Well, hello my friends. This is Science Mike, your host for Ask Science Mike, and usually we have a whole

ritual for this podcast with a little short intro and then a theme song and then a vamp and then some

announcements and and we're not doing any of that today because this is a special

episode and if you're the kind of person he usually skips forward trying to find the episode,

you're listening to it now.

There is no announcements loop on this week's show.

I've got a lot to share I think that is important and significant.

Basically, it's been a tough year for me with my health.

I've had a heart disease known as pericarditis

that I've been treating and following the recommendations

of my cardiologist and my primary care doctor.

And it gets better and then it gets bad again and it gets better and then it gets bad again.

And what they're telling me is I haven't made enough changes to manage my stress levels and anxiety.

I basically have to live an almost stress free life for some periods of months in order for this

condition to get better and you all have been so great about supporting me. I mean I

think of the go-fond of me. I think about all the cards

and letters and tweets and Facebook posts saying science might take as much time

away as you need and I thought I did but I hadn't.

So what I've been tasked with doing is to only do things that don't elevate my heart rate other than light physical exercise.

So if I'm doing something that involves

talking in a microphone or standing on stage and it's like ramping my heart rate through the

roof, that's something I need to not do for now, but I can keep doing anything that doesn't ramp my heart

...