pellicle
Professional Dingbat, Guru and Merkintologist
Hi
One of the things which bugs me about these forums is that it inevitably becomes a place of doom and dismay. People posting sad stories of their woes and illness (me too by the way) but instead of just writing reactively to the newbies who are horrized at the prospects of the surgery they face I'd like to start a thread that is proactive and encourage others to post their own daily success stories "my life on warfarin".
I believe something like this from the many athletes and active members would prove a good inspiration for those who suddenly face "the horror". Proof by living life that life goes on. You know, the "good news stories" which are often somehow ignored by the anxiety felt at discovery.
For myself I think I'll attempt to write a little sub journal here over time, to show folks who seem terrorised by the (bullshit) that they are fed about the horrors of warfarin that indeed surgery is not an end point, but just a milestone to how many more years you can spend healthy and loving life not just gradually dying over a year or two as people did before heart valve surgery existed.
I'd like to underscore how wrong many of the messages like: you can't do cold and how you can't do exersize and what ever the fcuk bullshit their Dr's have fed them ... They are wrong because they are generalisations made by people who only see (in the main) aged and weak, not less than 50 (or even less than 30) people who just have a plain plumbing problem (their valve).
So for the casual reader I had my 3rd Open Heart Sugery in 2011, I had a mechanical valve fitted. Since then I've faced challenges but with a bit of fighting back have and continue to "enjoy my life".
Yesterday I went out for a ski to a destination near here. In Finland Skiing is not swanny resort down hill BS its actually how you get around and do **** when its cold and covered in snow. Interestingly historically no one snow shoes here as if you know how to ski why the hell would you snow shoe?
So I went off track (can't see the walking trails under 50cm of snow anyway) to my favourite little place. After I got down into the valley I could see it across the lake, that little roof in the trees is it:
it took me about an hour to get to here from the car ... So I skied across the lake to the shelter, where I put off my skis (note the bindings for anyone unfamiliar with XC Back Country bindings) and had a small fire and some food and warm berry juice.
Its sad how so many more bogans are getting to these places now, the fireplace did have a nice steel frame once, but dickheads seem to enjoy smashing things ... alas
On the slope back I encountered some delightful little pine trees bent under the weight of snow, waiting for their chance to grow big and tall like their sisters.
as this was down in a valley I had to "climb out" ... lovely little ponds like this one (Finns differentiate between Lakes (Jarvi) and Ponds (Lampi) and this little place was a Lampi), so I had to scale the hills out. This was (in typical Karelian geography) very steep. Note that the tops of the Pines from down at the lake are about where I've climbed to and that's in a horizontal distance of about 20 meters)
For folks who don't know much about cross country skiing, you can't "walk up hills" but you can traverse up sideways. So perhaps you can make out the long trail of sideways ski marks as I walked sideways up this hill. Its not easy but its a dam sight easier than snow shoeing when the snow is about 30cm deep (that's a foot deep but it depends on your foot I suppose) and you sink in and pull up a snow shoe covered with snow (if its fallen in on your shoe, if you can lift you foot).
This folks is why I love it here .. (although I could easily see that the same things are why some hate it here).
So, over to you....
One of the things which bugs me about these forums is that it inevitably becomes a place of doom and dismay. People posting sad stories of their woes and illness (me too by the way) but instead of just writing reactively to the newbies who are horrized at the prospects of the surgery they face I'd like to start a thread that is proactive and encourage others to post their own daily success stories "my life on warfarin".
I believe something like this from the many athletes and active members would prove a good inspiration for those who suddenly face "the horror". Proof by living life that life goes on. You know, the "good news stories" which are often somehow ignored by the anxiety felt at discovery.
For myself I think I'll attempt to write a little sub journal here over time, to show folks who seem terrorised by the (bullshit) that they are fed about the horrors of warfarin that indeed surgery is not an end point, but just a milestone to how many more years you can spend healthy and loving life not just gradually dying over a year or two as people did before heart valve surgery existed.
I'd like to underscore how wrong many of the messages like: you can't do cold and how you can't do exersize and what ever the fcuk bullshit their Dr's have fed them ... They are wrong because they are generalisations made by people who only see (in the main) aged and weak, not less than 50 (or even less than 30) people who just have a plain plumbing problem (their valve).
So for the casual reader I had my 3rd Open Heart Sugery in 2011, I had a mechanical valve fitted. Since then I've faced challenges but with a bit of fighting back have and continue to "enjoy my life".
Yesterday I went out for a ski to a destination near here. In Finland Skiing is not swanny resort down hill BS its actually how you get around and do **** when its cold and covered in snow. Interestingly historically no one snow shoes here as if you know how to ski why the hell would you snow shoe?
So I went off track (can't see the walking trails under 50cm of snow anyway) to my favourite little place. After I got down into the valley I could see it across the lake, that little roof in the trees is it:
it took me about an hour to get to here from the car ... So I skied across the lake to the shelter, where I put off my skis (note the bindings for anyone unfamiliar with XC Back Country bindings) and had a small fire and some food and warm berry juice.
Its sad how so many more bogans are getting to these places now, the fireplace did have a nice steel frame once, but dickheads seem to enjoy smashing things ... alas
On the slope back I encountered some delightful little pine trees bent under the weight of snow, waiting for their chance to grow big and tall like their sisters.
as this was down in a valley I had to "climb out" ... lovely little ponds like this one (Finns differentiate between Lakes (Jarvi) and Ponds (Lampi) and this little place was a Lampi), so I had to scale the hills out. This was (in typical Karelian geography) very steep. Note that the tops of the Pines from down at the lake are about where I've climbed to and that's in a horizontal distance of about 20 meters)
For folks who don't know much about cross country skiing, you can't "walk up hills" but you can traverse up sideways. So perhaps you can make out the long trail of sideways ski marks as I walked sideways up this hill. Its not easy but its a dam sight easier than snow shoeing when the snow is about 30cm deep (that's a foot deep but it depends on your foot I suppose) and you sink in and pull up a snow shoe covered with snow (if its fallen in on your shoe, if you can lift you foot).
This folks is why I love it here .. (although I could easily see that the same things are why some hate it here).
So, over to you....
