions. The stuff in the center of the chest I am wonder if it was just something like acid reflux agrivated even further because of the worrying. Since Tuesday/Wednesday I've been feeling alot better. And yesterday worked out, slowly for the first time since this all began. I did 3 miles average about 17:00 mile and my max heart rate was only about 120bpm (at the stress test the goal was 153). The last time prior to the was when I did relay for life on June 18th.
My biggest take home is when it come to the heart don't mess around. Nobody has made me feel like I was wasting their time. When I told the ER doc I wasn't having any pain right then his reply was that's Ok that's what were hear for. I'm sure he was thinking It better for you to come in even if it's nothing than to ignore it and it end up being a something major. At the hospital, the techs in cardiology said that this stress test would provide a good baseline of cardiac ability of the endurance training I've been doing if it didn't find anything wrong.
In other news, my weight got down to 303 with some of that was not feeling like eating for a couple of days. I'm back up to 305 which is still a bigger weight loss than I've been having.
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Than the rains came. I left hoping to miss the rain at 5:45 AM. John left earlier this morning and before getting with me had in 13.1 miles. Then he walked additional miles with me and his average was 13.54
Great support group here.
great work getting your bike rides and cross training time in. Hmm i know the bottom pain..... spinning! 
for signing up to the princess half- you'll have an amazing time with DD. Take it easy - it's much easier to make up time now than be injured in the run. 
