Day 8: Treadmill Test

This morning I have a follow up appointment with my doctor to read the results of my blood tests from last week. I actually have seen the results and they are not the best...but that's why we're doing what we're doing, right? My camera guy will be meeting me over at the clinic to film my doctor giving me my results.

This afternoon we'll be heading over to a heart clinic where I will be getting on a treadmill to do a heart stress test. Again, my camera dude will be there to capture all the excitement.

I've had a little concern about the test. I hope I'm not expected to run as fast as I can for 30 minutes. I think I can handle the stress to the heart, but I'm wondering about my left knee...

A Little Story...

Last summer, when I was "trying" to lose weight, I had a good consistent regime going by walking 2-3 miles every day. One day I got a little cocky and thought, "Hey, I'm superman now and if I start jogging, I'll bet I'll be all skinny and fit by next week!"

So for 30 seconds of every lap that I walked around the track, I jogged. By the second day I felt a slight irritation in my left knee. By the next day I couldn't walk. I don't remember hearing anything snap or pop, but I do remember that the pain was so severe that I was popping 800mg of Ibuprofen multiple times a day.

I begged my doc to see me ASAP so she could put me out of my misery. Soon I was in her office getting a steroid shot to my knee...talk about freaking me out.

I was convinced that needed surgery. In fact I had researched what my problem was, convinced myself that I was going to get some ortho-scopic surgery on my knee. My physical therapist, an excellent doc and an avid biker in Park City, told me that if it didn't heal, that he had a nice crew up the street in Park City that would do surgery for me...in fact the same surgeon that did Tiger Wood's knee surgery.

After about 5 weeks of PT, my knee all of a sudden got better! I could start to walk without pain.

My PT convinced me that biking is the way to go to avoid injury to the joints, etc. When you think that 8x your body weight is applied to your knee joint when running. That  is 2880 lbs! There is a place in my future for jogging and running...but not today, and not for a while. That is why biking works so well for me. In fact when rehabbing my knee last year, ridding my recumbent bike for an hour everyday played a big role in it's healing. When you're a big man like me, you need to be careful and wise.

__End of my story__

So, you can see why I don't want to stress my knee out today.

I'll be doing my 1 hour bike ride this afternoon after my heart test.

Here's a video of my check up with my doc last week.