The Rocky Road to Recovery

Don't eat these.

I woke up this morning eager to attend the first meeting of my cardiac rehabilitation program. It promised to lead me back to the land of the living, as I have been banned from exercising without proper supervision since my heart attack eleven days ago. Supposedly a "team of experts" would direct me through the tangled process of regaining my strength and reclaiming my self-confidence.

The first thing that happened was that I got horribly lost on the half-hour drive to the class. This was through no fault of my own, since I had been told repeatedly by at least two reliable sources, one being my husband and the other the receptionist at the Cardiac Rehabilitation Center, to get off I-295 South at Exit 4 and go down the long exit ramp and voila, there it would be, "easy-peasy."

So I got off I-295 South at Exit 4 and went down the long exit ramp and voila, it was not there. Instead I was dumped onto a crowded suburban road full of gas stations and supermarkets and banks and car repair shops and traffic lights. So I pulled over and called the rehab place on my cell phone and the same lady answered and said, when I reported my whereabouts, "Uh oh, you are pretty far away and it will take you quite a while to get here." I said what about Exit 4 and how it's so easy-peasy? She said, "I have no idea what you were told or who told you, but you are not anywhere near us now."

Do eat these.

Due to my own head situated on my own shoulders I eventually found the place, although by the time I arrived my former good mood was in the toilet. Making matters worse, the class was led by a perky girl who may have been somewhere in her twenties and who was surely not a cardiologist, and while she did seem to have a good heart she did not instill confidence. At all. She said that future classes would involve our riding an exercise bike while attached to a heart monitor. Lectures would tackle such subjects as how to eat "heart-healthy" and how to read food labels. (Shoot me, shoot me now.)

Everyone else in the class was at least 50 pounds overweight and the average age seemed to be about a million. The whole thing was even more depressing than having my heart attack in the first place. Oh, and FYI, it was Exit 2.