From Hospital Bed to the Open Road

At 2 am May 15th 2012 I suffered a major heart attack due to a 100% blockage of the LAD in my heart. The doctors at St. Vincent Heart Center of Indiana cleared the blockage and put a stent in there to keep it open.

What all this means in real terms is that at the age of 46 I now have a heart that works at roughly half what it should.

During my time in the hospital (after coming to terms with the idea of having had a heart attack) most of my questions revolved around whether or not I could still ride my bike.  I know this might sound silly to some, but I viewed my bike as a form of freedom- freedom from my auto, freedom from gasoline, and just plain freedom from all of the responsibilities of my daily grind.

For a while there it seemed as if I would have to give up my bike in favor of mall-walking type exercise, which was a trade I am unwilling to make. So, within two weeks of my release I began pedaling again.  At first it was on a trainer in my living room then it spread out to short spins outside, and now 4 months later I am riding as much as I was before what the doctors like to call my "event."

Now I am by no means riding the same way I was before.  Slow and steady has replaced my attempts to achieve higher and higher average speeds over given routes, and casual rides have replaced attempts to set (personal) speed records. These changes in attitude have by no means changed the enjoyment I experience on my bike, but they have changed what type of bikes and other equipment that I want, and they have (in some ways) changed what I want to do with my bike. I still use the bike to commute and run errands, but now instead of looking toward events that involve speed and time limits, I have begun to look toward long distance slow paced things like touring. Which leads me to the what and why of this blog.

My intention here is to use this blog as a journal of sorts to record my journey from here out as it applies to my recovery and my bike.  I'm sure that I will wander all over the place within this framework, but wandering around is part of who I am.  Hopefully these wanderings can provide some things worth reading--we'll see.