A Good Heart A Year Later

It would be one year this coming Thursday when I had my aortic valve replaced. By a year ago today I had two unexpected/unplanned procedures ... a pacemaker after my heart block on the operating table and a few days before an LAD that was 98% blocked requiring a stent.

So last Thursday I had some great news after a rocky December appointment with the VA cardiologist where we battled over what I would and would not take as medicine. She put in her report that I "became agitated" when we discussed statins and metoprolol that she was trying to shove down my throat and I knew enought about them and their alternatives (food) to say no over and over. In fact I told her "I will die before I take any statins" .. 

I knew then as I left her office that I might be taking my heart care back to the hospital and the surgeon that did the work. Since the VA had referred me last year to the hospital for surgery they paid the bills until last October. Well she made it easy for me to make that decision a couple of weeks ago.

A month after my surgery and a full clearance by the surgeon, the VA Cardiologist said I had PVC and needed to start taking Metoprolol immediately. I did not know what PVC was but I did know I was not taking Metoprolol. The few days I did take it my bloodpressure had increased and with my slow 3.2mph 1.5 mile walk in front of my house that stuff made my heart race and the rhythm off the charts.

I got an appointment with the surgeon as a 2nd opinion right after she told me that. Right off the bat when he was looking at the list of medications I was taking ... "why are you taking this" ... because she says I have PVC ... "you do but that is normal and will go away after a year when your heart has 'remodeled' itself with the stent and new valve ... "stop taking that" ... so I did.

I know each cardiologist looks at things differently and has different recommendations but to me that was another red flag. The major red flag is a blog post all of it's own. 

I was to see her for my annual check up in July but a couple of answers made me cancel those after 4 months of arguing by email in the VA system. I knew I needed an echocardiogram near the one year anniversary of my new Edwards 29mm aortic valve. 

She said that was not needed. I knew I needed blood labwork also but she said that was not needed. Was this payback for not agreeing with her medicine recommendations?

I was told last summer that to draw blood for labwork at the VA was a walk in appointment. I even asked then "are you sure a doctor does not have to order it" ... yes, just walk in anytime and have it drawn.

So I tried that a couple of weeks ago, after fasting the afternoon, night before and the morning of. Only to get there at the check in and be told "a doctor has to order that,  you cannot just walk in and get an appointment" ... LOL I remained calm. Then she added "the doctor (cardiologist) did order one in April but it was only for Cholesterol" .... I have low cholesterol and that number had not fluxuated since my first bloodwork in 2019. I never was notified of that April appointment. 

Yet she was wanting me to take statins to lower it to 150. I told her then 'no' and the only number I was interested in was what I got by dividing my triglycerides by my HDL. 

So I told the lady at the check in "no problem I will take care of it myself", when she told me to contact my doctor. Luckily that morning before I left I had sent an email the to assistant to my surgeon about getting an echocardiogram at one year since the valve replacement and some blood labwork done. 

When I returned home after a 18 minute drive in traffic ... I already had a reply email from her. I replied with my story and told her I wanted to move all of my heart care and the pacemaker program back to the hospital fulltime.

Within 41 minutes she emailed me with 3 appointments last Thursday ... an echo, a talk with my surgeon and blood drawn for a full blown bloodwork. The pacemaker was not in her department but she said she would call them and get that taken care of. Two days later they called me with an appointment for my pacemaker download and consultation.

Now that 41 minutes is amazing because it took weeks before I would get an answer from the VA cardiologist via her nurse via the VA email system which I would have to log into to see. No notifications just like I was not notified about the April bloodwork for cholesterol.

The doctor was able to see the images and results of my echocardiogram immediately when I was finished and before our consultation appointment right after. My heart pumping efficiency had improved from Novemer 2025 to June 2026 to 65% ... from the borderline normal of 45%-47% in November. Without any drugs that the VA wanted me to take. There were no signs of PVC and in fact my heart rhythm from the EKG they gave me was fantastic.

He then said I no longer needed to take Plavix since that was a one year drug for my new valve. When I told him I had not slept in a year without gettting up too many times at night, he took me off Jardiance although he said he liked that for heart health. 

I am tracking on a 3x5 card how many trips I make per day plus the number of times I get up at night. I have seen immediate improvement as well as an Apple Health sleep score in the 80s every night since I got off that stuff. 

So to say the least ... I got everything I needed as far as an annual checkup. He said the echocardiogram would be an annual appointment, which I would want anyway. As well as the labwork for my blood. Things can be fixed by food decisions but I have been tracking that since 2018 by downloading from the free Cronometer app (correct spelling no H) ... I don't use it all the time but I do use it a lot, enought to get some good date on nutrients from the food I eat.

So that is it from the heart discussion ... oh as usual, my bloodpressure is low and was even low when they took it in the office. 

Just enough rain to keep things green this spring and summer but looking at totals we are way behind our normal rain fall by this time of year. Those yellow spots are from Cletus and Walter's urine. Something I have not figured out how to prevent. I have talked to landscape companies, lawn treatment companies, changed their food, added supplements etc ... nothing fixes it.

I also found out it was about this time last year I did my first weed pulling project. It doesn't matter if I spray with vinegar, Roundup, or burn them with my flamethrower torch ... they always come back even with weed barrier under that rock and mulch on the sides. 

It had rained the two nights before I started this project around 9:30am so it was easy to pull them. Probably the easiest that I had ever experieced.

Here are some before and after photos.

No I am not happy with the flower arrangement of what is there but I don't want to spend the time and money to change everything out or to have landscapers do it. The side flowerbed is even worse. It's like each different owner of the house added "their plants" with no type of logical arrangement. 

Those tall things have a ball root under the weed barrier and looks like an onion. I read last year to keep the weeds out, a weed barrier should never be used with mulch. That is a lot of clearing out and redoing it to get the barrier out and start over. All the hydrangeas were cut off at ground level last fall like I aways do.

Ava is quite the guard dog. 

Both wanting all the cold air blowing out of that vent. 

So some have asked me over the years what do I eat for good bloodwork numbers. I don't have this every night like those on the carnivore or keto eating plans do but I might have two the three of them in a week. Followed by ground chuck even with eggs at breakfast. But unlike those people with strict eating habits, I have steamed veggies, fruit for desert and salads for lunch. I fill in the week with wild caught pacific salmon along with steamed veggies.

I basically try to eat from the produce and meat aisles along with real butter and eggs. 

It is what I call "My own eating plan" where I fall off the wagon of good food at times really hard and crave pies, pastry, pizza, Tillamook ice cream and all that other bad food people are not supposed to eat.

Overall I eat pretty healthy as my bloodwork proves. 

Sorry for the lack of hounds and dogs photos.

The move from AT&T back to Spectrum has worked out very well. I just got confirmation this morning, 22 days after I mailed back their router at the UPS Store, they had received my equipment. Why so long? I could have walked it to the Tennessee point of delivery. Well the UPS store told me the day I handed the router to them to ship that they could not give me a tracking number because they ship all of them they receive back to AT&T in one big box. 

I asked "do you do that daily" ... yes. Wonder why all the returns?

I was told at the time by the girl going door to door selling AT&T, that she could beat my prices for phone/internet and guarantee it for three years without a contract. Of course that "3 year" thing is really a contract because once you agree to "their free phone" you are locked into that for 3 years otherwise like I did again ... you pay the full price for that new phone before they will unlock it to change phone service.

In 47 days AT&T billed me a total of $274 ... 47 days. Whereas she quoted me about the same price per month that I was paying before ~$84 per month for phone and internet service. ... $247 in 47 days and that is also after they waived installation fees. 

The Ohio river is 15' below normal levels downtown. Is that from lack of rain or from new data centers along the Ohio River in Indiana and Ohio? They are trying to build what they call "the biggest data center in the world" in a town on the Ohio River ... Madison Indiana. 

I will not even go into the water issues the SW is going to face by the end of summer ... I did see they are putting in new wider units (can't remember what they are called) so they will produce electricity at lower levels of water at the dams, due to the current low water level. 

Not much going on today ... maybe the urge to travel locally and take photos, photos of the hounds and dogs will return .. maybe not. It's hard to write a blog post without those photos.

Great sunny weather this morning in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana.