Sorry Craig this isn't a car post but it IS what I have been up to lately. I'll explain my change in the subject line but need to go in to some history first. Some of you may have been wondering what is this guy doing with all these cars but never has much to say about what's happening with them? For about the past 5 years I have been suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I am obviously not totally disabled but definitely have my limits on how much energy I have to get things done. Add to this a Cardiac issue which was until last week unknown as to what it actually was going on other than I was experiencing what felt like a heart attack which it wasn't.
I don't know if it's wishful thinking or hoping I will miraculously get better that causes me to keep bringing cars home. It seems to be when I am feeling pretty good that I do this and then come back down to earth when I crash after getting the car home and puttering around for a few days. It's also taken me awhile to put 2 and 2 together that overexerting myself isn't doing my heart any favors.
Based on this I am going to stop looking for more projects that I can't do, in the mean time Ellis has been keeping the cars on the road which isn't very project like but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Last Tuesday I was up in Calgary at the Foothills (sorry I never tried to hook up with anyone but I think you understand, although thanks Paul for hooking me up with the steel rim) for my third angiogram since July 2007. This is the test where they insert a catheter in your femoral artery and basically run a feeler gauge up in to your heart looking for blocked arteries, as was the case in the 2 previous tests the main arteries are clear and in good shape. So why the chest pain, shortness of breath etc.? This time they did another test where they pump a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine in to your heart, this is to test the response of the small vessels in the heart which are lined with endothelial cells. The idea is if the endothelium is normal the arteries will relax or stay the same, or if they are out of order they will contract and spasm. So they found out mine are way out of order and they contracted and spasm'd... A LOT, so much so that my heart stopped.
Fortunately once they started pumping the nitro my vessels opened back up and my heart restarted on it's own saving me from the burn marks on my chest wOOt!!!
So it looks like my short/mid term project is going to be taking all kinds of drugs designed to reduce the load on my heart and reminding myself to do even less than the little bit I was doing. On top of all of the above was a perfect bit of irony that made me laugh, after all what else can you do. They had a stereo going in the the Cath Lab (basically an operating room) where they do the procedure. As they were putting on the oxygen and checking to see if I was still alive after I tried checking out I realized in my oxygen starved stupor that the song playing through all of that was AC/DC "Highway To Hell"...
