Walking

The other morning I woke up at 5.12 am and needed to move. I brushed my teeth, smoothed my hair, put on my running shoes and left the house with just my phone clipped into my waistband. I also took a bottle of water, and ditched it behind a tree on my route for the return trip. I had been walking sporadically since I made a 4 mile Central Park walk on New Years Eve of  2010. I walked 3 miles for Earth Day. I walked to and from my work appointments near the West Side Highway (15 minutes briskly each way) several times a week instead of taking the bus or cab.

A few months ago, I began having frequent arrhythmia. I've had this all my life - an occasional extra thump, or sometimes a missing beat. At these times I would startle - my body suspended in limbo for a fraction of a second, waiting for my heart to decide. This would happen once in a blue moon, once every few months. Suddenly, early this year the episodes became more frequent and more exaggerated. I was having it every day for hours at a stretch. I never felt ill, just a very unsettled 'w-t-f?' kind of feeling, but slowly I began to lose confidence in my body, and stopped exercising.

I went to my GP, who is also a cardiologist, and had the whole range of tests done, including a 24 hour Holter Monitor. Yes, my ticker was tocking occasionally, but there was nothing serious going on - would I like some beta blockers to even out the rhythm? She asked this question with a half-smile on her face because she knows I hate to take medication.

Several years ago she prescribed Mobic for my extremely painful knees. I filled the prescription, but I never took a single pill. And thank God, because Mobic turned out to be not only a pain killer, but a killer in general.
She prescribed Nexium 8 years ago for my stomach. I took it for 2 weeks, dropped it and took up yoga instead.
Then came Tapizole for my thyroid which went out of whack after a severe bout of flu. That time I didn't mess around. I took the 10 mg for a solid month. Felt good. Broke my pills in half and took 5 mg for the next month. On my follow up visit, she said "You're doing great, let's reduce you to 5 mg" I said "Sure thing Doc", and promptly reduced myself to 2.5 mg. I was officially off Tapizole by the next month after a another round of tests came back normal.

So, my answer to the beta blocker question was ''No, thank you." As long as my condition wasn't serious, which she assured me it wasn't, I could deal with this.
On my first walk to the West Side, my heart was skipping and jumping but I kept going, tired of kid-gloving it. I figured it would see me through, or I'd drop like a rock and someone would scoop me off the pavement. The next walk was better and the next, even better. By this time I had stopped consuming caffeine and all stimulants, including my beloved Coca Cola. In my flirtations with Coke since that time, I learned that it takes one to two days for my body to properly flush itself of that one dose of caffeine.

On the morning in question, I went for an hour long speed walk along the green that leads to City Island - my heart, hiccup free. After I retrieved my bottle of water which I'd stashed behind the tree, I did some standing stretches, spending some time with my head hanging down between my legs - arms dangling. The world was upside down, the trees were growing from the sky and there was a brightening pale blue abyss below me. I was caught by surprise, by the disorienting beauty of it. And I was suddenly struck by how unequivocally the Earth supports us -  our joys, fears, and even our foolishness. I broke into a smile, then an all-out giggle right there hanging upside down. In fact, I didn't want to 'right' myself for a good little while.

Photo credit: poszu.com