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I called my cardiologist to find out whether I'm in a vulnerable group. The response was that two months out of surgery, with a mechanical valve, I'm not unusually vulnerable to coronavirus symptoms/complications.

I switched to two days a week, Tuesday/Thursday, due to conflict with some work meetings. Nevertheless, I'm really enjoying it so far. Given my arrhythmias early on in my recovery, I don't want to take it too hard, too fast. The level of activity in cardiac rehab is just about perfect for me...

I had my first cardiac rehab appointment on Friday. They let me use the elliptical for five minutes, which felt great at the time, but when I got home, my forearms were a little sore. I'm going back tomorrow (Monday), which will also be my first day back at work.

According to my latest X-Ray, my pleural effusion has resolved.

I had a cold last week, which was super annoying, but I'm feeling better today, and ready to go back to work on Monday, March 2nd. My personality doesn't go well with medical leave, it turns out. Tomorrow I get another X-Ray to see if my pleural effusion has resolved or been reduced by the...

I called the surgeon and he asked for a photo, which I was able to take in decent lighting. So he'll get a look at my incision scar, along with the pimple. It's tiny, so I sent him a copy of the photo with the pimple circled. I hope it's nothing, but if it's something, I'm still on medical...

That saying was quoted in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. I can't speak for any other vegetarians, but for me, it seems preferable not to waste the rest of the animal carcass, if it's already being used for a valve. But I tend to have a utilitarian attitude about these matters, and I know many...

Although for me this isn't the same as religious practices, as a vegetarian, I did have ethical concerns about getting an animal valve, when that was a possibility. What I wondered was this: does the rest of the animal get used for some purpose, or is it killed just for the valve? I'm not really...

Yikes! That sounds unpleasant. My pimple is really tiny, like maybe 2mm in diameter, tops. Nevertheless, I'll call my surgeon's office tomorrow. The only issue with calling my surgeon's office is that he's busy performing surgery every day, in the morning, at least. As of tomorrow, I'll be six...

Today, after I showered, I noticed a little pimple right next to my incision scar. It's a holiday in the U.S.A. (Presidents' Day), but I'll call my primary care doctor about it tomorrow. My heart rate is now dropping into the mid-high 50s when I'm sitting. As my RHR started to drop, I asked the...

Or, because I like hoppy American pale ales, Pliny the Elder, which comes in 17.25oz (~ 0.5 liter) bottles, but has a 8.0% alcohol content.

It's getting better, but I'm not cleared for alcohol for a while. Maybe this summer, as my cardiologist said. Impossible burgers are pretty high in iron: heme iron, like meat, even. So I've been eating those when I can.

One more piece of good news: apparently I don't have to abstain from coffee after all! I misunderstood after my second episode of AFlutter -- I thought I was to go cold turkey for a while. Turns out I'm allowed up to one cup a day. I celebrated with a demitasse of drip coffee this morning --...

Yeah, it's super annoying, but most of the news yesterday was good. I'm pretty psyched to get back to work. Heck, I'd be happy to go back to work today if I could.

I had an appointment with my cardiologist yesterday, and I think it went well. He wants me to get my INR tested again on Thursday, because it's still moving around a lot. I can begin cardiac rehab at the end of this month and return to work at the beginning of March. We're still working on home...

How long is long term? I found an "anti-coagulation clinic" that I might be able to go to until I get set up with self-testing. The problem is that my primary care doctor is with medical group A and the anti-coagulation clinic is part of medical group B (not their real names). It seems as...

I'll try it out and see how it goes, and if it's not working well, I'll complain to my cardiologist and ask for a different way to do it. He seemed skeptical of the eBay route, so maybe I could ask him to prescribe me a meter as you suggested. That sounds ideal to me, but I have to work with...

I'm home now, and I did talk to the nurse at my cardiologist's office about self-testing. He said that the company that arranges it should get in touch with me about it.

Sounds like I'm getting over-charged!

I’m looking over my recently filled prescriptions: it looks like I paid a $5.00 co-pay, and my insurance saved me $15-$22. So the total cost without insurance would be $20-30 US. This is for 30 doses of generic Warfarin in various dosages, because things are still getting sorted out for me.