For the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who will be in a similar position this year - scared and looking for something to hold on to.
You are not alone.
What's In It For You?
"This will be immensely reassuring to anyone going through this experience"
"The emotions hit hard in some places, but at the same time provides a lot of entertainment! A must read for everyone!!"
"...a brilliantly-written account of what it is like to live through such a daunting prospect"
Written from the patient's viewpoint, this book is about your feelings and avoids technical and medical explanations that are easily available on the internet.
Instead, it is about helping the patient to have some idea of what to expect when they start the journey towards recovery, for a journey it is. One that all must begin and one where the impacts spread a lot further than simply the hospital ward.
What were the surprises? What were the unexpected bonuses?
How long would a recovery take? What could be done to speed that up?
The highs and lows are in here. The natural fear of the unknown will be eased by following the fortunes of 'Ben' and his fellow patients.
This is a novel based 95% on real events, which is a bit below the global rate of success of open heart surgery procedures. All characters bar one were real and shared this journey, although for the sake of confidentiality every name has been changed.
Share the joys, the fears and the turbulent highs and lows as Ben takes on the mental, physical and emotional challenges of recovering from open heart surgery.
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Paperbacks available through Amazon or through personal request
After the diagnosis comes the FEAR - a deep, immobilising fear of the unknown.
He didn't know what was coming up. All he knew was that he could die if nothing was done.
Being told that he "urgently" needed open heart surgery, Ben was in shock then his thoughts quickly turned to practical matters. He was self-employed and so lived by the “No show, no dough” edict. Not working could quickly have repercussions that he needed to plan for.
He wanted to be able to give people who would be affected some sort of an idea of what to expect while he recovered. And recover he would. He had no doubt about that. When you have an idea of what to expect, you can handle adversity a whole lot more effectively.
All he needed was to have general guidelines to three simple questions:
What should he expect?
What could he do to speed up a recovery?
And how long was he really likely to be out of action for?
He expected standard answers to be readily available. The success rate was encouragingly high – way over ninety per cent - and open heart surgery was performed hundreds of thousands of times a year around the globe. It would be bizarre if there wasn’t a well-established set of standards by now.
But there wasn’t.
Or at least there wasn’t one he could find, no matter how hard he looked. And the more he looked and asked for it, the more vague was the answer. “It’s complicated. It depends.”
Based on true events, the story traces an absorbing journey of misguided expectations, frustration, joy, camaraderie and the roller-coaster ride of emotions as Ben sought to achieve a ‘recovery’ of his own definition.
This wasn't just a broken bone; it was a lot more serious than that. Potentially overwhelming.
This could have some serious impacts on every single aspect of his and his family's life. And of course, he had to consider the worst - what if it didn't work? What then?
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About The Author
Married and living in the glorious City of Bath, UK, Steve has enjoyed successful careers as a schoolmaster, projects manager, business change specialist and entrepreneur over the years. Now he is very happy to add ‘author’ to that list.
His hobbies include travelling, sports and generally being healthy, which made the experience of open heart surgery a particular surprise when it was announced.