The World of Scott Mindeaux

Dealing with Death

Coming close to death a few times on my own is hard enough, but dealing with the death of a loved one or friend is just as hard for me.

I had an uncle here in Irvine and a friend in DC pass away in the last 48 hours and I’m feeling very numb. I know it’s not about me, but all my thoughts in the last two days have been about my fear of dying. I can’t get it out of my head. This feeling has got me freaking out about every skip of my heartbeat (recently found out I have an arrhythmia), every weird feeling in my chest and body and afraid to go to sleep for fear I might not wake up.

My heart and thoughts goes out to family and friends of my uncle and that of my friend. Extended family is flying in from all over the country over the next few days to come and pay their respects to my uncle.

I don’t do funerals. I just don’t. Is that bad? Am I being disrespectful? The last funeral I attended was that of my grandmother in the early 90s. After that experience I couldn’t take it. I found myself completely emotionless. With my own recent brushes with death starting in 2002 with my first heart attack I have not been able to get myself to attend a funeral.

I’m scared. It’s a reminder to me that life is given and can be taken away at an instant. Seeing people in mourning hurts. Again, I think to what would happen if I didn’t survive the last heart attack. According to the doctors, I very nearly didn’t.

I don’t want my family and friends to be mourning my passing. I don’t want to think or be reminded of my mortality.

I know it sounds selfish, but I’m sorry. There have been family members, both extended and close that have past away in the years since my grandmother’s death, and I never went to the funerals. Even as I sit here writing this entry, I am absolutely terrified of the thought. It’s not that I’m not in mourning, I am very sad that they have past away. Very sad. Please don’t equate my own fears of mortality with lack of respect or lack of mourning. I deal with mourning in my own way, in private.

I feel horrible that I have avoided ceremonial funerals. I just feel like I’ll exploded inside and that my own demise will take place right there and then. Is this bad? Am I a bad person for feeling this way?

I haven’t slept, and I’m constantly thinking about mortality. I’ve tried to distract myself from time to time, but it doesn’t take much for me to turn laughter into sadness at the blink of an eye. The next few days will be hard for me as family members will be flying in and will expect to see me at the funeral.

Hug your loved ones. Savor life. BE life.

Every moment you are here on this precious world is sacred.

Loss, Random Thoughts and Life Things

LOSS

Weight loss that is!! So as many of you know I have been on a journey the last couple of months dealing with the recovery after my heart attack on Memorial Day weekend. I made large changes to my diet and started working out. I have also been out of work as the doctor put me on disability and have been home since June. Well I am happy to report that I have broken my latest plateau and have finally made it back into my 220′s! Can you believe it??? This is down from my heaviest weight this past spring at 272!

I couldn’t believe it when I looked down at the digital scale. I stepped off, stepped back on and looked again. I started jumping right there! I was so happy! So the hard part will be not to creep back up above 230! I started a slightly (ok, somewhat) modified Paleo diet. This was something I just came across from an online friend. He told me his weightless was attributed to being on the Paleo diet and doing CrossFit. The Paleo diet basically brings eating food like the “Paleos” did. Leafy vegetables, root vegetables and basic meats and fishes – it also means no dairy (milk wasn’t meant to be beyond early breastfeeding during infancy. Large amounts of grains in our diets really didn’t come into play until agriculture came into play. For the most part in “man’s” history, agriculture is fairly a “recent” thing. So I am eating “mostly” Paleo and having grains (steel cut oatmeal) for breakfast only. I’m trying to cut as much bread and rice out. Now, the body needs carbs. A diabetic needs some carbs. Most of my carbs are coming from vegetables.

It has been an amazing last couple of months. While I am enjoying the workouts now, I’m still not seeing any “body” changes. While I have lost weight, I still only see the fat guy in the mirror. I have been working on upper body exercises but have yet to see any changes to my body. Hopefully, as I increase my weight training, I’ll start to see some muscle – eventually.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

So we come to the part of this entry that is about random thoughts. It will be a free flow format, so here we go:

• Ok, the whole “girl in a football jersey wearing daisy dukes and high boots” DOES NOT WORK!
• I am falling in love with various BBC shows like Downton Abbey, Sherlock Holmes and of course, Torchwood and Doctor Who
• Dating still sucks even 45 lbs lighter
• I’m not sure how I feel about “Weldon” on Two and a Half Men (Ashton Kutchner’s new character)
• Buffy is back on television
• Austin on the A-List New York really is an ASS
• I’m having a hard time dealing with bread and rice loss
• I’ve dropped several inches on my pants – that’s AWESOME
• Thanks to my online friends on MyFitnessPals.com for the support – esp GDEZ80, LeftyMac and Peg1999
• I forgot how interesting the show NOVA is
• My mind continues to dream of opening a small cafe/bookstore – even after 10 years
• I want an iPhone 5
• Paul totally deserved to win on Hell’s Kitchen last night
• Top Chef Dallas – can you stand the wait?
• The new host of Sweet Genius on Food Network scares me
• Alton Brown comes to the Cooking Channel
• Chef Jason Quinn of The Lime Truck is totally hot!
• Not sure how I feel about the President’s plan to boost the economy
• I do however, somewhat agree about the recommendation to eliminate Saturday mail service to streamline the USPS
• For some reason I’m not all hung ho about the new season of GLEE
• I found an episode of The West Wing in my iTunes and I really miss that show
• I’m not surprised about Michaela Salahi leaving Tareq

LIFE THOUGHTS

What are life thoughts? I have no idea! I needed a third topic and that’s what I came up with to counter the Loss headline.  So life is kinda good right now. With the strides I have been making on the weight loss I hope that I can keep going. My next goal is to get to 220, then 210, then 200. Wish me luck.

Being out of the office for the last several months has been quite eye-opening. I have had a lot of time to think about many things and I feel so out of touch with what is going on at the office. I’m a little scared about my transition back to the office as I have been gone now for 4 months. I know it will feel different for sure and hope that things will be ok.

My parents are doing well and keeping busy overseas. We’re hoping they are coming for the holidays as it would be great to see them. My sister Lyn and her boyfriend Cory have moved into the house with my other sister Beth as they look for a new place. The school year has started and the kids are back in classes. Dallas is a senior this year and is on the ASB Council, Sade started junior high and Toni is in the 6th grade now. Even Jessica is in school, albeit part time. She is enrolled in a small headstart program to prepare her for kindergarten next fall. My sister Beth is selling entertainment system networking products. Not sure fully what the products are, but she is having to learn networking. She keeps asking me for help, but I told her that she really needs to learn this on her own or she won’t learn it. The best way to learn is to do it herself and not be afraid to make mistakes. To be quite honest, my knowledge of Cisco IOS is somewhat limited!

Well that’s it for this entry. If any of you have questions or whatnot, please don’t hesitate to email me or leave a comment below. Have a great week everyone.

Eating Paper, Working Out and Feeling Sleepy

So I heard the funniest thing the other day. “Mommy, they made me eat paper today…” What?!? No, it’s not the beginning of some addiction show or anything like that. My sister Beth and her family started going to church a few weeks ago. My little niece, who is 4, went with them and I guess they had communion and gave her a communion wafer. She wasn’t sure what it was and ate it anyway. Later that day she was talking to my sister and told her that they made her eat paper… too funny!

Well the LA Fitness next to my house is now open (as of August 15) and I have been there a few days already this week. It wasn’t as bad as I thought. I wasn’t the mecca of hot guys walking around and fit women all socializing around the treadmills. There were people there from all walks of life. I really don’t know why I thought that I would feel out of place being surrounded by hot buff guys. Not that it’s bad or anything like that, it’s great motivation to continue to lose the weight and build some muscle. As some of you know, I’m in cardiac rehab 3x a week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays I’m at the gym. My regimen consists of the same routine I have at the hospital. It feels good to be able to work out on my “off” days from the hospital. On the nights where I am too tired to do a full set I at least get in 30 minutes of cardio on the treadmill.

I also decided to try out a month of personal training. I signed up with a special, but won’t actually start my training sessions until I’m done at the hospital. My trainer is a guy named Tyler (who is super cute – redhead, buff, Midwest looks) and has a heart defect so he is somewhat qualified to handle my case with my heart condition. We will do an assessment in a few weeks and set my goals. My initial visit with the fitness manager at LA Fitness wanted me at 170 by the end of the year. 170?!?! Holy frak! I’m not sure I can do that, but my goal is to get to my lower 22o’s. I’m 232 now.

Lately I have been feeling very sleepy after every meal. This is just tired, like I could just close my eyes and sleep right there. I have checked to see if my blood sugars have gone up and caused me to go into “coma” but my blood sugars have been pretty consistent in the upper 90s/lower 100s. So I’m not sure what is up. I have tried to look up the side effects of all my meds, but none that have drowsiness as a symptom.

In addition to the drowsiness, I have been having consistent headaches for the last couple of weeks. Consistent that it is there most of the day and I need to take tylenol at least 2x a day. It’s not a piercing headache, its one of those “in the back of my head but annoying headaches” – I want it to stop.

Rehab, Macs and “What is a Gym”?

So for the last few weeks, I have been in Cardiac Rehab – a program designed to strengthen my heart and get my body re-adjusted to its new “world”. Mostly it consists of cardio workout along with weights and stretching. Things have been going on pretty well and if you follow me on Facebook or Foursquare, I have been posting my workouts online. My blood pressure has been climbing since late June and I think that is good. Sometimes it is too high and that has me worried. Seems when the medication isn’t active in my system, my BP isn’t managed. I might have have to have my meds adjusted to cover more of the day rather than just the hours after each medication round.

My blood sugars seem to be good. I have been hovering in the  low 100s. I see my endocrinologist in a couple of weeks and it would be nice to see my A1C numbers around 7. I’m hoping for the best. The A1C is an average of 90 days of glucose readings. The ideal target is 5-7. Let’s just say my last labs back in Q4 of 2010 was above 10 (not good).

As for the weight, I have been hovering in the 230′s for the last couple of weeks. This is down from 275 earlier this year. My goal is to get to 220′s by the end of the year and then target another 15 pounds for Q1 of 2011. I have been weighing myself on a daily basis and one of the nurses at rehab said not to do that. I will be come fixated on the numbers and it is normal for the human body to fluctuate day-to-day. She recommends weighing once a week. I have been keeping a chart of my progress and will adjust to a weekly schedule.

I have been eating much better since the heart attack. 90% of my meals are cooked from fresh ingredients. No processed foods. I go to the market every couple of days to buy ingredients for meals. I try to make each meal so I can have leftovers later in the week. So what is the other 10%. The other 10% is when I’m out with family and eating at a place that I’m not quite sure if the food is fresh or processed foods. For example, birthday party at Chuck E Cheese, I know that their pizzas (while handmade) are probably made with meats and cheeses that are processed. Processed foods are way higher in sodium content. In fact 75% of the sodium that Americans get, come from processed foods. Frozen dinners are the worse culprit of all. Sodium is a preservative. So there are times, when i can’t make an informed decision on what to eat and there will be times where I don’t want to chow down on a bowl of greens. I’ll admit it, I can’t always eat a salad every time I’m at a place that is questionable. If the “unknown” factor is down to 5-10%, I’m ok with that, but the overall goal is food made locally and with fresh ingredients. For those that don’t know I have a good blog, I have been posting some of my meals and recipes on that site. Check it out at www.foodieindisguise.com

Well recently Apple has released new MacBook Airs. I want one. I want one really bad. This new models are faster than their predecessors with an 11″ and 13″ model. Mac OS X Lion is also out. I installed in on day one and haven’t had any problems whatsoever. The new gestures and navigation need some getting used to, but if you want to you set your setting to be the old way too. I think I will buy a Magic Trackpad so that I’m just navigating thru gestures and get rid of the mouse.

Here’s something you never knew about me. I have never set foot in a gym. The last time I was in a gym was probably my junior year of high school. Since then, I have never been in one. Almost everyone I knew in my life had a gym membership. I always was afraid to go into gyms. In my eyes, gyms were for people that were already in shape. I know, I know very silly, but that’s how I saw it. Gyms were a social activity for the fit and active, not for guys like me who need to work out. For years, I have always ga-fahed at going to a gym. Who wants to see someone like me on a recumbent bike or on the treadmill? You know what? Why should I care? For years I have put it in my head that I couldn’t go cuz I was afraid of being someone that would be ridiculed by all the good looking people at the gym.  Well fuck that. I need to live. I WANT to live and in order for me to do that, I need to keep working out, keep losing weight and start putting on some muscle mass. I’m not doing this for them, I’m doing this for ME.

There is a brand new LA Fitness Club being built 3 blocks from my house. It will be their new flagship location at over 62,000 sq. feet of exercise space along with racquetball courts, basketball, swimming pool, yoga studio, juice bar and a Kid’s Zone – to name a few. I walked into the Pre-sale office they setup here in the shopping center and went to get more information. The general manager was the one who was there and I felt like he was like a used car salesman, but I didn’t let that distract me from the reason I was there. I signed up for a membership. Yes, that’s right. For the first time in my life, I was a member of a gym. My membership is good at any LA Fitness. I can bring a guest and a couple of times a year, I can bring guests in free. He showed me a layout of the floor plans and this place is HUGE! A spin class specific area, courts, all the electronic machines had dedicated LCD monitors that you could hook up your iPhone or iPod and watch and listen to music. If you want you can just choose something to watch on them as they will have channels. The club is two levels. They are scheduled to open in less than 10 days.

Does anyone want to go with me and do my workout with me?

Well that’s it for now, I’m headed to bed. Have cardiac rehab in the morning…

Heart Ultrasound, Spotify and Strawberries

So today I got some great news from my cardiologist. Today I went in to have an ultrasound (echocardiogram) done of my heart. Similar technology for fetal ultrasounds. They needed to look at my heart to see if it was pumping properly and to see if there was any discrenable damage. As you recall, my right artery was completely occluded (clogged). There were unable to install a stent or open up the artery. This had me worried as well as my doctors. My cardiologist said that many people live on with just the two left arteries. After the ultrasound, the tech did a lot of “hmmms” and “hmmmms” which worried me. The tech brought me to the front (where I passed out on my last visit) and the person at the desk looked at me, I smiled and said that I wouldn’t be passing out this time. The tech brought me to the same exam room I was in the last time, room 4.

Dr. LaMont came in and had my results. He reviewed my meds that told me the good news. He said that my heart had returned to normal rhythm and that if he didn’t know better, he wouldn’t have known I had an attack. Now, remember the occluded right artery, he said that when the heart is damaged like that, new capillaries or arteries grow to the right side to compensate for the clogged artery. I was like, “wow…it knows to do that??” He said that my heart looked good and that he was now able to take away some of my meds. The one med he took out of my regimen was the Amiodarone from Sandoz Pharmaceuticals. He said I no longer needed this and that they try to wean off patients off it as it is toxic over time. I was on it for 2 months. The Amiodarone was also responsible for a level 1 interaction with my “statins” which could cause muscle damage. Yikes! Well that is gone. My Lisinopril for my blood pressure was increased to 2x a day and lowered my Isosorbide (Coreg) to just one time a day.

Today I received my Spotify invitation. I’m still on the edge about a subscription. I have only had it for a few hours so I’m still testing things out. I have to say that this thing is speedy! I have listened to quite a few tracks on it and the response time and quality is quite impressive. I’m trying to figure out if I need it and what the quality will be like on a 3G connection on my iPhone. I’ll upgrade to the Premium tomorrow and if I don’t see value in it, I will downgrade myself.

So a few weeks back my friend Shannon from the office brought me some groceries while I recover at home from the heart attack. In that set she brought me some fresh strawberries, angel food cake and fat free whipped cream. I have to say I have been enjoying this little “strawberry shortcake” for several weeks. Not the same set from when Shannon was here, I have gone out and bought more strawberries and angel food cake. Now, this isn’t a “shortcake” in the truest sense. I place a slice of angel food cake down, whip cream and then sliced strawberries, then another slice, whip cream and strawberries. Absolutely awesome! Fat free whip cream 5 calories, angel food cake 72 calories and the strawberries come in at 49. The whipped cream is fat free as well so that is a bonus! Now the pics below show a “family style” plating. My 2 sisters and their kids were over and we had this for desert!

Cardiac Rehab, Stir Craziness and Torchwood

Well it has been a few days since I have posted. So this past week I started Cardiac Rehab at the Saddleback Hearth Institute and Wellness Center. Cardiac rehab is basically getting my body back up to strength thru a progressive schedule of cardio and weights training. I’m attending Cardiac Rehab three times a week. I showed up for my first appointment which mostly is comprised of an interview to assess my mental state and to discuss nutrition and what is expected. I’m generally in a good mood these days, but bored as hell! I have been home now for almost two months and going stir crazy! The only time I’m really out of the house is to do a grocery run and to do my daily 10 minute walks. My “trainer” Hilary suggested that over time I increase the amount of time I walk and to start incorporating some of the exercises on my off days (Tuesdays and Thursdays and the weekends).

My routine consists of the following to start. Over time, the time spent will increase and weights will increase. First is a weigh in, then a blood sugar and blood pressure reading. I start on the treadmill with a 2 minute warm up and then 12 minutes at a whopping 1.7 mph. During my “walk” I have my blood pressure checked while my heart is beating faster. After the treadmill, it’s the hand pedal machine. I pedal with my hands with some tension for about 5 minutes – I’m guessing that’s for upper cardio. When I’m done with that I’m then on what I :think: is called a Recumbent Seated Elliptical Machine. It’s like a standup elliptical where you are stepping but also have upper body handles that you hold on to – but you sit. See below:

I’m on this machine for about 10 minutes with a goal of 75-80 motions per minute. Then it’s another blood pressure check and then free weights. It consists of about 6 different exercises with a 5lb weight in each arm. This past Friday I was doing the shoulder shrugs and everytime I did them there was a “snap” in my left shoulder. I freaked out and they asked if there was any pain associated with it. I said no and they said it is normal. The remaining exercises each have 10 reps each. Next we move to the toning band exercises. – again 10 reps.

When we’re done with that we move to cool down stretches that target the calves, thighs, hamstrings and quads. Then I’m done! All in all about 45 minutes. Over the next 11 weeks the times and difficulty will increase. I’m the youngest one in my class. Most of those attending are seniors.

So this week is the start of some new shows for the summer season. On Mondays we have the return of Eureka and Warehouse 13 on the SyFy channel as well as a new show called Alphas which I think will be a good show. On HGTV the reality show HGTV Design Star when folks compete for their own TV show starts. The Next Food Network Star has already started and those are on Sundays. This is the show similar to HGTV’s where you get your own cooking show on the Food Network.

I’m also VERY PLEASED to announce the return of Torchwood. Technically their 5th season, Torchwood takes place here in America. Russell T. Davies is still directing. Captain Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper come across the pond to investigate the world-wide phenomenon that no one is dying – with one exception Jack (who was forever immortal) now is mortal. It’s actually a bit gruesome with no one dying. Even those that are dismembered or burned to a crisp, seem to still be “alive” it was kinda creepy. This new season finds Torchwood on the Starz network instead of BBC, which is very bizarre to me. I don’t get Starz so I have to rely on “alternative” methods to watch my show.

New shows I continue to watch are Suits with the very handsome Patrick J. Adams and Necessary Roughness both on USA. Oh one more…Sarah Richardson has a new show on HGTV called Sarah 101. I luv Sarah! Her previous two shows: Design Inc and Sarah’s House are favorites of mine.

So to end this entry. Do you think Apple is releasing Mac OS X Lion (10.7) on Thursday? Rumors have it that the stores will be hosting an “overnight” to reconfigure the stores for Thursday morning. Do you think we’ll get new MacBook models? I’m also waiting on word of the outcome of rumors of an iPad HD and the iPhone 5. I’ve been running beta of iOS 5 and it’s still kinda buggy, but overall it is feature rich and will be a great iOS update this Fall.