Celine Dionne signing ‘Power of Love’ came on the speakers at cardiac rehab and I was shocked when the sound of her nasal voice belting out “cuzzz I’m your laaady and you aaaarre my maaaan“ over the tinny, crackling speakers did not make me want to immediately commit the murder. This place must be getting to me. Softening my edges, humbling my ego into realising that it is no longer trapped in my previously strong, fit and capable body. I am making some friends (just kidding, but I could if I cared to try) and having long conversations about pacemaker wires that need to be tweaked during additional surgeries. (I don’t personally have a pacemaker or ‘pacemaking’ wires and I am so thankful that I don’t need anything tweaked.)
Since I stopped taking beta-blockers my heart rate has been released from the sticky grips of sluggish, slow beats to the up-tempo, zippy and sometimes rather disco-footed range. A hot shower can educe feelings of John Travolta clad in full white bell-bottom regalia, stomping rhythmically around behind my ribs. The heart thrashing doesn’t usually last long. Mercifully. As images of JT doing anything around my ribs is unsettling at best.
Before one of my sessions in week 3 I had an unnecessarily large bowl of Pad Thai, with my friend, Sara – who joined me to get some footage for our mini documentary. I think the heart rate readings of 180+ were less of a tip-off than the lemongrass infused sweats I leaked during that session. The staff kindly suggested not having such a big meal before my next workout.
There are many things I am growing to enjoy about my time at rehab. Each week, with religious commitment, a young guy – likely in his early twenties – accompanies and attends to his grandmother who is in the program. She is a tiny woman and he stands with her as she walks, slower than freezing molasses, on the treadmill. Another middle-aged man, presumably her son (and the father of the young man?) brings her cone-shaped cups of water from the water cooler. Which she blows on each time before sipping. (The cooler only dispenses cold water.) The obvious family dedication makes me want to scoop them all up and hug them. But I am a sweaty stranger and all logic and human ethics of interaction point to ‘no hugging’.
So instead I smile along with the wonderfully attentive staff and admit another week of defeat in the shadow of the fact that I am working out in a place that plays Celine Dionne. And yet somehow I don’t totally hate it.
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