Resting Heart Rates

So, interview over with. My ticker coped quite well mainly because I wasn’t too stressed out. There weren’t any questions that really stumped me so all was good. I thought that would be the worst kind of situation for me to be in after major heart surgery, but it appears I was wrong. The next day I found out I had 2 more interviews...one of them involving a presentation. Now I’ve always found these stressful! Being up there forced to talk about something will definitely make me go red, and get my heart pumping. But I know, I should really stop complaining! I’m back on my feet doing exercise so a little presentation won’t really do too much harm!

I started to some weights as well against the advice of my cardiologist. He told me that when you do weights it can put an added pressure on the heart because of the blood vessels in the arm (you can tell I’m not medical doctor!). He said that based on this, although there was no evidence to support his theory, that it could end up making my aortic root grow slightly larger than the valve. Now if there was evidence for this I would have listened to him... But on a forum I visit dedicated to people who have had valve replacement, there are plenty of people doing weights with their doctors’ knowledge and doing just fine! I think I have to exercise some caution in the things I do but I’m not just going to limit myself off from activities. I’m only 23 after all!

Oh, and thanks for the comments guys, nice to know people are actually reading the blog!

I was browsing the internet and came across this little piece of information. The average heart rate should be around 70-75 for most people. Which is where I seem to be falling at the moment. My aim is to get it right down to the 60s (lower heart rate is better!).

I'm also beginning to check my INR less often. INR is a number that tells you how fast your blood clots. 1 = normal. With someone on anticoagulation (Warfarin), the number rises meaning the blood takes longer to clot. My INR seems fairly stable now and exactly within my target range of 2.5. So at the moment I'm checking it once a week now (initially it was every 2 days!). So that's another weight off my shoulders. In terms of icreased bleeding or bruising...I really haven't noticed a difference. I don't seem to get bruised any easier than I did before I started taking the Warfarin so I'm happy with that too!