arsprod 

Lol, I saw your post and said "hey that's me too..." then realized we live in the same place!!

beachball42

Yep, live and work in Carmel the land of 100 roundabouts. Yesterday morning versus today was like two different seasons. I mainly ride the MUP's and about two miles worth of the Monon. The new Midtown plaza is pretty amazing if you haven't checked it out yet. I get to pass three craft breweries on my ride. Sun King is pretty good.

robertorolfo

Not too bad for a first effort. I thought it was pretty interesting to see where you ride.

But I have to ask, is the little clock accurate? If so, where are all the cars at 9:15am on a weekday!?!?

Darth Lefty 

Thanks! I appreciate it.
Well it's not NYC, it's a suburb that's not even on a ring road The freeway crossed near the end of the video goes to... Carson City!

Rush hour is earlier, peaking 7-8:30. School is out, so there's no one parked in front of the school around 0:30

Also, traffic on the section of Folsom Road seen in the middle of the video is pretty broken up by two closely spaced stoplights that go more often than needed thanks to a light rail station between them and people crossing to the MUP.

acidfast7

First day back after a last-second decision to go away to Ireland for 6 days with our new (8 weeks now and getting huge!) daughter.

Daddy duty at the Cliffs of Moher in the wind/rain.

Can't wait to get her on a front-mounted bicycle seat for the commute to nursery (with bike storage).

essiemyra

I rode my bike to the gym today and back home instead of work. I have errands that I need my car after work. So no bike commute to work today.

arsprod 

Got all geared up for rain this morning and... nothing

RidingMatthew

@darth_lefty what kind of cameras did you get? do you have one or two cameras?

You ride a recumbent?


I drove today its Wednesday (80% chance of t storms) and cant get from work to the house and pick up my daughter and go back across town. (the one day I wish I had a E bike)

mgw4jc

A bit warmer and much more humid today. All cars passed safely save for maybe one a little close. He seemed to be tailgating another car too, so probably didn't see me as early.

A good 15 miles again this morning. Chances of rain this afternoon, but only saying 30 - 40%, so not too worried about getting wet. And actually a light shower would feel good.

RidingMatthew

@mgw4jc we have weather reports here for 80% chance of t storms.. be careful... they say could be severe here.

Darth Lefty 

It's a Remali 4K as found on Amazon. No particular opinion on how good it is or isn't because I've got no experience with Go Pro's.

And it's a Terra Trike, until end of August when I'm back on regular bikes.

Kid hauling is the fly in my ointment too.

Tundra_Man 

And here we go with another edition of the Tundra_Man heart surgery newsletter. If you no longer wish to see these updates, simply click on the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of this message. What's that? There's no link? That must mean you want to see them. Your computer is so smart it already knows what you like to see and as a courtesy removed the link so it wouldn't clutter up the message. Computers are helpful like that.

The big news of this week is I hit a bit of a speed bump on the road to recovery. Overall things were going great and I was happy with how much progress I had made in the previous week. Monday morning I woke up and my heart didn't feel like it was beating normally. This has happened occasionally since my surgery and usually doesn't last very long, so I proceeded to go about my day as normal.

When I went into Monday's cardiac rehab class and they hooked me up to the heart monitor, they immediately saw that I was in atrial fibrillation. For those of you who don't know what that is, the official definition describes it as "the abnormal firing of electrical impulses that cause the atria to quiver or fibrillate." In simpler terms it means, "that dadgum heart ain't beating regular like." My heart rate would jump from 95 bpm to 130 bpm and all points in between, and fluctuate to these different rates every few seconds. Normally at rest my heart rate is a consistent 60 bpm, so this was quite a leap.

Like most inquisitive people whose heart feels like it wants to leap out of his chest, I had questions. First up was "why?" The nurse stated that it's not uncommon for people to have some AFib issues after open heart surgery. Apparently the heart doesn't take too kindly to being stopped, cut apart, reassembled and restarted and will sometimes register its protest by going AFib.

My next question was, "what do we do to fix it?" Actually, a more accurate quote of the question was "do I want to know what we do to fix it?" The nurse said that often times it corrects itself on its own and they don't have to do anything other than maybe make some medication changes. Usually it only lasts a few minutes, however at this point in time it had been happening for about six hours. If a heart doesn't come out of AFib on its own, then they do a procedure called cardioversion, which is a term they use because it is less scary sounding than "zapping your heart with defibrillator paddles and hope that it fixes the problem." If that doesn't work, then they do a procedure where they actually burn portions of the heart muscle to kill the parts that are causing the irregular rhythms. Needless to say, I was really hoping that my heart would correct itself on its own without need for zapping or burning.

I still did my rehab session as normal, except the cardiac rehab nurse told me to "take it down from your normal '10' to about an '8'." That was tough, as I don't do moderation very well. The nurse sent a print out from the heart monitor during my rehab session to my cardiologist. No sooner did I get home from the hospital on Monday when I got a call instructing me to return immediately. They wanted to do an EKG and fit me for a Holter monitor.

An EKG is easy. They stick probes all over your body and then take a reading. It actually takes longer to get the sensors in place than it does for them to take the measurement. A Holter monitor is similar to an EKG, but the sensors stay hooked up for 48 hours and you are given a cell-phone size device to clip to your belt that tracks your heart during this time period. It also effectively prevents you from bathing so you have the benefit of stinking to high heaven as the tangle of wires make you feel like you're the main course in a pasta dish. They tell you to go home and resume your normal activities, and keep a journal of everything you do. I think the only way you could really feel like you were normal while wearing this thing was if you were a marionette. I have to wear the monitor until Wednesday afternoon and then return it.

My heart stayed in AFib all of Monday, and was still in that state when I woke up on Tuesday morning. I went out for a walk, and seeing it was such a nice day I walked for almost an hour and half and covered 5.25 miles. When I got home I noticed that at some point during my walk my heart had returned to its normal 60 bpm rhythm and my mechanical valve was back to clicking at about the same pace as a clock. I was very thankful. It has stayed in rhythm since, and my paranoia make me check my pulse every few minutes just to make sure. Hopefully this long episode of AFib was an isolated event and I don't have to keep going through this, but time will tell.

In other good news, I've noticed the pain from my incision is nearly gone. If I rub the area I feel a little sore, but day to day activities no longer cause me to notice that it's there. I've even been able to tolerate the shoulder portion of a seat belt like a normal person (since the surgery I had been wearing the lap portion, but tucking the shoulder part behind my back.)

The pain in my chest muscles is also greatly diminished. I feel very little pain when I stretch or lift things. Sneezing still is unpleasant (sneeze count is currently at 17 and holding) but now only hurts for about 15 seconds afterwards. As of the morning of this writing, all of my activity restrictions have been lifted. The surgeon just said, "Don't do anything that obviously hurts." I think I'm going to go hoist a bag of water softener salt over my head simply because I'm now allowed to.

In the five weeks since my release from the hospital I've walked 141 miles. I had an informal goal of hitting 150 miles before I returned to work, which is scheduled for this coming Monday the 10th. At my current pace I should blow well past that goal.

This morning right before I wrote this mini-novel I took advantage of my restrictions being lifted and got on my bicycle for the first time since six weeks ago when I rode my bicycle to my surgery. I only rode about three miles, as I figured I'd start slow. I could tell my rear end hadn't been on a saddle and my quadriceps muscles hadn't been used in that capacity for a while, but overall it felt great. I certainly have missed it and I'm glad to be back on the pedals.

I could keep typing, but for the most part I think I've hit the highlights for this week. To quote Walter Cronkite, "That's the way it is, Wednesday June 5th, 2019." Well, seeing as Walter died in 2009 that's not a direct quote. But you get the idea.

mgw4jc

Yes. It's interesting because when I went to bed last night it said thunderstorms at 4am this morning. When I woke up it said 10:30am. When I got to work it said 3pm and 40% chance. Now it says 60% chance at 4pm and 75% at 5pm.

My wife may send out a rescue squad for me. But if not, I may be getting wet.

RidingMatthew

we just had a nice storm roll through. but i think it stopped raining. if I rode today i probably would have been fine
stupid paranoid weather apps.

dramiscram

Less windy today. Still cold like the month of march but what can you do apart from gearing up accordingly?

I'm still getting used to riding in an urban environment with a lot of traffic and I now know why it is better to take the lane... more honk but less close calls

robertorolfo

That AFIB stuff sounds scary, but overall it sounds like you are doing well. Awesome that you were able to get back on the bike for the first time. I'm sure the weather is much better than it was the last time you rode.

Darth Lefty 

I was sort of insulted twice. A teen said something sarcastic at my back and a guy pulled alongside me and asked where was the drink holder for my margarita. I have those on video but I haven't had time yet to figure out a better editing solution.

But here's a short one.


Edit: here's a heckler. 30 minutes of video all come down to this and the guy never appears in frame - he was just an average middle aged roadie. Making videos for a living must be terribly frustrating

HE: I'm looking for the drink holder. I know you gotta have one.
ME: Right there (gesture at bottle cage)
HE: Alllll right! No, I meant for a margarita!
ME: Ah, that'd be nice

beachball42

The ride in was pretty nice this morning. Summer decided to come back to the Midwest so low 60's riding in. Not a lot of people out this morning, just a few joggers and dog walkers. Didn't see anyone else riding. I didn't ride yesterday due to potential storms. Last year my goal was to try and ride 1 to 2 times a week. This year I'm trying to ride more but the weather hasn't been helping. So far the most I've done is 3x in a week. If the weather holds tomorrow then I'll have ridden 4 x.

mgw4jc

It ended up raining for about 10 - 15 minutes before I left for home yesterday. It stopped by about 4:40 and I had a dry ride home. No thunderstorm worries at all.

Warm and humid this morning. A decent 14 miles for this Thursday morning.

Friday and the weekend look to be rainy and cooler they're saying.

arsprod 

I sarcastically mentioned yesterday that I'd geared up for rain in the morning and nothing happened. Well the ride home made up for it big time. I left downtown with sunny skies but within 3 or 4 miles heading northward the skies got really dark - and then the floodgates opened up. I don't mind rain but it pisses me off when the wind shifts 180 degrees from behind me to in my face. But I survived - karma's a *****!

Wolfhaven

Mornings are staying cool. 42 today with light fog and 92% humidity. Forecasted for a beautiful mid 70's for the afternoon. See what happens. If the wind shifts off the lake it may hit mid 50's. Turned onto the gravel this morning and see they graded and added gravel for the first 3 miles. Going to make it slow climbing on the way home with that section being pretty much all climb. Swan is still on the nest. Watched two deer race across a hayfield so they could cross the road in front of me. Not sure how far off they have to be before they decide it's safer to stop then to race to get in front of a predator? Hoping for low to mid 50's tomorrow morning so I can ditch the knee warmers and gloves.

robertorolfo

Why didn't you mention your surgery? Make him feel like a jerk..


I had a little bit of a go (as the Brits say) at some dude this morning. As I'm going past at low speed he suddenly starts pulling over to the right, into the shoulder/parking lane, completely cutting me off. So of course I have to brake hard and move over, before going back around him.

As I go by I yell something about using a blinker (which he obviously didn't) to which he replied with the finger. Now, I normally just keep going in situations like this, but something about this guy inspired me to stop. He rolls down the window, I said something else about his attitude regarding his dangerous driving (including some expletives), and his response was, "Bro, I was only going like 5 miles an hour." So of course that just made it that little bit worse, and I really laid into him (many more expletives) to the point that a delivery guy standing nearby gave me a big smile and a nod as I rode off. Call it pointless if you will, but I'm pretty sure that guy is going to be more thoughtful about signaling and looking for bikes.

Darth Lefty 

Because a margarita would be nice

Tundra_Man 

The nurses that run my cardiac rehab class aren't amused when I refer to the water bottle holder on the treadmill as the french fry holder.

Darth Lefty 

They didn't seem to know what to do with my at my hospital either. I'm sure 90% of the patients they see are in for bypass surgery or other old people heart failure problems.