TheGymGuy
Well-known member
I have been more active in the "exercising forum" than others, but wanted to make a post here for the pre-surgery and some post-surgery folks.
My surgery was a tiny bit over 6 month ago, and while to some it might seem as a very short time this has probably been the longest and most productive 6 months of my life. More on this later.
To those pre-surgery: you probably will spend lots of time on here, reading, writing, using the "search" button for hours at a time, and learning all sorts of interesting and useful info. This is what I did, and by the time I was done, I swear, I knew more about OHS than a 3rd year medical student. I also encourage you to ask questions to members directly in public forum or via a Private Message. Heck, I'd be happy to chat on the phone with any person that has questions about the surgery, recovery or anything else, especially, if they are in the same boat as I was when I was making my decision or getting ready for the surgery.
To those post-surgery: after the initial period or maybe even little complications, or questions about this and that, most of you will probably move on with your lives and come here every so often to just check-in, help out, and say "hi" to old friends. To those that stick around for a very long time, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting everyone who comes here with questions and looking for help.
I find myself gravitating here once a week or so and checking up on things and if I see something where I can chime in and help, I do, otherwise I thank lucky stars for every successful surgery and hope that everyone recovers uneventfully.
With all this off my chest, I want to sincerely thank every member here that responds to posts from newbies with any question, even the question that has been asked 1 million times.
Ok, on to my story. It won't be long. Everything is fine and 100% back to what it was like right before surgery. Resting HeartRate is back to low 60s, and while it was in mid- high-50s before hand, I am currently slightly deconditioned and will spend next 2 month getting back into high performance mode. After the surgery I lost a bunch of muscle mass and spent most of the summer gaining it back. I was extremely persistent about my exercising as it is a very big part of my life and trained as much as prior to surgery to get my strength and my body back. Being a competitive powerlifter, one goal that I had was to compete this year and if at all possible within 6 months post my surgery to show/prove that everything is back to normal. I did just that, you can read about it here: http://www.valvereplacement.org/forums/showthread.php?40760
Ultimately, for me, the goals were simple:
1. accept and prep for surgery (this happened before the surgery)
2. survive the surgery (surgeon, their team, support group here, God, et al., took care of that)
3. survive the hospital stay and get all the drugs out of my system asap (this was done with ample walking, breathing, etc). This also shortened my hospital stay.
4. avoid depression at all costs while recovering at home and move/walk(crawl if I have to) around as much as possible. This will ultimately keep you happier and allow you to reclaim your body faster
5. increase cardio-vascular performance slowly but consistently on the daily/weekly basis. Walking/speed-walking daily helped out with that. My body felt more mine every single day.
6. start exercising in the gym again (just showing up to gym and doing anything would suffice).
7. start a 4 week strength program with small weights and show progress every week. Eat lots to gain back muscle and weight overall.
8. Continue high quality and quantity nutrition and weight-lifting program to get back to pre-surgery shape/weight.
9. Start a pre-competition program or two and complete it with good results
10. Compete and live to tell about it
One last item is that the reason the last 6 month were so productive is that it gave me a good perspective on what it's like to have certain things taken away and how much work is needed to get it all back. Literally, I had to fight for everything.
I had sports injuries before, a cracked rib, broken clavicle, lots of muscle tissue damage, but I was always able to train around those things. With OHS it was quite different. I had to fight, climb, crawl every day to the new little record to earn back that which was so easily and naturally mine before. Never, ever, have I had to fight so hard to get somewhere.
Sorry if this is too long, and I hope it shares some perspective and helps someone, or at the very least provides an entertaining read.
GymGuy
My surgery was a tiny bit over 6 month ago, and while to some it might seem as a very short time this has probably been the longest and most productive 6 months of my life. More on this later.
To those pre-surgery: you probably will spend lots of time on here, reading, writing, using the "search" button for hours at a time, and learning all sorts of interesting and useful info. This is what I did, and by the time I was done, I swear, I knew more about OHS than a 3rd year medical student. I also encourage you to ask questions to members directly in public forum or via a Private Message. Heck, I'd be happy to chat on the phone with any person that has questions about the surgery, recovery or anything else, especially, if they are in the same boat as I was when I was making my decision or getting ready for the surgery.
To those post-surgery: after the initial period or maybe even little complications, or questions about this and that, most of you will probably move on with your lives and come here every so often to just check-in, help out, and say "hi" to old friends. To those that stick around for a very long time, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting everyone who comes here with questions and looking for help.
I find myself gravitating here once a week or so and checking up on things and if I see something where I can chime in and help, I do, otherwise I thank lucky stars for every successful surgery and hope that everyone recovers uneventfully.
With all this off my chest, I want to sincerely thank every member here that responds to posts from newbies with any question, even the question that has been asked 1 million times.
Ok, on to my story. It won't be long. Everything is fine and 100% back to what it was like right before surgery. Resting HeartRate is back to low 60s, and while it was in mid- high-50s before hand, I am currently slightly deconditioned and will spend next 2 month getting back into high performance mode. After the surgery I lost a bunch of muscle mass and spent most of the summer gaining it back. I was extremely persistent about my exercising as it is a very big part of my life and trained as much as prior to surgery to get my strength and my body back. Being a competitive powerlifter, one goal that I had was to compete this year and if at all possible within 6 months post my surgery to show/prove that everything is back to normal. I did just that, you can read about it here: http://www.valvereplacement.org/forums/showthread.php?40760
Ultimately, for me, the goals were simple:
1. accept and prep for surgery (this happened before the surgery)
2. survive the surgery (surgeon, their team, support group here, God, et al., took care of that)
3. survive the hospital stay and get all the drugs out of my system asap (this was done with ample walking, breathing, etc). This also shortened my hospital stay.
4. avoid depression at all costs while recovering at home and move/walk(crawl if I have to) around as much as possible. This will ultimately keep you happier and allow you to reclaim your body faster
5. increase cardio-vascular performance slowly but consistently on the daily/weekly basis. Walking/speed-walking daily helped out with that. My body felt more mine every single day.
6. start exercising in the gym again (just showing up to gym and doing anything would suffice).
7. start a 4 week strength program with small weights and show progress every week. Eat lots to gain back muscle and weight overall.
8. Continue high quality and quantity nutrition and weight-lifting program to get back to pre-surgery shape/weight.
9. Start a pre-competition program or two and complete it with good results
10. Compete and live to tell about it
One last item is that the reason the last 6 month were so productive is that it gave me a good perspective on what it's like to have certain things taken away and how much work is needed to get it all back. Literally, I had to fight for everything.
I had sports injuries before, a cracked rib, broken clavicle, lots of muscle tissue damage, but I was always able to train around those things. With OHS it was quite different. I had to fight, climb, crawl every day to the new little record to earn back that which was so easily and naturally mine before. Never, ever, have I had to fight so hard to get somewhere.
Sorry if this is too long, and I hope it shares some perspective and helps someone, or at the very least provides an entertaining read.
GymGuy
