Recovery is one of the great adventures of my life, along with marriage, parenting and moving to my farm in upstate New York. Recovery is not one thing but many things, not one chapter but a book of chapters, not one lesson but many lessons.

They say that the thing about cliches is that all cliches are true, that’s why they are cliches. This is, I think, especially true about recovery, from Open Heart Surgery and perhaps from others, I can only speak to my own experience. I have come to see recovery as a spiral, a series of circles, ends that are beginnings, beginnings that are ends. It takes a long time. Don’t be an over-achiever. Be patient, go slow, don’t push yourself.

I am into my third month of recovery, and every day or so, a nurse or doctor reminds me  to slow down, be patient, that my recovery will take months, even a year or more.  This is something I forget, every single day. I want it to be over now, I want to be done with it and get back into my life. Bit by bit, day by day, I see that I am getting there, it is never fast enough for me. When I got home, I could do nothing. Now I am doing most of the things I always did – cooking and shopping, lifting most of the things I could once lift, dressing and driving and monitoring my doctors and medicines. Maria has reached her goal of cardiac rehab – I am cooking almost all of the meals again.

The heart and the body were shaken and stunned, and there is still a lot to do to get everything back on line and in shape. Every day I am disappointed and sometimes discouraged at how much there is still to do. In this surgery, the trauma to the body is still great and there are all sorts of things that crop up, vanish and reappear – fatigue, sweating, fluid retention, stomach upset, some mood swings, surprising side effects and aftershocks. Every day I believe it is over, every day I learn it is not over, nor is it up to me. My heart and my body will take their own time in their own way.

In the wake of surgery, you deal with so many things, others take awhile to get to. I am walking three to four miles a day, going to cardiac rehab three times a week, riding a stationary bicycle four or five times a week. I am in better shape than I have been in for years, walking is a great joy again, as it always was for me. I am handling a dozen different medications, insurance issues, visits to the pharmacy, side effects. I put off looking too closely at food until now, when I am able to focus on it.

I have always eaten well, I have studied nutrition and talked to many nutritionists, I am a diabetic and we learn about food if we know what is good for us. But heart disease is unique and raises it’s own kinds of nutritional issues. One of my favorite snacks for years has been cheesepuffs, special cheesepuffs made by an organic health snack company, low in fat, real cheese, lightly backed, approved by all of my nutritionists, including my cardiologist. Some snacking is great, they all tell me, people who never treat themselves are the first to give up healthy eating, which for me is fruits, vegetables, nuts and fish.

I would snack on my cheespuffs every few days, just a handful, they were a reward to me for all the walking and exercising and hard work of recovery. I needed to eat them, I think they kept me in balance, kept me from feeling grim and deprived. This week I stopped ordering them and stopped eating them. I don’t want them anymore.  I find myself moving – quite subconsciously – on to the next level of recovery, one step at a time, when I am ready. I wasn’t ready before.  I like yoghurt and berries just as much, and the idea of cheesepuffs, even relatively healthy cheesepuffs, have lost their appeal to me. I am  ready to move forward and focus more sharply on the food my heart needs and wants, on the right fuel for me.  My heart and I are on good terms right  now, I intend to keep it that way.

Maria says I have changed since the surgery, and am changing all the time, and I can feel that. My legs are strong now, they are hungry for walking. My body loves to move and needs to move, my balance is returning, my lungs gaining strength, my heart is working well and hard for me. I get that I am not nearly done with recovery, about halfway along if I am fortunate and work hard. I am learning to understand the long haul, expanding my notion of patience, strengthening my own sense of self, and most importantly, finally learning to love and respect my body, after all these years in which we have not gotten along or worked together.

Recovery is a complex things, beginnings become ends, ends are just beginnings, one after the other. Goodbye to cheesepuffs.