The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer:

When my youngest graduated from kindergarten at age 6 he got a diploma and cookies. When I graduated from Cardiac Rehab at 67 I got a certificate and no cookies. I got a “good job” from my friend Elliot who asked me, “Did Ellen put your diploma on the fridge?”

I told people I was in “rehab” because “rehab” sounds tough.

“Rehab. You heard me. Rehab.”

“Whoa. Like the Amy Winehouse kind of rehab?”

“Sort of. Cardiac rehab. Want to see me flex my aorta?”

My cardiac rehab buddy, Jeff Rogers, has been hitching a ride with me since the start. Weeks after his wonderful wife Kris died after fighting cancer, Jeff’s broken heart gave out. Around then I got my stent. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9 a.m. we pull into St. Mary’s like the Blues Brothers with a pink “Cardiac Rehab Patient Parking” placard on the dash.

The front desk security person smiles. “Good morning!”

“Good morning. We’re here for rehab.”

The security guard writes on each paper wristband and bands our forearms.

“We’re doing hard time. Together. In rehab.”

Cannot stop humming Amy Winehouse. The gym is sweating to Sirius.

There is no point in bragging about getting one measly stent at the cardiac rehab gym. Strongman pressing a nurse over his head pipes up, “I’ve got three.” A lady on the treadmill shouts she’s got two stents and a pig’s valve and Walter there has a pacemaker “the size of a toaster that was implanted in him in 1967 by Dr. Juan DeSoto.” An older repeat offender lifts his sweat-soaked T-shirt, to show us where the saw blade buzz-sawed his sternum in half. “Stents are for babies.”

I hid the scar from my stent procedure on my wrist. It was the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

You’re weighed. Your blood pressure’s taken. You’re handed your clipboard with your orders. Three sticky electrodes are stuck on you so you can be wired and monitored. I call them “robot nipples.” Because that’s what they look like.

When I started I couldn’t lift a hummingbird. Twelve weeks later I heaved a pair of 10-pound dumbbells and popped a robot nipple over the heads of our stationary bike gang members, rehab patients with names like “Sgt. Pacemaker,” “Thumper” and “Code Blue”.

We watch TV while working out. I learned how to flip a house and from “Crikey, it’s the Irwins” I learned how to flip a ‘gator. And our blood pressure improved and we got stronger.

I told Jeff that I told my doc I broke my heart in three places. “Doc told me I should stay out of those places.”

On the cardiac table I saw the debt we owe our hearts. I gave up my unhealthy American diet for a healthy un-American diet. Goodbye, fast food. Hello, long life. Adios, salt, sugar and fat. Save money. Cook your own healthy food. Don’t eat after 7 p.m. Don’t snack. Eat Mediterranean and whatever Carlotta Flores is cooking. Appreciate what Popeye saw in Olive Oil.

I told Jeff my cardiologist said he saved an Alaskan bear. From Kodiak arrest.

Nurses Tracey and John taught me exercise can extend your life, make you fit, and improve your mental health. Reasons to stick with it after rehab.

First sunrise without rehab the roosters crowed, the cats purred, my wife stirred and I was sticking with it, weighing myself, testing my blood sugar, recording my blood pressure. Habit one: Beat yesterday’s numbers.

I turned on the coffee, downed my morning meds, my vegetarian sausage and took a pulse-pumping 25-minute walk for the endorphins, the positive attitude and clarity I’ll need for work.

After work I’ll do 20 on the elliptical watching “Deadline White House” or follow a YouTube bike ride down the Swiss alps on my stationary bike or hit the loop. Dumbbells after dinner. After 40 years hunched over a drawing board and a too-soft belly, I’m integrating health into my daily life. Like I did this past Thursday, a perfect autumn day to take my certified heart on a test drive.

I parked at the base of Tumamoc, donned my camelback, took my saguaro rib hiking sticks in hand and began my long ascent, recalling how I’d gasp for air and break for frequent rests. Halfway up I looked down the long path stretching to St. Mary’s Hospital. My stent-enabled heart was no longer parched for oxygen. That afternoon, feet away from me, I saw a mule deer and two of her fawns amble across my path. By dusk the switchbacks had been handily conquered by a rehabilitated heart flush with blood, oxygen and gratitude.

David Fitzsimmons, tooner@tucson.com

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David is an editorial cartoonist and has been with the Star since 1986. He's won many awards and his cartoons are syndicated to over 700 clients worldwide. He was President of the Tucson Press Club for a decade in the 90s.

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