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You are now home from the hospital, and while the healing process is
well underway, or you would not have been discharged, there are miles
to go. There seem to be so many instructions to remember. You simply
will not be up to much in the first few weeks, and in some cases, for
several more. I won’t understate this. Yes, an upbeat approach by the
hospital medical staff may have sent you waltzing home and it’s
thrilling to be leaving the hospital, where you haven’t been permitted
to sleep through the night. Yet you are returning home greatly
fatigued, with a medications schedule to manage, possibly a tank of
oxygen, and perhaps recurrent irregular heartbeats or other
complications that remain unresolved. Now is the time to dedicate
yourself to the hard work of recovery. Alternating rest and exercise,
and above all patience with the physical and emotional trials ahead, is
your assignment for the next several weeks.
You and your caregiver will mostly be on your own unless your
particular situation requires a treatment plan that includes post-op
visits from a home health care nurse. Even if that’s the case, now is
the time to review any guidelines your hospital medical team has given
you about what to be aware of.
If you have purchased the paperback or downloaded the e-book version of
The Open Heart Companion: Preparation and Guidance for Open-Heart
Surgery Recovery, from my website http://www.openheartcoach.com, it’s
time to reread Chapter 5, “The Challenges You May Face.” This chapter
provides detailed information not only on challenges that may arise in
your recovery, but it also supplies solutions as well. For example, on
the subject of feeling isolated: “This is the time to find other
open-heart surgery survivors and their caregivers to talk to. Swap
stories, share information, hear what other families have gone through.
Just knowing that you are not alone as you go through your
rehabilitation can lift the veil of isolation. There can be a tendency
to hold one’s surgery and recovery experiences too privately, but not
reaching out to others will only deprive you of receiving compassionate
support. If you are feeling isolated, do yourself a favor: reach out to
friends and family, and look for a heart surgery support group locally
or online.” However, whenever in doubt about what you may be
experiencing specifically, contact your designated medical liaison for
professional diagnosis or medical attention. No question or concern is
too trivial.
For most of us, there is a difficult recovery challenge from the time
we leave the hospital until we are healed and strong enough to enroll
in a local rehab program. That’s one of the reasons for my book, to
bridge this gap as so little medical attention is focused on the
recuperation period that lasts anywhere from four to eight weeks. We
thought getting through surgery was the biggest hurdle. However, the
hurdle is greater when we are home on our own with not much progress to
report fast enough -- and without all those experts in the hospital to
lean on.
Every recovery is different. If you’ve been told to expect improvement
“two days forward, one day back,” you might be disappointed to
experience instead only one good day (a period of energetic spunk)
followed by two, three, or even four days of just plain feeling lousy.
Even to meet the assignment of increasing your walking time from five
minutes to ten minutes a day may feel like an insurmountable task at
first. You may also be swinging in and out of temporary depression. (In
my case, I wished the discharge nursing staff had emphasized the
psychological challenges of recovery, not just the physical stresses.)
Or, you may feel “off,” and think you might be coming down with a
virus. That might be the case, but feeling off can be due to other
things as well: you may have become anemic (as I did); you may be
having an allergic reaction; sleep deprivation may have caught up with
you—there are many possibilities. Know that everyone goes through
discouragement, yet those who are informed to expect ups and downs will
fare far better.
Recovery after surgery takes time. There’s often a feeling of “being
all alone.” Because I, and dozens of patients and caregivers who were
interviewed for The Open Heart Companion, have gone through open-heart
surgery recovery ourselves, I offer the help you need via a free
monthly phone support group, a newsletter specifically on recovery, a
highly informational paperback (also available as an e-book), and
general practical tips. Stop by my site at
http://www.openheartcoach.com to see how we can help you recover faster. |