Something\nrather unremarkable happened yesterday; I forgot to take my medications. Every\nmorning for the past 4 years, I\u2019ve religiously downed half of an orange\nbisoprolol pill, along with a red and white Ramipril capsule, a white oblong\natorvastatin and a blue baby aspirin. It\u2019s not like this is the first time I\u2019ve\nforgotten to take my meds, but what is remarkable is I only realized it this\nmorning, one day later. And this observation made me unapologetically happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Months after being released from the hospital back in November\n2013, and after participating in a cardiac rehabilitation program, I realized\nthat my heart was recovering much faster than I was. While I returned to\nrunning and cycling, each time my heart skipped a beat (premature ventricular\ncontraction) during a run, I\u2019d stop, out of concern, and then continue. I could\ncycle alone through long lonely stretches of forested road, without cellphone\nreception, but wake in panic in the middle of the night because my heart was\npounding. I spent countless amounts of time ruminating about how I came to be\nin this situation, after years of healthy eating, low cholesterol, 11% body fat\nand 26 marathons and countless other races. I felt betrayed by my heart and\nashamed at how it let me down. While my heart was getting stronger and\nstronger, I clearly wasn\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet ever\nso slowly, over the years, the emotional grip of the cardiac arrest began,\nalmost imperceptibly, to ebb. The more the minutiae of simply being alive\ndistracted me from my spiraling ruminations, the weaker their hold on me\nbecame. While I won\u2019t ever forget what I don\u2019t remember about that memorable\nday, I\u2019m forgetting to think about it. In fact, the only reminder of my cardiac\narrest is the morning pill-taking. That I could go over 24 hours and not\nremember that I hadn\u2019t taken my pills, well, that\u2019s remarkable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Something rather unremarkable happened yesterday; I forgot to take my medications. Every morning for the past 4 years, I\u2019ve religiously downed half of an orange bisoprolol pill, along with a red and white Ramipril capsule, a white oblong atorvastatin and a blue baby aspirin. It\u2019s not like this is the first time I\u2019ve forgotten to … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-ted","4":"post-154","6":"format-standard","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":155,"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions\/155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}