Dear family and friends:
Maybe to begin the week I should finish last week’s story line. After getting to church today, I found out not many people made it to church last week. They had closed the road to the church for a stupid marathon and didn’t let any traffic on the road. The Branch President wasn’t able to make it to church and the Stake President didn’t make it for Branch conference. So the Branch conference was postponed until today. I was the dumb one that tried to find another way to get to church, those that know Nairobi know there is only one way to get there.
When I was in negotiations to come to Kenya, one of the things I ask for was an insurance policy to make sure Debbie was taken care of in the event something happened to me. So they have been working on that since last November. When I was home in April, there was a nurse that came to the house and did a physical just to make sure there were no health problems and report findings to the insurance carrier. Well, about a month ago I got a note saying there was something wrong with my heart. It took about a week to find out what was wrong because I had to send an email to the right guy due to HIPPA laws. As it turns out the insurance people thought I had bradycardia (sp), a condition where your heart rate is very low. Apparently my heart rate was in the 40 bpm range where normal rate is between 60 and 100 bpm. So I had an appointment scheduled at the Nairobi hospital to have an exercise EKG. That’s where they put all the wires on you and crank you up on a tread mill. When I got there the heart rate was still in the 40’s but everything else looked good; they did an ultrasound on my heart and a few other things I’ve never had done. They start the tread mill out slow and then index up the speed and incline every three minutes. The objective is to get your heart rate up to 153 bpm. After 10 minutes I started sweating and my heart rate was just past 100 bpm. After 15 minutes, I was dripping sweat and my heart rate was about 120 bpm and now I’m getting worried if I will ever get to 153 bpm target. After 18minutes, I’m up in the 130 bpm and going about 6 miles an hour and the angle is as high as it will go. I was beginning to worry when the girl running the test said the tests ends after 21 minutes even if your heart rate doesn’t reach 153. I breathed a sigh of relief. As it turns out I’m only the second person to time out on the machine. The other person was a 17 year old kid. But I guess when most people who use the machine are old people that have heart conditions so it’s not much to brag about. The Doctor told by my slow heart rate was due to training and not a medical condition (duh). He told me I was a very fit man. So now maybe I can get an insurance policy.
Aluminum foil. I have come to believe that the more aluminum foil you put around lunches the better they taste. Krista packs a lunch for me each day. She double wraps my sandwich, wraps my apple, wraps my cookies, and even wraps the container she puts my hot sauce in for my chips. I don’t have the heart to tell her they would taste just as good with half the foil.
There have been a lot of people come into my office this week begging for jobs. There was one man that came in twice and told me he had no money and no job and he had children to support. That is one of the heart breaking things in this job is telling people I can’t give them a job. The area is so poor, but the company can’t afford to employ everyone. I just tell them to go to the HR department and get their name on the list to be hired. Fortunately the HR guy is an African. I’d rather have him tell the men they can’t have a job instead of me.
Went climbing this weekend again; found a great climbing wall that is about 70 feet high. When I’m in Nairobi on a week day, I’m going to look for an electric drill so I can put in bolts for climbing. This weekend we just used a tree at the top of the route. I had four natives with me; they had a heck of a time. Something they would never experienced without a crazy American visiting their country. We will climb in two weeks again.
There is also a four wheel rally in town this weekend. If you are interested go to www.rhinocharge2010.co.ke . It is an event where money is raised for some charity. I’ve been down to where the race will be but it doesn’t start until Monday so nothing is going on. But talk about rednecks, the vehicles coming in for the event look like they could climb telephone poles. I haven’t seen this many white people since I arrived in Magadi. I saw some zebras and other critters while I was checking out the rally. I have attached some pictures.
Well so much for another week. I appreciate hearing for you all. Thanks for the emails and texts.
Talk to you next week
Love
Paul/dad
No comments:
Post a Comment