Where Does the Time Go?
Wow- I didn't realize it had been so long since my last post! Time sure flies when you're a woman of leisure.
So on Wednesday I drove to Rochester for my post-op visit with my surgeon. I had a chest x-ray and then had some time to wait before my appointment.
I visited Cynthia from LA at her hotel. It was so nice to finally meet her and her hubby in person! Cynthia is Wonder Woman. She is doing so well! She's where I was at about 2 weeks after my surgery and she was only 5 days post-op. I am in awe. She is still my idol.
My surgeon was unavailable so I saw his surgical fellow, who checked up on me a lot when I was in the hospital. So I felt fine seeing him. He checked my incisions and looked at my x-ray. Everything looked fine. Then we talked about cardiac rehab and my sternal click. What is a sternal click, you ask? Well, sometimes when the sternum is healing, it will click. Mine is very slight, but it bothers me. I'm squeamish, remember? Just feeling a pulse when RobbieMax and I are holding hands icks me out. So feeling my STERNUM CLICKING when I cough, laugh, stretch, sometimes even turn my head (when I'm sitting in the right position) is really grossing me out. ICK!
But the sternal click means that my weight restrictions have been extended to 8 weeks post-op. This means that I can't even lift a gallon of milk for another 3 weeks. Oh well. I guess RobbieMax and Will are going to have to wait on me just a little bit longer. A girl could really get used to this.
The Twins game was a lot of fun. But there's something you don't know about me. I am bad luck. Every time I've ever been to a Twins or a Vikings game, they've lost. I finally stopped going to games. It was just too painful. But something rare happened on Wednesday night. The Twins WON! And I was at the game! Will told me that maybe it was my bad valve that brought on the bad luck. And now that I have a new valve, I'm good luck. I like that theory. I think I'll adopt that. I'm good luck now. That's going to be my new mantra. I'm good luck now.
So yesterday I had my first actual session of cardiac rehab. I wasn't surprised that I was the youngest person there. But I was surprised that I was the only girl. (Well, an older woman named Emma was supposed to be there, but she didn't come. Apparently she's very vocal about her hatred for exercise.) Yep. My cardiac rehab sessions will be with about 6 middle-aged to older men who have all had heart attacks and/or bypass surgery. No one really talked to me for the first half hour. But then this nice-looking man named Cezar asked me, "So why are you here?"
Cezar and I got to talking and I found that he was really nice. He had a quintuple bypass about 10 years ago. This time, he needed a double bypass because two of the bypasses that they put in 10 years ago disappeared. They don't know where they went. Strange, huh?
The other men there were pretty crabby. It was more like the good 'ol boys club and I wasn't invited. But that's okay. I'll charm the socks off them on Monday.
My actual rehab session was a piece of cake. When you walk in you have to weigh yourself (which is tough for me to do since I don't actually WANT to know how much I weigh) and write it in your chart. Then you have to hook yourself up to the heart monitor and grab a belt for that so you don't have to hold it the whole time. Then you wait for one of the rehab ladies to come and check your resting blood pressure. Next you grab your little exercise sheet from your folder, grab a piece of tape, go to the treadmill, and tape it to that. Your exercise sheet tells you what you are supposed to do for the session.
So yesterday I had to warm up for 5 minutes walking at 2 MPH, then walk for 10 minutes at 2.5 MPH, then cool down for 5 minutes at 2 MPH. Before you cool down the rehab lady checks your blood pressure. Then you rest for a few minutes after you cool down and they check your blood pressure again to see how you recover.
But my session was a bust. It wasn't enough really to get my heart going. I guess I'm in pretty good physical shape. A fine specimen after surgery. So they're going to make it a little harder for me on Monday. That's good. I want to exert myself and build up my endurance.
I can almost yawn completely now. I'm happy about that. Sneezing still hurts like he**, so I still try to stifle the darn things. But all in all, I am feeling better every day.
This is my last week before having to go back to work. How shall I enjoy it?
So on Wednesday I drove to Rochester for my post-op visit with my surgeon. I had a chest x-ray and then had some time to wait before my appointment.
I visited Cynthia from LA at her hotel. It was so nice to finally meet her and her hubby in person! Cynthia is Wonder Woman. She is doing so well! She's where I was at about 2 weeks after my surgery and she was only 5 days post-op. I am in awe. She is still my idol.
My surgeon was unavailable so I saw his surgical fellow, who checked up on me a lot when I was in the hospital. So I felt fine seeing him. He checked my incisions and looked at my x-ray. Everything looked fine. Then we talked about cardiac rehab and my sternal click. What is a sternal click, you ask? Well, sometimes when the sternum is healing, it will click. Mine is very slight, but it bothers me. I'm squeamish, remember? Just feeling a pulse when RobbieMax and I are holding hands icks me out. So feeling my STERNUM CLICKING when I cough, laugh, stretch, sometimes even turn my head (when I'm sitting in the right position) is really grossing me out. ICK!
But the sternal click means that my weight restrictions have been extended to 8 weeks post-op. This means that I can't even lift a gallon of milk for another 3 weeks. Oh well. I guess RobbieMax and Will are going to have to wait on me just a little bit longer. A girl could really get used to this.
The Twins game was a lot of fun. But there's something you don't know about me. I am bad luck. Every time I've ever been to a Twins or a Vikings game, they've lost. I finally stopped going to games. It was just too painful. But something rare happened on Wednesday night. The Twins WON! And I was at the game! Will told me that maybe it was my bad valve that brought on the bad luck. And now that I have a new valve, I'm good luck. I like that theory. I think I'll adopt that. I'm good luck now. That's going to be my new mantra. I'm good luck now.
So yesterday I had my first actual session of cardiac rehab. I wasn't surprised that I was the youngest person there. But I was surprised that I was the only girl. (Well, an older woman named Emma was supposed to be there, but she didn't come. Apparently she's very vocal about her hatred for exercise.) Yep. My cardiac rehab sessions will be with about 6 middle-aged to older men who have all had heart attacks and/or bypass surgery. No one really talked to me for the first half hour. But then this nice-looking man named Cezar asked me, "So why are you here?"
Cezar and I got to talking and I found that he was really nice. He had a quintuple bypass about 10 years ago. This time, he needed a double bypass because two of the bypasses that they put in 10 years ago disappeared. They don't know where they went. Strange, huh?
The other men there were pretty crabby. It was more like the good 'ol boys club and I wasn't invited. But that's okay. I'll charm the socks off them on Monday.
My actual rehab session was a piece of cake. When you walk in you have to weigh yourself (which is tough for me to do since I don't actually WANT to know how much I weigh) and write it in your chart. Then you have to hook yourself up to the heart monitor and grab a belt for that so you don't have to hold it the whole time. Then you wait for one of the rehab ladies to come and check your resting blood pressure. Next you grab your little exercise sheet from your folder, grab a piece of tape, go to the treadmill, and tape it to that. Your exercise sheet tells you what you are supposed to do for the session.
So yesterday I had to warm up for 5 minutes walking at 2 MPH, then walk for 10 minutes at 2.5 MPH, then cool down for 5 minutes at 2 MPH. Before you cool down the rehab lady checks your blood pressure. Then you rest for a few minutes after you cool down and they check your blood pressure again to see how you recover.
But my session was a bust. It wasn't enough really to get my heart going. I guess I'm in pretty good physical shape. A fine specimen after surgery. So they're going to make it a little harder for me on Monday. That's good. I want to exert myself and build up my endurance.
I can almost yawn completely now. I'm happy about that. Sneezing still hurts like he**, so I still try to stifle the darn things. But all in all, I am feeling better every day.
This is my last week before having to go back to work. How shall I enjoy it?
posted by Julia Hart at
2:45 PM
1 Comments:
So... you just use the treadmill at rehab??? We had 10 minutes on each piece of equipment... starting with the treadmill, then to the bike, then the uh... what was that thing called... ah, it was a Nu-Step, then back to the treadmill for 10 minutes. Oh, we started with a six minute walk and in between each piece of equipment we had to walk two laps around the room and write down our "how we are feeling number 1-10" and our heartrate according to the computer while we had monitors on. When we completed the 40 minutes we had to end with stretches that were on a poster on the wall. We had our BP checked upon arrival, in the middle of the bike ride, and then again at the end. Didn't have to weigh in each day!! :) I think I only had to get weighed once or twice, but that wasn't an "issue" for me like a couple of the other patients with heart disease. It was pretty quiet my first day too and of course they wonder "what are you doing here, you are too young?!" But I really got to love the people I did rehab with and still think of them often almost two years later. Oh yeah, they were all men except two of us. Forgot to mention that part.
Good luck and enjoy that last week of work - I know I got too used to being home! How many weeks post-op are you? I didn't go back to work for 12 weeks, but then got let go anyways because they gave me a choice of doing my rehab or working but not both... so it was a week or two later when I got a new job and started since I chose my health over my job.
Have fun!
Traci
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Anonymous, at 10:17 PM, August 19, 2006
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