A Tourist Among the Cosmos

I am, admittedly, not a physical person. The most exercise I get is either running to catch the bus, lifting things at work, or a calm evening stroll among the city’s trails once a week. But that is going to have to change, courtesy of my recent bloodwork. Early last week, my nurse practitioner informed me that my cholesterol levels were greatly elevated, to the point where she calculated I was at risk of a heart attack within ten years.

Yikes.

Right now, I have two choices: to go on medication, or to change my lifestyle significantly. Now, these choices aren’t mutually exclusive, but I’m wary of the price of medication (no medical plan from work, and while the federal government is finally moving forward on Pharmacare, heart medication is not yet part of their plan) as well as the side-effects she described. Anything that makes moving around painful is to be avoided wherever possible. So the current plan is to attempt some lifestyle changes and to see where my cholesterol levels are in six months time (my next scheduled blood test).

In addition to some plans on the nutrition front, a part of my strategy relies on, as the title implies, jogging.

My first step was to get a bathroom scale to monitor my weight (I currently mass 70.1 kg or, for those used to American units, 154.5 pounds). Next up: proper exercise clothes (I mean, I could jog in khakis and a golf shirt, but something tells me that might be, at best, awkward). Friday, I went to the local SportChek and picked up a pair of jogging pants and a tee-shirt which were on sale. Over 140 dollars, after taxes, for just two items of clothing.  Not to mention my period of being flummoxed by the way sports pants are measured. I’m used to pants being measured by waist and inseam – what is this “small/medium/large” nonsense and how does it translate? One of the associates at the store was able to provide an interpretation.

So, Saturday morning, I moved to put all of these things to use. The day threatened to be hot and humid so I reasoned getting up and out early was wisest. I’d also broken down and activated the Samsung health monitor on my smartphone, to count steps and calculate calories consumed. (Just how accurate is this system? No idea, but it’s a tool ready to hand, and I’m not going to leave it aside. Heart attack inside ten years may not be “desperate times” but it’s close.)

I’d mentioned I had walked along the city’s trails; trips that often took an hour or more and provided lovely scenery along the way. I figured, for this first outing, I’d attempt one of those circuits, maybe restricting myself to the riverside trail between Regent and Smythe Street.

Two blocks of jogging later, and I realized my ambition had outstripped reality. Three minutes of physical activity and I was out of breath, I could feel my face turning red, and could count my heartbeat just by listening. I was much more out of shape than I realized. There was no way I could complete my initial route without collapsing. But I wasn’t ready to just turn around and head home. At the next corner, I took a breather, and decided to head south, through the neighborhood instead of north to the river. Two blocks more and I took another breather, turning back towards home via another street. I got about three-quarters of the way home before I had to stop jogging entirely and walk the rest of the way.

If there was a worse showing for a first-time jogger, I’m not sure I want to know. I’m reasonably certain that my fitness-oriented brother would fall over laughing at my shoddy performance.

Yet… once I got home and got a proper bath and a chance to cool down, I realized that I felt… good. The exercise itself was an ordeal, yes, but afterwards I’d felt better than I had in quite some time. I checked the Samsung app and found it had logged almost 1,400 steps in my outing and calculated I had burned maybe 130 calories from the effort. Which, well. It’s a start.

I expect repeat performances will have to remain at this level for a while, before I attempt longer sojourns. Perhaps twice a week for now, then bump that up to three times a week when I feel I can manage the effort. But I expect it will get easier with time and practice and might go a long way toward helping some of my other health problems (such as the growing fatigue and recurring depression). Combined with my diet plans, I might be able to get my cholesterol in line by January. We’ll see once my next blood test is done. Watch this space for updates.

Ageing comes for us all, and it expresses itself in many ways. For me, it’s expressing itself through the graying of hair at the temples and the slight bald spot forming on the top of my head (others say they don’t see it, but I certainly do whenever I look in a mirror).

And, as you may have guessed, through failing eyesight.

I’ve been nearsighted since I was seven years old, but lately my vision has reached the point where both the changing shape of my ageing eyeballs and the nearsightedness have combined so I couldn’t really see at any distance. It was a new and relatively inconvenient experience for me to have to take off my glasses so I could read books or use my phone. So, three weeks ago, once my finances had recovered from the tooth extractions I endured earlier this year, I took myself to the optometrist.

Continue reading “The New Glasses”

The latest versions of the COVID vaccines are finally out for distribution, and not before time too, as cases in New Brunswick are on the rise. Having not had a proper booster shot since last August, and not wanting to repeat my experience with COVID last December, I booked an appointment with the local pharmacy, and got my shot on Tuesday.

Having had both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines during the earlier years of the pandemic, I can tell you I preferred the Pfizer more, as it did its job without anything in the way of side effects, while the Moderna wore me out for a couple of days. This time around, I had to get the Moderna, as it was the first to have been approved.

So: the next two days had me tired enough to sleep eleven hours a day and with the general aches and fever on the second. But better two days of discomfort than the risk of getting infected while waiting for the Pfizer to arrive. Despite people’s insistence that the disease is “just like the flu now” and so on, it is so very much not. Long Covid can still strike after the initial infection and it will screw you over for weeks or months, long after you would have recovered from the flu. Plus, there’s the enhanced risk of heart attack or stroke that can also last for months afterward.

Believe me, if you’re still on the fence about getting the vaccine or getting the booster (and if you are on the fence at this late date, why?!) you really should get the shot. Holidays are coming up, and COVID is a terrible gift to give to the family.