Six-month update

Six months ago today I had quadruple bypass surgery. Every indication is that it was a success and that I am healing appropriately. I completed cardiac rehab last week and, though I didn't lose any weight, I did gain muscle mass, strength, and stamina. I'm now able to do everything I was doing pre-surgery.

My diet has not changed significantly post-surgery, but that's because I changed my diet in early 2007, emphasizing more fruits, vegetables, and fish, and less fast food and prepackaged foods, and had already lost weight from the 2007 change in diet. I no longer add salt to my food and try to avoid prepackaged foods--such as potato chips--that contain significant amounts of salt. What I've been unable to do is break my Mountain Dew habit.

After changing my medications in late December I returned to writing and have been quite productive since then, completing a new short story approximately every three days. Pre-surgery I was averaging slightly more than one story each week. I don't know if I can maintain this pace or if the change in medications was ExLax for my brain, allowing me to push out everything that had backed up in there during the 3.5 months following surgery when I was barely writing, and that I'll slow down again when my brain is flushed out.

I find that I'm a little less patient than I was before and more irritated by little things that didn't bother me--or that I didn't let bother me--pre-surgery. I don't know if this is a permanent change or something that will disappear over time.

Otherwise, not much has changed.