Refocused recovery plans…

Recovery has so many meanings. Until a short time ago, I was all focused on recovering from a stroke. And doing quite well at it. So well, in fact, that when a cardiac problem presented itself, a neurological exam proclaimed me a very fit candidate for major open-heart surgery. But recovery still goes on. It will take on a deeper and more painful turn when I begin recovering from the open-heart procedure. This is, apparently, a long and –initially – quite painful experience, I am told and have read.

I was pleased when the doctor encouraged me to continue walking, and engaging in water fitness, albeit scaled back 20%. Be as fit as I can be by the time I enter the operating room.

Of course, although I have plans for the time beyond surgery, I am aware that not everyone survives the procedure, and some don’t survive the recovery process. Death is always waiting in the corner for a moment of extreme vulnerability. So I began reading medical articles that deal with fatality percentages, and death rates. To date, I haven’t read a lot, but in the reading, two points have impressed me. By-pass surgery is generally more successful with elderly patients, than with younger ones. Part of this is due to the fact of early onset heart disease, the other has o do with percentages. If you are over 80, a 10% increase in lifespan is huge. If you are 46, not so much. This morning I spoke to a woman whose husband survived two open-heart surgeries, the first one at 46 years! He lived until almost retirement age!

I’ll keep reading, for interests sake, but I’m currently getting more wisdom from Grierson’s book What Makes Olga Run, the story of a phenomenal Victoria woman (raised in Saskatchewan, of course) who got bored with slow-pitch baseball after retirement, and at the age of 77, took up track and field. Currently, she is almost 95, and holds 17 world records in field and track events! As much as it is about one woman’s phenomenal body, it is a book about aging from the perspective of a cadre of folks who simply get old in a very active way, and are amazing because of that.

As a result of my reading thus far, I have refined my own post-surgical plan (which was to begin swimming hen I had the heart and breath to do it. Thanks to the example of my phenomenal son, I have now decided to ultimately swim a kilometer – 40 lengths of our local pool, even if it takes me half a day! My son Keith, aged 50, who has physical challenges of his own, swims 2 and one half Km. in an hour before he goes of to work each morning. My response was “Wow!” And then, “Hey, I could set a goal, and with his encouragement, meet it! Of course, I have to survive first, and at the moment, I am preparing myself for that initial struggle. Stay tuned!