I am learning to understand my angina, it is a part of me now, my heart is very much alive and sensitive. Angina is a curious thing, I feel it differently every day, sometimes not at all. I am learning it is sensitive to stress, to the cold, to the damp. Some days I can charge up the hill, some days I have to stop a couple of times.

But I can walk, and I do walk, and I am grateful to Red who seems to know my heart well and is patient about my struggles to figure things out. Too often, I am determined to prove that I can walk up any hill with no trouble, too often I do not wait as long as I should to rest my heart and then walk.

It’s like training a willful dog in a way (yes I am the willful dog), you have to be a better human being, you have to learn patience and curb frustration. Red is very helpful, as I come up the hill he just stops when he senses something is off with me, and sits. He waits for me to stop also, and we stand together for a few minutes while my heart settles down.

An instantly obedient dog, Red will not resume walking until he decides I am good and  ready.

Nobody knows exactly what Red is responding to, it might be my heartbeat – the heart races when it is stressed, it might be my expression, or breathing or posture. Dogs can smell emotion, and he is perhaps reacting to mine, Red and I spent a lot of our lives together, I am sure he knows my breathing and heartbeat very well.

In any case, he slowing me down when I need to slow down, moving along when we need to move along. I am walking as much as ever, just in a slightly different way. I shoveled snow today, cleaned off the car, fed the animals. My heart knows when it is cold and damp.

Red knows when I need to stop. I think my heart has become more sensitive, more feeling, more true. It picks up so much outside of me, I am so very much alive.