Breakfast and health news

My favorite breakfast...those lumps are pears, granola, mixed in with yogurt (non-fat plain.) There's a cup of coffee over on the side somewhere, with Almond Milk to give a bit of different flavor.  The poppy bowl is one of the many that I made last year...and decided that I'd keep to enjoy in my own home. I'm no longer making any pottery, nor decorating with glazes. If I don't have organic pears ready to eat, I have blueberries.

The following is what an email said which I sent to another blogger...somehow we were talking about health, and I just have been telling anyone who will listen!

I just had some amazing news...saw the cardiologist after having a new ultrasound of my heart. It has improved in the last 4 months - I'm at "low-normal" now. He doesn't think it will get much better. But he also showed me a picture of my heart with the artery 100% blocked, and then after the stent was put in. Major difference...no blood flow and then little veins going off into the heart.

And the description was that my heart had been functioning at only half it's normal capacity...which never caused me any pain. I finally got tired of not sleeping because my shoulders and neck hurt so much...and went to ER. When I said my chest also felt tight, they checked my heart right away. They said the EKG was indicating a heart problem, but the blood work didn't show it. It took a couple more tests of the blood work before they concluded I'd had a heart attack, and they told me!

The cardiologist showed me a picture of the artery which feeds the heart muscle, and it looked like a dead-end, just stopped completely. Then after the stent was put in there were little veins going off of it across the heart. These pictures were taken at the time of the procedure, so my blocked artery started giving blood to my heart and they could take a picture of it.  I did have over a month following the procedure before I could walk any distance without being out of breath easily...but still...

And last year, with a half-working heart, I drove by myself to Florida twice, then to Ohio, and then with a friend to New Mexico and Colorado, from my home in North Carolina.  Isn't that amazing? I think so! Of course the blockage of that artery might not have been total until May...but it was beginning to cause problems that I attributed to my chronic lung condition, where I cough more when I'm tired.

I'm not going to just be satisfied with a "low-normal" rating. For once in my life (according to Russ, my son) I'm wanting to be totally normal.

And I'm feeling very grateful today.