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Cardiac rehab

19.06.2018


Before you leave the hospital after transplant, the physio team refer you to your nearest cardiac rehab centre. Mine is Northwich infirmary which is great because it's actually walkable from my house!

It took about 8 weeks for my referal which worked out fine because it meant I had a couple of months to recover and by the time I went to my first appointment I barely had any pain and my bone should have been healed because I was 3 months post op.

My first appointment was an assessment, so they went through my medication (her little box for meds was no where near big enough!), took my pulse and blood pressure and they had my echo scan from the hospital too so they can work out from my heart function what my heart rate should be when I exercise.

When you have a transplant they cut through the nerve from your brain to your heart, so my brain can't tell my heart to speed up and slow down. Therefore my resting heart rate is about 111bpm, and I also can't judge my fitness by my heart rate or how quickly I recover.

So after all the questions I had to do a fitness test where you basically walk up and down the gym for 6 minutes and they count how many laps you can do in 6 minutes. Afterwards they take your blood pressure again and pulse and they use a scale to see how you feel. I felt about a 4 which is 'lightly working' and they said that was right for my heart rate and the level of work I was doing. So we've worked out that my warm up heart rate is 126bpm and my exercising heart rate is 133 roughly, it needs to be below 140 really or I'm working too hard.

The following week I had my first griup session. We have our blood pressure done at the start (although I don't have it done now as its always normal), and the physio lady checks we're feeling okay and then we get a name sticker with our names on and a coloured blob. Everyone starts on red, then as you improve there's orange and green and they translate to which version of the exercise you do.

We start by doing a group warm up which involves walking around the room, doing some funny foot taps and arm movements (it's exactly what you'd imagine an OAP exercise class to look like haha!) Then we have 8 stations, every other station is a high intensity station. So one station will be walking up and down steps and one will then be lat raises with weights (so your heart rate decreases).

I really enjoy cardiac rehab! I get to chat to people, all the nurses and patients are really nice and we have a laugh about our illnesses which is nice. I am on level green on my third week which is cool, I can feel myself getting fitter and I enjoy the aches I get the day after in my arms and legs. Its also great fun exercising and sweating but not being in pain! I recieved an at home plan this week (my 3rd session) which means I can start going to the gym now and do exercises there safely. I have to make sure I walk up and I have to coll down for 5 minutes before I start resistance training.

Next week I'm off to Center Parcs so long as my biopsy is okay on Wednesday! I'm really excited to be able to do active things and enjoy them rather than fighting through the pain!

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