Road to Recovery - Completed

It's been a little bit over 5 months since I had my open heart valve replacement surgery to fix my Bicuspid Aortic valve that also had a huge Aneurysm above it twice the size it was supposed to be (6cm vs 3cm).

My Injection Fraction was 18%. Normal is around 60%. Injection Fraction is the percentage of blood in the heart that it can pump out with each contraction.

My heart was also double the size it was supposed to be as it was trying to overcome the weak inefficient valve that was not working well at all.

In other words I was in rough shape and literally could of died at any time!

Yesterday I journeyed back to St. Paul's Hospital where my open heart surgery had been performed to get my post surgery Echocardiogram done and find out if my heart function had improved from the surgery.

I was of course expecting to see much improved heart function, but was blown away when the doctor told me my heart was normal and my prognosis was for a long and healthy life.

My Injection fraction was now 58% and my heart was back to normal size! I can only see this as a miracle and thank God for this gift!

My doctor also recommend that I should possibly get my pacemaker/defibrillator removed as he said I didn't need it anymore. I am still in a bit of shock but in a good way as I was expecting to see improvements to my heart but this was amazing and I don't think my appointment could have gone any better.

I want to thank everyone for their prays, words of support and love shared with me over the past 5 months, it has meant so much to me!

What's next? The Road to Restoration perhaps! It's time to restore my body back to a condition I once had, maybe not so extreme as before, as my goals are different now Bodybuilding is who I am and even though I will be downsizing my goal physique a bit from what it use to be, I do plan on getting a good portion of it back over time... 

Your Partner is not Interested in Sexy Time - What's Going On

I figured since I have now been on both sides of the fence. The one wondering why my wife didn't seem interested in me physically, and now I am the one just not interested at all in physical intimacy, that perhaps I could talk bout how it feels to be in each others position. Maybe this will help people in the same situation as to what might be going on in the other persons life. It's usually not because they don't love you, or that they find you unattractive, or don't care about your needs... Most often it is because something else is going on in their lives that may even not have anything to do with you, it could be hormones, kids, stress, depression, insecurities and the list goes on...

One thing I can say is don't ignore it, that just devalues what is going on and makes the other person feel even less important. Tell each other how you feel and what's going on in your life that is making physical intimacy difficult. Everything worthwhile in life requires work, a good sex life is no exception.

TRT Update 5 Months Off TRT - Not Feeling So Good

In this TRT Update 5 Months Off TRT Video, I go over some of the key areas that I feel are regulated a lot by Testosterone or the lack thereof and how this is effecting me at my current Testosterone level.

Testosterone Levels - Currently 4.7 nmol (should be 8-28). Getting an update in about a week.

Weight and Strength - Lost another 5 pounds, now down 30 pounds, 175 pounds from 205. Trying to keep any remaining muscle is very difficult, I am not really making any progress anymore, just trying to keep what I have right now, workouts are hard.

Base Energy - Overall I generally have energy throughout the day.

Brain Fog - I am finding it very hard to remember short term stuff, it just disappears from my mind. Regular daily activities require a lot more concentration or I find myself getting off track and not even remembering what I am doing. I struggle to find names and words at times. 

Motivation - I have to force myself to go to the gym or even do activities other than walking.

Mood - I am not in a very good state right now. I feel kind of lost and low on ambition.

Recovery - Sore after every workout for several days.

Body Aches - Most of the time I am sore, getting up in the morning, after sitting down for even a short period to time.

Libido - Non Existent, I just don’t even think about it much. The only OK thing is that some of my heart medication acts as a vasodilator which is kind of the same as what Viagra does in terms of increasing blood flow. So my hardware still works but getting things started is a bit tuff as I am just not in the mood most of the time.

 

Onewheel Plus Charge and Ride Setup First Ride

As many of you may already know if you have been following me lately, I seem to have a strange attraction to vehicles with only one wheel. I have been riding my EUC for a while now and really enjoy it, I still do in fact very much. Along with the EUC there is another electric vehicle that has only one wheel and ironically it is called the Onewheel which is a brand name from the company Future Motion originating out of California.

Both of these devices have their pros and cons as they are the same in many ways and also different in many ways, but that is for other videos to discuss. One con for the Onewheel system is a much lower range especially in the older models, my Onewheel Plus is limited to around 8-10km total distance that I can ride with the stock battery. In this video I talk about the Charge and Ride setup which is an option owners of earlier versions of Onewheels may want to consider to extend their range and lesson range anxiety if you have an original Onewheel or a Onewheel Plus. There are a few early version of Onewheel XR's that this mod can also be done to, but if you have hardware version 4208 on your XR, this is not possible, so check your XR first before attempting this mod.

I don't want to drag this on as this post is far from a complete tutorial but rather an example of how the Charge and Ride setup works for me in real life with the slightly different system that I am using. Most Charge and Ride setups utilize an external Battery with a Solar Charge Controller where as I am using a 250 watt 277wh Portable Power Station connected to my original charger along with an adaptor cable that removes the 3rd pin connection from the XLR connector used with the Onewheel. By the way the number 3 pin on the XLR cable is not actually used for charging but rather it informs the Onewheel that a charge cable is connected and not to turn on. If you remove power to the 3rd pin for the Onewheel versions One and Plus, you trick the board into thinking it is regening rather than charging and so it stays on while charging.

If you plan on doing this Charge and Ride Mod, do so at your own risk as there are risks involve: as in overcharging your battery, damaging your charge port, having your backpack catch on fire and I am sure many others... For me using the Charge and Ride setup on my first test ride, I was able to get 14km range only using 46% of the battery with a 40% regen factor. This 14km ride only used about half of my Power Stations battery so I expect I should be able to get close to 25-30km range using this setup.

Road to Recovery - 4 Months Post Operation

What's going on 4 months Post Open Heart Surgery to replace a congenital Heart Valve defect? Well if I didn't know better, I would say I am for the most part back to normal now. I feel like I can do most everything I want to do. Life now is a bit different then before, I have a new set of goals! The first one was to survive and that one has been checked off my list. My next goal was to be able to go for walks, go to the gym and keep my body tuned up, and do some outdoorsy stuff. Again another check on my Road to Recovery list . Now I am even out ripping around on my Electric toys, training at the gym as hard as I want to, and feeling really good doing it all.

I am still a bit careful when it comes to high level cardio as I have not had my post operation heart test done yet to see how much it has recovered from my pre-operation baseline, which was an injection fraction of 18% (Normal is 60%). I feel my injection fraction now will be very much improved and would not be surprised if it is close to the 60% normal marker, at least that's how I feel. I can tell you that whatever my injection fraction is at now, I am OK with it as I feel really good and do not feel that I have any real limits on what I can do with my new working heart.

Well take a watch of this video as I hope you will enjoy the kind of new format. I hope to record in this format in the future (weather permitting), that is if you like it, perhaps it's a bit distracting? Let me know.