Sam’s post about her new knee’s fourth anniversary reminded me I have a small anniversary of my own. In a few days, I’ll be celebrating five months since my heart valve repair.
Sam’s posts about the importance of pre-hab and rehab helped me be as fit as possible before surgery, though they didn’t fully prepare me for the frustration of not healing as quickly as I wanted.
My cardiologist tells me I’m doing just fine and need to be patient with myself. Yeah right. Like that’s going to happen…
I still get out of breath when walking, but it may be because I’m going faster because now I’m passing people on the sidewalk. I am back to work, having passed all my fitness tests (I even knocked a second off my sprint time).
As promised, I have started doing exercise snacks at work. Those little swims between times of active lifeguarding are turning out to be rather addictive. I’m also back to weekly swim practice with my club, as well as ballet, Pilates and jazz classes.
Sleep remains a challenge. It is finally starting to be restful but now that I’m back to all my activities, I need to work on getting to bed early so I can sleep longer. I no longer have the luxury of sleeping late or having an afternoon nap.
Hopefully this will be my last health update for a while. The cardiac rehab folks told me I don’t need to do rehab with them because I’m already doing plenty. My cardiologist wants to see me in about six months, but anticipates releasing me back to my family doctor for regular care after that.
Maybe I can knock a few more seconds off my sprint time by then. That’s the goal, anyway.
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