I’ve finally started cardiac rehab because of the stents I had placed in February of 2018, the first of four hospitalizations that year. (2018 was not a good year.) Then, of course, I had the knee replacement in 2019, and I’m 99% over that. However, having to deal with the nearly year-long and ongoing dog and pony show that has been this COVID19 business and the need for isolation because I’m in so many risk groups it isn’t funny, my already sedentary lifestyle has been restricted to the point where I am now very deconditioned.
The obvious solution was to get a prescription from my cardiologist to attend cardiac rehab, which is held in the facility that acts as a fitness center for the employees of one of our major hospitals, as well as providing facilities for orthopedic and cardiac rehab. This is much better than just hairing off to traipse about in the park on my own because it is (a) across the street from a state of the art cardiac facility, (b) supervised by trained personnel and (c) I wear a heart monitor while I’m there.
The fitness center is on the sixth floor of one of two gigunga parking garages across the street from the hospital. Parking for it is on the fifth floor, and there is quite a view from there. Here’s a view of the Covenant Women’s and Children’s Hospital where I got my first job as a medical transcriptionist. Just behind that pillar to the right of the picture is the Joe Arrington Cancer Center.
From the other side of the parking garage you can see three of the high-rise dormitories of Texas Tech University located at the western edge of the campus. (North of the campus is another major hospital, University Medical Center, which is the teaching hospital for the Texas Tech University School of Medicine. Those buildings in the distance are in the downtown area. The tallest of them is the Metro Tower which, at 20 stories, has the distinction of being the tallest building to survive a direct hit from an F5 tornado.
You will notice we have a lot of trees in town, so many that from a vantage point of five stories up, it looks like a forest. Out here in the flatlands, trees mean people. Every tree in this town was planted there by somebody. Trees mean shade and shelter from the wind, because the land is flat out here. Flat as a tabletop. As far as the eye can see. In every direction.
The Owl Underground 