16 June 2024
Happy Fathers Day to all you Dads!
I really, really, really didn’t want to do my morning walk this morning. Finally around 7 I got out of bed and put on my clothes and boots and headed out to Riverland Road. Riverland is aptly named. It historically gets under water with a heavy dew. There are 3 or 4 places the water gets over a foot deep after a heavy rain. The temporary pond comes up over the swale, the sidewalk and into peoples’ yards.
Fortunately, the water has abated and the sun actually popped out this morning. It was pleasant albeit humid conditions for a walk.
Since the echocardiograms have shown decreased output in my left ventricle, all the doctors ask if I have a shortness of breath. Apparently, that clues them in to heart problems. The only time I could confirm that was a walk last week where I was huffing and puffing a little.
As I walked Riverland this morning, I realized I had defaulted to my hiking-up-a-mountain breathing pattern. I find I have more energy when hiking uphill if I take two shallow inhales and two shallow exhales per breath. It was a little startling to me to shift automatically into that pattern on flat terrain.
In any event, I made 1.4 miles today even though I was dragging by the time I got back to the house.
I’ve written before that I am now on a continuous glucose monitor. The device which attaches to your upper arm lasts for 14 days and then you have to detach it and then put on a new one. That’s the theory. The reality is these things come off on their own. Not easily. Usually it’s when I bump into a door jam. In one case, the monitor simply quit working well before the 14 days. I have now requested 3 new monitors from Abbott labs to replace the one defective and the two I knocked off. They’ve been very good about getting a replacement to me. There adhesive needs a little work. However, they were probably not designed for clumsy oafs like me.
For some reason, I’ve gotten into the baked sweet potato routine for dinner. I roast them in the peel in the oven for around an hour or hour and a half based on the size. Usually, after eating one, I’m not hungry for anything else.
There are two types of people in the sweet potato world. There are those that don’t eat the peel and those weirdos that do eat the peel. Yes, I know that’s where the nutrition is mostly contained but no self respecting Mississippian would eat the peel of a sweet potato. We leave that to the Alabamians.
Maybe I’ll try peeling them first, quarter them long ways and roast them in the oven. Maybe a sprinkle of brown sugar and cinnamon.
Stay tuned!