The River Rat Ranger Returns

Greetings Ranger Readers. The RRR has been offline for almost two months. Now the truth can be told. The cardiac problems I have been experiencing intermitently, became more serious, ending in going to the cardiac floor at my hospital over and over. I now know more about atrial fibrillation that I ever wanted to. The cardiologists are tired of dealing with me and have told me to carry some extra pills and if this happens again to take a pill and go to bed for 24 hours. If my heart does not return to normal rhythm by then, come in to the office and be "cardioverted", which is to say defibrillated with electricity.

Every incident of a-fib started with being asleep and dreaming the same nasty dream about the war in Vietnam 36 years ago. So today I visited the Veterans Hospital to see if this is all the result of Post Trumatic Stress Disorder. The psychologist says "no". But with all my health problems I need to work on the other stress in my life. However, the a-fib is not happening because of the dreams, the dreams are because of the a-fib. Though I was encouraged to follow procedures to investigate the effects of Agent Orange on my health. Seeing that diabetes, high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, and occult spina bifida do not run in my family, yet I have the first three and a son born with the latter.

So now I am back. And working on my diet. Down 40 lbs. now from when I was diagnosed with diabetes. Down 14 from when Dr. Ganish said I needed to lose weight. I am also trying to walk an hour a day. My last walk involving taking Bay Toe Ven, the inside dog, out through the woods by the Eagle sanctuary. We saw several Bald Eagles and other wildlife. The best surprise came as we worked our way down a dry stream bed and found a pile of scat from a BIG cat. So either a small cougar or large bobcat. I like not being the only large predator around.