Heart Valve Replacement - Little known Benefits Of Cardiac Rehab!

Heart Valve Replacement – Little Known Benefits Of Cardiac Rehab!

Now that I’ve been to cardiac rehab for a few times, I’m beginning to recognize faces, and I’ve started meeting interesting new people.

Those of us in the cardiac rehabilitation program all have something in common; the conversation usually starts with, “what are you in here for”? Sounds like a bunch of prison inmates doesn’t it?

Introductions follow, and then we swap stories about our open heart surgery, heart attacks, stints, bypass surgery, heart valve replacement, or heart valve repair surgery. I usually ask how long they’ve been in the cardiac rehab program.

Then, after the preliminary gruesome details are exchanged, the conversation moves on to everyday normal topics. Where are you from? How many kids? Grand children? Married? Occupation? As you might imagine, most of the heart rehab participants are older and most of them are retired.

Today at rehab, I met Susan, a delightful grandmother of nineteen. She told me that her oldest son was strictly a sperm donor and had ten children of which he supported zero. “He is just a bum”, she explained. She and her husband were raising three of his children.

Susan’s children complain to her that now that she has had the heart attack, she doesn’t want to do anything. Susan regards her heart attack as a green flag to do as little as possible from now on out. She now values a low stress life, and pretty much does only what she wants to do. Looking and listening to her now, I can only imagine what she was like in her youth.

She tells her story as a “matter-of-fact”, spices it with lots of humor, and remains completely void of self-pity throughout the telling. Susan has been coming to rehab for three years, and she knows the “low-down” on most of the regulars.

“See that man over there, he had a heart attack on the golf course, they had to call 911 twice, by the time they finally got him to the hospital ER, he had permanent brain damage.”

The point is, that while I could have just sat on my Nu Step machine and passed away my twenty minutes of exercise on that particular machine, I didn’t, instead I chose to reach out and engage another human being. The twenty minutes passed quickly, I met a new friend, we shared some healing laughter, and our spirits were jointly lifted. Cool Beans!

Some people dread rehab, while most look forward to it. I’m thinking that a positive experience is directly related to your willingness to engage and be engaged by your fellow cardiac rehab participants.

Have you gotten your copy of Adam Pick’s book, The Patient’s Guide To Heart Valve Surgery yet? One of the things you’ll learn from his book and research is that everyone’s heart surgery recovery is uniquely different.

I’m reading the part right now about what he felt like and saw as he began to regain consciousness in the ICU after his open heart surgery. His book describes in detail many commonalities of valve replacement surgery and lots of them are things you probably won’t learn from your Doctor. Check it out for yourself right here.

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