Thanks for the feedback, Ron and Doug. Last week I saw the surgeon who was originally scheduled to work on me (the one who did doesn't speak English well) and asked her when I might be able to return to kayaking. She recommended staying away from it for a year, but a large part of her concern seemed to be about the possibility of fibrillation brought about by cold water (she cited her own experience wading into Lake Superior). Today I saw my own doctor, who pointed out that the surgeon was outside her field of expertise in this matter. He suggested that my cardiologist would shorten that time considerably, and pointed out that exercise is an important part of recovery. (My doctor doesn't kayak, but he rows.) Moral: Always get a second opinion. I am walking every day for exercise, but find it difficult to do so on flat terrain for the simple fact that from my house all the streets go up. My doctor did say that some fibrillation is a common consequence of heart operations, as it is not unusual for nerves to get damaged; however, I have been fortunate not to have experienced any during my recovery. Like Ron, I have been given an inspirator to help restore lung function. The only hallucinations I had were before my discharge, and they were of the missing frame type: that is, I had jerky discontinuities in my vision that reminded me of nothing so much as missing frames in a motion picture. I was told in the hospital that some hallucinations were normal, but I haven't had any since I returned home. Chuck Holst *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon May 23 2005 - 11:37:41 PDT
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