Valve Repair Surgery - Support Team Makes Heart Surgery Recovery

Valve Repair Surgery – Support Team Makes Heart Surgery Recovery Easier!

I’m now recovering as fast as I can from valve repair surgery. Let’s see, I think it’s been about five weeks since my open heart surgery. I’m well on my way to recovery, but I still have to use oxygen when I’m exercising (I don’t like dragging the oxygen around and will be thrilled to rid of it), and I still get tired very easily, and I’m still on tons of medicine to help my heart beat harder, and I’m also on a pile of two different kinds of diuretics. I feel like a big “pill” sometimes. Some of my friends think that I am a pill all of the time.

Our dear, wonderful friends from South Carolina, Kathy and Judy, arrived to help with my heart surgery recovery in any way they could. What a joy to see them again. They will be here for ten days.

They had planned to be part of my open heart surgery support team and they are, but since I’m driving myself to follow-up Doctor appointments and cardiac rehab now, they will be free occasionally to really enjoy some of our spectacular New Mexico sites and activities.

I no longer have to have someone with me all of the time, but I do still have to rest a lot since the least little thing still wears me out.

Kathy is a gifted math school teacher and Judy is a retired librarian. They are both fascinating and fun-loving human beings. Right now, Kathy is into beading.

If someone said that I would have to learn how to bead or die, they would just have to shoot me right there on the spot. My patience would not last longer than stringing more than two or three beads together.

Judy never tires of learning, has an inquisitive mind, and just finds tremendous joy in being alive. As an added bonus, she has promised to cook some of her fabulous specialties while she is here. What more could you ask from your support team?

She recently had double hip replacement surgery, came through both surgeries with zero complications, and now she is pain free. She, like me, is one of those folks that truly enjoys rehab! I’m sure that her hip replacement rehab was totally different than my open heart surgery rehab, but still there commonalities to both.

Honestly, I can’t think of two more positive people to have around during this recuperative phase of my valve repair surgery. I’m smiling just anticipating the fun we’ll all have.

Kathy, Judy, Connie, Lynn, Bo, Bentli, and I all trooped for a mile walk around our beautiful Sandia foothills neighborhood this evening.

I guess we had something of a hilarious parade going on. People on foot and in their cars were smiling and waving as they passed us by. I have no doubt that they went straight home to share what they had just seen trekking along on our quiet streets.

Here’s the picture: Judy, leashed-up our 70 lb., very rambunctious Boxer. Kathy took our well-behaved, yet very independent Shih Tzu. Connie once again pushed my oxygen tank for me (the one with a mind of its own), I’m walking along with the nasal oxygen cannula hanging out of my nose, and Lynn, as usual, is keeping us all amused as we troop up and down the hills.

Connie was trying to run me down with the oxygen tank every few minutes. Bentli was jerking Judy into the next world, Bentli got passed to Lynn fairly shortly, Bo played Thumblina most of the way (when she gets tired, she smells every other weed and tinkles just a couple of drops), and I was enjoying being with friends, having them care enough about me to walk with me, and just having the chance to be alive and laugh again.

As you can tell, your heart surgery recovery doesn’t have to be all business, you can relax and have fun some of the time and still get the mission accomplished. Having people around you that love to laugh will help keep your spirits up.

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 surgery. His book describes in detail many commonalities of heart valve replacement surgery and lots of them are things you probably won’t learn from your Doctor. Interested? Read more about or download Adam’s book right here.