Back In The Saddle
The image above was unthinkable for me, just five days ago. I couldn't do much of anything physical, except fly fish, and even that had its moments. Some of you know that I was diagnosed with a blockage to one of the arteries feeding blood to my heart (the L.A.D., as it turns out - Left Anterior Descending) after a stress test a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to the miracle of modern medical science and a great team of doctors and nurses at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, I was back in the saddle with my dogs this morning, roaming the grouse woods again.
Everything went better than hoped for this morning. Pounding chest pain? Gone. Shortness of breath? Gone. Sweating? Gone. It was like this brief episode with cardiac issues had never happened, but it most certainly did, and changes are currently being made. A better diet and losing a little weight is the most obvious area for improvement, as my level of physical activity is already pretty good, and my vitals all are in good shape as well. There's hope that this might not happen again, but not without change. Yes ... change can be good.
Needless to say, my pack and I haven't been out in the woods at all in about three weeks, and somewhat sparingly before that as my symptoms manifested themselves. In other words, we have a lot of catching up to do and that's what we started doing today as the guiding schedule resumes this week. The trips will be demanding I'm sure, but they will be tailored to reducing the amount of physicality placed upon myself ... we're going to ease in to this.
The dogs performed generally well this morning, as brilliant sunshine dried the leaves under our feet. A lot of the foliage is down, but there's still plenty out there to screen birds from our view when they take flight. Of the nine grouse and one woodcock we moved this morning, several would have provided decent opportunities had there been hunters with me, and we had some very close flushes. Bode pointed two of the grouse and Rosie pointed another. Millie ran really well but found nothing for her efforts, but she's looking better and better each time out.
It will take us a bit of time to catch up, but hopefully we can get that done this week in preparation for the next few weeks of trips. As always, thanks for following our adventures in the grouse woods!
Everything went better than hoped for this morning. Pounding chest pain? Gone. Shortness of breath? Gone. Sweating? Gone. It was like this brief episode with cardiac issues had never happened, but it most certainly did, and changes are currently being made. A better diet and losing a little weight is the most obvious area for improvement, as my level of physical activity is already pretty good, and my vitals all are in good shape as well. There's hope that this might not happen again, but not without change. Yes ... change can be good.
Needless to say, my pack and I haven't been out in the woods at all in about three weeks, and somewhat sparingly before that as my symptoms manifested themselves. In other words, we have a lot of catching up to do and that's what we started doing today as the guiding schedule resumes this week. The trips will be demanding I'm sure, but they will be tailored to reducing the amount of physicality placed upon myself ... we're going to ease in to this.
The dogs performed generally well this morning, as brilliant sunshine dried the leaves under our feet. A lot of the foliage is down, but there's still plenty out there to screen birds from our view when they take flight. Of the nine grouse and one woodcock we moved this morning, several would have provided decent opportunities had there been hunters with me, and we had some very close flushes. Bode pointed two of the grouse and Rosie pointed another. Millie ran really well but found nothing for her efforts, but she's looking better and better each time out.
It will take us a bit of time to catch up, but hopefully we can get that done this week in preparation for the next few weeks of trips. As always, thanks for following our adventures in the grouse woods!
Images for this post were contributed by Mickey Cunliffe.
