June 20th, 2011: 151,000 people died throughout the world today.
Some died of cancer.
Some died of trauma, related to suicide bombs, unsuspecting and innocent except for living in a dangerous part of the world.
Some died in surgery.
Some died in their beds at home with family at their side.
Some died of Military Interventions, in Libya, some died in Africa and many had no idea a trip to the market was going to be that dangerous.
Every day about 150,000 human beings die.
Every day some die at their own hands, pill, hanging, exsanguination, overdose, drugs, alcohol.
Yesterday it was announced that a certain person associated with the Jackass Movies died in a high speed Porsche crash.
It was suspected that alcohol was involved.
Where does this piece of news rate among all of the other deaths?
It is a death, it is sad, it did not have to happen.
Roger Ebert tweeted about it and was castigated.
Grief should not be the vehicle for attack.
I prayed for the soul of the person, I know this is "passé" in modern society but I also prayed for the many innocent victims of random and non-selective violence.
We as humans have free will and if we choose to use bad judgement and die as a result, at least we had the choice and the possibility of a different outcome.
Many of those who died yesterday didn't have the choice.
Showing posts with label cardiac rehab. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cardiac rehab. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Training, Tuesday Night:
I get ready with trepidation.
I go because something very deep in me makes me go.
I know I will be happy once I start.
It is refreshing to see the others coming in. I know I won’t be alone.
Being alone or one of three in this class is like being in a College round table class.
There is no chair in the back of the room. There is no way to feign participation.
This demands active participation. This demands sweat. This demands effort scrawled across the face.
This demands being able to eat two large bowls of PAIN and asking for more.
But unlike the Urchin in Oliver, who did not get a second bowl of gruel, another bowl of PAIN is easily served up.
The trainer comes into the room, evil grin, cut across a determined face.
Seems someone challenged the trainer as “just a girl”.
That is a dumb thing to do.
Do you challenge a Cheetah to a race? Do you challenge a Grizzly to a test of strength?
This is not a “girl”. This is a honed machine. She is so high on life and exercise, you only pray you get one-half of this joy. A full dose to the untrained might be lethal.
Turning to the group, she says I guess I’ll have to take some of my “frustration with this bozo” out on you.
The group appears to physically shrink as she calls out the stations and the exercises we would encounter over the next hour.
Only actual medical excuses (here are the stitches from this mornings surgery), obvious “open bleeding wounds” or an abnormal EKG would be a valid reason to go a little slower.
It turns out some “kindness” is offered. Between sets, running the stairs, punching the heavy bag, etc. she says, “take a breath” and like people wandering into an oasis from days in the desert, deep draughts of cool air are inhaled to replenish oxygen long gone from muscle and brain.
Then the question, “are we all back?” “Let’s get going”.
It is interesting, the second time through the exercises, I frequently feel like I left my brain a few breaths short of oxygen because the punch sequences really elude me. Everyone looks a little hazy, like a Courier and Ives Christmas Card. I seem to float or stumble through the last part but I make it and even keep up during the last 10 minutes of crunches, leg lifts and finally the glorious stretch when muscle is pulled back into place, attached to bone and joints slowly reorganize.
As my one exercise partner says, “getting old ain’t for sissies”. “I say this (exercise-Ultimate Fitness-Boot Camp or whatever) is not for sissies”.
It requires strong “teeth” and a “taste “for pain, which is best served cold.
Plenty of oxygen also helps.
I go because something very deep in me makes me go.
I know I will be happy once I start.
It is refreshing to see the others coming in. I know I won’t be alone.
Being alone or one of three in this class is like being in a College round table class.
There is no chair in the back of the room. There is no way to feign participation.
This demands active participation. This demands sweat. This demands effort scrawled across the face.
This demands being able to eat two large bowls of PAIN and asking for more.
But unlike the Urchin in Oliver, who did not get a second bowl of gruel, another bowl of PAIN is easily served up.
The trainer comes into the room, evil grin, cut across a determined face.
Seems someone challenged the trainer as “just a girl”.
That is a dumb thing to do.
Do you challenge a Cheetah to a race? Do you challenge a Grizzly to a test of strength?
This is not a “girl”. This is a honed machine. She is so high on life and exercise, you only pray you get one-half of this joy. A full dose to the untrained might be lethal.
Turning to the group, she says I guess I’ll have to take some of my “frustration with this bozo” out on you.
The group appears to physically shrink as she calls out the stations and the exercises we would encounter over the next hour.
Only actual medical excuses (here are the stitches from this mornings surgery), obvious “open bleeding wounds” or an abnormal EKG would be a valid reason to go a little slower.
It turns out some “kindness” is offered. Between sets, running the stairs, punching the heavy bag, etc. she says, “take a breath” and like people wandering into an oasis from days in the desert, deep draughts of cool air are inhaled to replenish oxygen long gone from muscle and brain.
Then the question, “are we all back?” “Let’s get going”.
It is interesting, the second time through the exercises, I frequently feel like I left my brain a few breaths short of oxygen because the punch sequences really elude me. Everyone looks a little hazy, like a Courier and Ives Christmas Card. I seem to float or stumble through the last part but I make it and even keep up during the last 10 minutes of crunches, leg lifts and finally the glorious stretch when muscle is pulled back into place, attached to bone and joints slowly reorganize.
As my one exercise partner says, “getting old ain’t for sissies”. “I say this (exercise-Ultimate Fitness-Boot Camp or whatever) is not for sissies”.
It requires strong “teeth” and a “taste “for pain, which is best served cold.
Plenty of oxygen also helps.
So this is Rehab
Exercise time again, Tuesday night.
Big crowd, eight people show up.
I am joyful, should be easy, multiple stations, some for rest, some for breathing.
Maybe tonight I can keep the gloves up.
Trainer walks in, no really leaps in, bad sign, energy seems really high, hair looks sweaty, she comments on the smell of mildew in the room. I wonder, so this is the smell of “fear” and pain. Stations called out. A runner is the timer, three laps, a push up station: 50 pushups: No s--t, did she say 50? Ryan looks over; yeah I think she said 50. Next, the squat station, 50 then flip to the pushup. Next station, crunches, partner doing curls with 50 or 30 pounds, your choice. Yeah, I’m sure I will do 30 pounds with every one watching, guess again. The jump rope is next followed by the heavy bag and then the speed bag and then sparring with the mitts, oh yeah and don’t forget the slip line and start over again.
The music CD goes in, an eclectic mix featuring such bands as Disturbed, actually rapidly becoming my favorite group.
The process starts. Everyone goes hard at it for the first couple of minutes but the runner seems slow and the intensity drops a notch as all begin thinking of pacing themselves to get through the class.
Switch, comes the yell as the runners staggers in and drops to begin the pushups or drops to resupply his head with blood which has most likely pooled in the lower extremities and gut.
She stalks the room, I imagine us looking like a Zebra herd, knowing a lioness is walking the perimeter. Anxious, pawing the ground, who will fall tonight, a random thought and then the image of the Zebra being disemboweled jumps into my mind, a sight so common on nature shows.
The narrator always explains how the weak are culled and really most of the time they are ready to become the next lion meal, probably out of a shared vision of a bigger picture.
If you believe that then you must have fallen asleep in some class on self preservation.
Everyone advances to the next station and the next and the next and I notice when doing the pushups that my arms have turned purple from the fingers to the elbows. Either this is due to lack of blood flow or my oxygen levels are in the basement.
Then I am putting the gloves on and putting them on the wrong hands, this answers my previous question, the oxygen levels are in the basement and the old brain cells are running slower. This is further confirmed when she tells me, one two and I throw a two, drop my hands loose my balance and try to brush off the next punch by slapping at her mitt.
She has found the weakened Zebra and in spite of the nature narrator I am not ready to go down as a defeated pile of oxygen starved tissue.
I focus, get through the punching, and actually make it through the second round by reaching way down deep finding some last reserve and moan internally when she says now for abs.
Immediately she picks up her ears as if saying, “Did I hear a (Zebra) whimper”?
Big crowd, eight people show up.
I am joyful, should be easy, multiple stations, some for rest, some for breathing.
Maybe tonight I can keep the gloves up.
Trainer walks in, no really leaps in, bad sign, energy seems really high, hair looks sweaty, she comments on the smell of mildew in the room. I wonder, so this is the smell of “fear” and pain. Stations called out. A runner is the timer, three laps, a push up station: 50 pushups: No s--t, did she say 50? Ryan looks over; yeah I think she said 50. Next, the squat station, 50 then flip to the pushup. Next station, crunches, partner doing curls with 50 or 30 pounds, your choice. Yeah, I’m sure I will do 30 pounds with every one watching, guess again. The jump rope is next followed by the heavy bag and then the speed bag and then sparring with the mitts, oh yeah and don’t forget the slip line and start over again.
The music CD goes in, an eclectic mix featuring such bands as Disturbed, actually rapidly becoming my favorite group.
The process starts. Everyone goes hard at it for the first couple of minutes but the runner seems slow and the intensity drops a notch as all begin thinking of pacing themselves to get through the class.
Switch, comes the yell as the runners staggers in and drops to begin the pushups or drops to resupply his head with blood which has most likely pooled in the lower extremities and gut.
She stalks the room, I imagine us looking like a Zebra herd, knowing a lioness is walking the perimeter. Anxious, pawing the ground, who will fall tonight, a random thought and then the image of the Zebra being disemboweled jumps into my mind, a sight so common on nature shows.
The narrator always explains how the weak are culled and really most of the time they are ready to become the next lion meal, probably out of a shared vision of a bigger picture.
If you believe that then you must have fallen asleep in some class on self preservation.
Everyone advances to the next station and the next and the next and I notice when doing the pushups that my arms have turned purple from the fingers to the elbows. Either this is due to lack of blood flow or my oxygen levels are in the basement.
Then I am putting the gloves on and putting them on the wrong hands, this answers my previous question, the oxygen levels are in the basement and the old brain cells are running slower. This is further confirmed when she tells me, one two and I throw a two, drop my hands loose my balance and try to brush off the next punch by slapping at her mitt.
She has found the weakened Zebra and in spite of the nature narrator I am not ready to go down as a defeated pile of oxygen starved tissue.
I focus, get through the punching, and actually make it through the second round by reaching way down deep finding some last reserve and moan internally when she says now for abs.
Immediately she picks up her ears as if saying, “Did I hear a (Zebra) whimper”?
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