I decided to re-launch the Recovery Journal between my bike therapy and my heart surgery. And I want to share the experiences, it is helpful to me and, hopefully, to other people.
People ask me if Maria is anxious about my heart surgeries. She is, but she is nowhere near panicked about them. She thinks it’s a good thing for me to do and is confident of the outcome.
The worst part for her was when she couldn’t talk to me for seven or eight hours after the surgery. I was told not to move until 3 p.m., and I was in a recovery room in the basement with no cell service.
Cardiac Rehab – my first round was in 2014 after my Open Heart Surgery – is an important part of the healing after any kind of heart surgery.
My doctors say the people who do cardia rehab are healthier and live longer than the people who don’t. It seems clear that my heart will stop beating one day, but she and I are flexible about when.
I have a lot to live for.
Although I tend not to think about my heart when it’s not getting worked on, rehab was essential to my healing.
And at Saratoga Hospital, it is impressive. For nearly an hour about my body, my heart, my life, and my concerns about exercise, Marie talked to me.
She gave me some excellent nutritional ideas I hadn’t heard before – Do Good Yoghurt for one, 1 gram of sugar. She said my insurance paid for 36 visits – the co-pay each time is $20.
Although the after-rehab therapy program is closed for now due to the virus, it may be re-opened by the time I need it in the winter. I can come and work out on the rehab’s excellent and modern machines for a nominal fee through the hard part of the winter when I can’t be riding my bike, which I will hopefully be riding soon.
I plan on riding my e-book well into the winter, stopping only for ice or snow.
In the meantime, I need to focus on the work in rehab. I told the nurses and specialists – there are a lot of people monitoring me now – that I am impatient and tend to overdo things. If I’m on the treadmill for 20 minutes one day, I want to do 30 minutes the next day.
My therapist pointedly suggested I try to be more mature about things than I have sometimes been. I’m working on it.
It is strange to be in rehab again, yet there is some excitement in for me. As I thought the first time, I am fortunate I have a chronic disease they can mostly fix.
At night, I worry about the next surgery and why it has to be at a bigger hospital in Albany (I know why.) But in daylight, I am profoundly grateful to consider that soon, all three of my major arteries to the heart will be wide open, probably for the rest of my life.
I got on a bike in rehab for 10 minutes and put the resistance on 5 out of 10. I have a heart monitor on all the time in rehab, and the nurses and counselors monitor me throughout the session. They will be in constant contact with my cardiologists and surgeon, my blood pressure was excellent, and I had no trouble on the bike.
I told the staff – they are all incredibly nice – that I am ashamed that I betrayed my heart for a second time and wrote off my discomfort to age rather than sickness.
I owe it to me and my heart to get it right this time, which my doctors say is quite possible. So many people throughout history never got the second and third chance I’m getting. It humbles me, for sure, and sometimes frightens me.
I eat pretty well, but I’m making some more changes to my diet. I’ll go to cardiac well into the winter, and I’ll be walking or biking almost every day.
Despite my many issues regarding exercise, I always feel better when I do it. And my orphaned body feels better too. I feel better now, just from walking every morning and riding the bike last week. This weekend, I’ll get back on the bike again.
I am noticeably stronger than before my recent surgery. I don’t get drowsy in the middle of the morning; I don’t ache when I lift something or walk uphill.
Every morning, I head out on the Solitude Walk, I’ve asked Maria to come along so she can see my progress. I love the way she and I share our triumphs and defeats.
The next time, Maria will be able to visit me, making both of us feel better. I’ll have to skip some bike riding and cardiac rehab, but that’s fine. Resting is also part of healing.
This time, the challenges feel more daunting to me. My body is not as confident, I am older, and my heart will need some care and attention.
It is still strange to me to be an older man with a heart that needs some help.
The traumas unleashed by my e-bike have fused with my heart surgeries. Somehow, they are parts of the same thing.
The doctors and nurses will do their part, and then, I will do mine. Nothing worth doing is easy or simple. I have a task in front of me, and I hope I am up for it.
1. The healing words we all need before surgery: “She thinks it’s a good thing for me to do and is confident of the outcome.”
2. This makes me remember Bill Clinton saying he thought he could outwit his body’s health requirenents… until he had a second heart attack, then he obeyed.
I’m glad you are getting the treatment that you need. However, I have one request. Please stop calling it surgery. Going to the cath lab is not surgery. I wouldn’t care, but I work in Cardiac Care and I hate to see even one of your readers scared off from a cath because of your choice of words. Surgery means cracking your chest and a lengthy recovery. A cardiac cath is definitely not surgery. Words matter and I don’t want anyone to skip an important procedure. Thank you and I’m sure you will do well.
Anne, thanks for the message> I appreciate your message. It’s confusing to me because the doctor said he wanted to perform more surgery and my cardiologist said she agreed that I should have the “surgery,” and the appointment nurse referred to the procedure as a “catheter surgery.” Perhaps you are not quite familiar with the procedure the surgeon wants to do with my heart.
Merriam – Webster defines surgery much more broadly than you do: “The branch of medicine that employs operations in the treatment of disease or injury. Surgery can involve cutting, abrading, suturing, or otherwise physically changing body tissues and organs.” Surgery is not just cracking one’s chest, according to my doctors.
I appreciate your position in cardiac care and thanks for your good work, but the people I’ve met in cardiac care have a different feeling than you do.
I think that any procedure that occurs under anesthesia in an operating room where a “surgeon” cuts a hole in my leg, enters an artery (which requires suturing), and re-adjust the flow of blood to my heart is surgery to me. There was cutting, suturing, and physically changing both body tissues and organs. I will check again with my doctors as to how they use this term and why, and if I’m not using it properly I’ll be happy to change it..Thanks for your good wishes, I’m in good hands.
Anne, since you wrote to me about words, I took your post seriously. Looks like you were wrong, and I will continue to use the term “surgery,” perhaps upgrading it to “cardiac surgery.” We both need to be careful about the words we choose. I looked up the terms in three separate dictionaries and talk with my surgeon and several nurses. In the morning, I’ll ask my cardiologist, although her nurse said “surgery” is the right term and the term they use. Thanks for inspiring a blog post.
https://www.bedlamfarm.com/2020/09/10/recovery-journal-am-i-really-having-surgery/
The lady in the photo has a nice mask.