Day 6, a Saturday

It feels a little weird to drive 15 minutes to get to each meal.  It's the program, and I get it, but it still strikes me weird while I'm doing it.  The one saving grace is that my drive is quite possibly one of the prettiest wooded drives in Autumn that I can recall.  Fall is in it's glory here, and it is hanging around quite a long time seemingly.  I almost rank it very close to equal to my 10 minute vacation I take as I drive up Lake Shore Drive in Chicago....if you need me to gauge it for you.  This is a stunning place.  Duke is very picturesque, and Durham just delivers pure, natural elements throughout.  I will be checking out the campus and gardens tomorrow at Duke U.  While I don't want to workout tomorrow after everything I went through today, I want to be out and about and active rather than sitting around watching tube.  I can only wander so far, as I am tethered to the meals here.

Today started out great.  I woke up feeling really energetic.  After two workouts yesterday, my confidence was super high and I wanted to fulfill my requirements for Saturday workouts early in the day if I could, so I could do something fun this afternoon.  Well, it seems my body had other things to say about my plans.  I joined a class called Cardio Circuit.  It was, as you may imagine, comprised of several stations, 9 in this case.  I was really surprised how long I held out in this as I really wasn't sure of what I was getting myself into.  Each station had either a strength or aerobic component to it, and we did each in single, double, and quad sets at 20-45 second intervals.  I'm completely stymied by what pain can be incurred in such short amounts of time.  At the end, I was drenched in sweat, huffing and puffing and I was so relieved to begin the cool down and stretching parts.  I soon caught my breath, stretched for a while, and class was dismissed.  I stood up to help put equipment away, and the world did a flip. I sat down immediately and just rested a while.  Soon enough, I felt better enough to put my stuff away, walk to a friend on a machine, chatted a minute, and then I wandered towards the locker room.  Half way there, the world closed in around me, totally dizzy.  I sat down on the nearest machine to rest and I told a friend using the machine next to where I landed that things weren't right. 
She got the attention of the staff (Brian) and he took my BP right there and discovered that it was 80/50,,,,pretty low.  So he fetched me some chicken bullion that actually had salt in it to try and counter.  Over the course of a half an hour, I came in and out of this hazy, dizzy sensation.  The last consult came with a doc who is on staff and she got me up and walking, got some fluids into me and we decided that I probably should have pre-hydrated before my workout.  Coming off of taking my BP meds, eating my low salt, low fat diet, and having a cup of coffee with breakfast, probably was the perfect storm for my situation.  Weirdly, this seems all too common and the staff reacts with virtual certainty, even if they don't tell you while they are helping.  I get the feeling that they deal with this all of the time.  Thank you Brian for not letting me die.

So, my plans changed for the afternoon.  I laid low, rested, and per doc's rec, I'll begin taking a half dose of my BP meds.  This may be the first step towards getting rid of those which will be very cool.  Although, I didn't think it would be as scary to get to that point!  I was back at dinner feeling very normal and I had the best dinner of laughter with a group of ladies.  Big surprise, right, Blair and a bunch of women.  Well two of these retired ladies are from Georgia.  Picture Paula Dean times two.  They are the type that make the word 'floor' a three syllable word.  Hilarious ladies and sweet as can be, but they are  my meal time buddies, and I was crying with laughter at dinner thanks to their antics and stories.  I wish I could do it justice to explain....just start by trying to say the word floor in three syllables...that on its own is entertaining.

Tonight I found the movie theatre and played my usual movie roulette game where I see the next movie starting.  Saw Contagion, then went into The Ides of March.  Not bad...I have critiques....

I'll try and post some photo's tomorrow if I can to show you things as its kind of an off day.