Heart Education

Cardiac Rehab today included a 30-minute educational session. Six of us watched a video of how the heart works, after which the registered nurse reinforced the information, using a plastic heart model to explain what happens in bypass and valve replacement surgeries.



She also showed us a heart defibrillator, a pacemaker, and a stent, explaining how these work. I'd never seen a stent up close and was amazed at how tiny it was. She emphasized the importance of staying on the medications prescribed by our cardiologists and explained the dangers of taking ourselves off of them. In the case of stents, for instance, the heart perceives them as foreign objects and will form potentially fatal blood clots around them if patients do not take prescribed blood thinners.



We were also told about something called ejection fraction (new to me), which is the percentage of blood pumped out of a heart chamber during the contraction phase of each heartbeat. Normally, the left ventricle pumps 55 to 75 percent of the blood within that chamber out to the body with each heartbeat. A lower or higher than normal ejection fraction could indicate the presence of certain heart conditions. Ejection fraction can be measured in several ways, including electrocardiogram and heart catherization. For our group, it was measured during catherization. We were told that the RN could give us our readings after the session. I learned that mine is a desirable 55 percent.




The educational program plus the workout made for a longer session today. Hubbie began to get a little edgy when I didn't return home at my usual hour. I'd told him last week that Tuesday's educational programs would mean I'd be later getting home, but I guess he forgot. He expressed his concern to Mother, who told him she wasn't worried since she expected me to be a little later today. Still, Hubbie was waiting on the porch for me when I got back. He said if I hadn't come pretty soon, he was going to call me. He wouldn't have reached me, though, because I didn't have my cell phone on. I hate that I worried him, and I hope that next Tuesday he'll be a little more relaxed. It's nice to know he's thinking about me, though.