Ramipril Demons

I’m the strongest I’ve been in three years and just had a fantastic ride. Naturally, my body decided to completely shut down over the weekend.  

Since my cardiac arrest in 2023, I have struggled to get back to any form of exercise. Lifting has been stop/start while my body gets used to the barrel of medications it gets pumped with every day.

When I first went to cardiac rehab in January 2024, the other patients thought I was coming to lead the class. It took two sessions for me, against everyone’s wishes, to go too hard and wake up on the carpet with 3 kind nurses kneeling over me. 

I tried to do a 500 calorie deficit twice. Both times hampered by a trip to the hospital because my body was not in cutting mode. It was in survival mode. But look – we love rest. We love extra medications.

I spent last year trying to focus on steps and consistency. I put weight on, I lost weight. I got frustrated looking in the mirror, I reached my wit’s end. I walked into to a private cardiologist office. I cried, I told him I wanted to be taken off the meds. The meds were the problem. He just said no. He looked at the imaging and said I was probably as good as I was going to get.

“So here are your choices,” he said.
“Be tired and weak. Or be tired and strong.”

I chose the latter. I chose strong.

I started in a new gym the next week. It wasn’t easy. My trainer gave me a workout fit for an enhanced bodybuilder and I injured my back – twice. I was in CentreParcs licking my wounds when we decided to go back. But fuck hinging. Just do things that work for me and do them again and again and again. 

So I stripped things back to classic exercises. Lat pull down, incline dumbbell bench, seated shoulder press, lateral raises, leg extensions and all the rest. Gone were the deadlifts, squats and the likes that screwed my sacroiliac joint up. We stay spine neutral in this house. The leg press never hurt anyone (don’t Google that)

But back to last week. I had an amazing workout on Thursday but my body just shut down on Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday. It turns out that getting into good shape makes your blood pressure drop. Now please recall the barrel of medication I’m on. One of my morning treats completely tanks blood pressure. So we’ve halved it. We wait for Monday again and we thank our lucky stars that we haven’t been resigned to the Sacred Heart Ward in the Mater again. 

Tomorrow is another day – Monday is our next target. We regroup and go again.