First Milestone Achieved Beach & Basketball

     An exciting day happened in my 6 month after transplant doctor’s visit where I was given the clear to lift weights, go to gym, and be able to once again swim. One of my main loves before heart attack was swimming either in a pool and especially in the ocean. I grew up in the ocean and was an active surfer/body-boarder and really was missing the feel of floating in the ocean and being apart of the surfing community.

     By this time I got into a rhythm of daily life and was feeling good about my progress. I waited until the water was not extremely cold, around 68, and I have been walking at the beach close to 2 miles everyday. I saw the surf one day was not very big and decided to jump in the water and swim out past the breakers, it was glorious. I sat there and floated for 5 minutes and got very emotional realizing that I finally was able to get back in the water with my new heart. I caught a wave in and was tired but felt soo good, I sat on the beach for 30 minutes more just soaking in the experience of being back in the water.

    Shortly after that milestone I went to the local rec center and shot around with a basketball. I was overjoyed that my chest was not sore and I was able to move and shoot like I used to do before. Several guys wanted me to join a game but I did not feel ready to do just that, yet.

     I started to begin coding and doing some work again, part of it was building out this website and blog you see today. I began getting more into a daily routine that involved hanging out with my daughter after school doing lots of activities with her and at night play video games and read. Looking back I wish I was more productive and not play as much games, but I still was trying to deal with the feeling that I was not in the right mindset of learning and applying my skills to projects I wanted to do.