Heart Attack: Rehab 2

A progress report.

When I walked into the Cardiac Fitness Center the other day, I was shocked to see an overweight man in his Sixties sitting in the waiting room happily munching a fast-food hamburger. Obviously, he dismissed the message his cardiologist gave him about a low-animal fat diet. While his action was extreme, many of my fellow patients at the rehab center are repeat heart attack victims who didn’t follow their doctor’s orders. For me, their errors are my inspiration to succeed.

Routine is the name of the cardiac fitness game. Upon entering the center, the first thing you do is sign-in and report your weight; current blood pressure; whether you’ve taken your meds; and how you feel, such as good, fair, or poor. Then you pick up and attach a heart monitor to your body, and record your monitor number, so the cardiac fitness staff can track you during exercise.

Three therapists and a dietician are available to seven of us, three women and four men, while we exercise. One therapists keeps constant surveillance of our heart rate, so we don’t exceed our target heart rate . The other two nurses help us with the machines, keep an eye on our condition, and answer questions we have about our therapy. Part of their routine is to take our blood-pressure during exercise, as well as before, and after a cool down period when we finish. Constant monitoring of our heart-rate and blood pressure helps the staff determine appropriate levels of exercise for us.

During my seventh day at Hamot Cardiac Fitness Center, I achieved new levels of difficulty for my exercise routine. My first exercise is on a stationary bike. After a five minute warm-up at 35 rpms. I increase my speed to 50 rpms for an additional fifteen minutes. Biking is the most taxing of my exercises, and I like to do it first. Blood pressure rises during exercise, and the bike gets my blood pressure and heart-rate pumped. Each outpatient exercises at a pace suitable to his or her condition.

After the exercise bike, the treadmill is next. Initially, I walked at a 2.2 mph pace. Now, my pace is 2.8 mph on a 3% incline. I walk for 20 minutes. My final exercise is ten minutes on a NuStep, a recumbent cross-training machine operated with legs and arms to work all the major muscle groups.

Overall, I’m currently doing fifty (50) minutes of cardiovascular exercise at a heart target rate compatible to my age and heart’s strength. My goal is to strengthen my heart’s pumping ability measured as an “Ejection Factor” (EF). A normal EF is 55. Through systolic failure my EF became 35. Heart muscle damage cannot be repaired, but I can improve my EF to above 40%. As a practical goal, I want to once again be able to play tennis at a high level for my age.