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Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams would be wise to say as little as possible about his heart surgery and recovery, according to advice in a new book on how to cope with the emotional after-effects of heart surgery through an “eight-step Cardiac Comeback Plan.”
“One day I was strong. The next day I was weak. One day my colleagues looked up to me. The next day they seemed to see me as weak and ‘damaged,’ ” writes Dr. Marc Wallack in Back to Life After a Heart Crisis. Wallack is a New York surgical oncologist who had a quadruple bypass. “Only tell people about your heart disease on a need-to-know basis,” he advises. “You do not need people talking about you while you are trying to recover. You do not need people using the details of your illness for their own personal gain.”
Before going into the hospital, pack the following, he suggests: slip-on shoes, bathrobe, baseball cap and sunglasses. “After being indoors that long, the glare of the sun can be uncomfortable, and you don’t need anything else to make you uncomfortable during that long, hard walk from the hospital door to your waiting car. You might also want to bring a puffy jacket, such as a ski jacket.” The jacket isn’t for warmth, “but to protect your tender incision area and prevent other people from getting too close to you.”
Expect night terrors in the hospital and later at home, he warns. “I knew that I needed at least seven hours of shut-eye for my chest, breastbone, and vessels to heal. Yet I couldn’t find the courage to close my eyes. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt as if I was losing control. I worried I would not wake up again. This went on night after night after night.”
He recommends leaving the blinds open in your bedroom at night. “During those initial fearful nights, I could not sleep in a dark room. If I woke to darkness, I would think, ‘Have I died?’ ”
Six months after surgery, Wallack, on a business trip and in a hotel, still felt terrified. He suggests calling the front desk. “Arrange two wake-up calls spaced 15 minutes apart with these instructions. ‘If I do not answer by the second call, please send someone to my room to check on me.’ If you wake in the middle of the night and feel scared, call the front desk and ask an innocuous question. I often ask, ‘What time is it?’ I don’t need to know the time. I just need to hear a voice and know that I am not alone.”
Ask a loved one to oversee your medication, he says. Wallack’s twice-daily dose of OxyContin took away his chest pain “but it also removed my emotional pain. It made me high.” He credits his wife for stepping in and interrupting his dependence. “[My wife] saw me take two OxyContins and asked, ‘Are you in pain?’ I replied, ‘Not right now! Right now, I have no pain at all.’ She said sarcastically, ‘I bet you don’t. This has got to stop.’ ” She gathered up the rest of my pain meds and flushed them down the toilet.”
Wallack also “feared the great outdoors,” he writes in a chapter on the importance of getting dressed each day, and getting outside for the first post-operation walk. “Would someone jostle me, and if so, would I lose my balance? Would I trip over something? Would everyone stare at me?”
Pick a short, flat initial route, and don’t walk alone, he advises. “The slightest incline can seem like Mount Everest during the initial weeks after surgery. You want your first walk to make you feel successful and strong, so pick something you know you can do.”
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