I knew it was bad. I had felt this pain before about 25 years ago and it turned out to be quite bad. In the preceding years I had dealt with the issue over and over again. The pain ran down from my shoulder to the palm of my left hand. If you know anything about heart attacks, you know that this is a pain you take very seriously.

I have spent a lot of time in the last 25 years trying to outrun, outsmart, or generally avoid open heart surgery. My dad had it in the 90s and it was pretty terrible. His recovery took months and the scars it left were glaring. There were many things in life he wrote off due to having needed and had the surgery. The upside is he stayed with us for another 15 years before passing in 2010.

When my cardiologist referred me to the cardiac surgeon, I was pretty sure I knew where this was going. The joke in my dad’s family is that heart disease doesn’t run in our family, it gallops. We have a very specific genetic predisposition to clog one particular vein in our hearts with plaque (the Left Arterial Descending – LAD). Despite having a procedure when I was 30 and again 2 years ago, my time was up. My LAD was blocked by 95% in a spot that 2 years ago was clear. Surgery was the only option.

I am super lucky. My surgeon is amazing. It turns out open heart surgery has come a long ways in the last 25 odd years. The surgery went fantastic and if my surgeon is to be believed I now have the heart of a 25 year old :). The nurses and the doctors in the CICU and in the post surgery wing of the hospital took great care of me.

During the last couple days of my “stay” I was visited by Physical & Occupational Therapy. They needed to teach me how to get out of bed, how to stand up, how to dress, etc., a lot of things that I, as a fully-fledged adult, thought I knew how to do. In this new reality, I didn’t.

I was starting at zero.

I remember when our first child was born and the nurses loaded our baby into the car seat and sent us off into the world. In the car leaving the hospital after the surgery I felt the same kind of fear. Can I do this? Am I ready to be on my own? What if something happens? What if the worst happens?

Each day in the hospital they removed more and more tubes and IVs and other various accoutrements I had acquired during the surgery. Every day I got a little stronger, walked a little further, made another step towards being whole again. But that was under the careful supervision of trained health professionals. I am none of the above. Who would be in charge of me when I got home? Turns out the answer was me.

At first I could only walk about 8-10 steps before having to stop and make sure I kept breathing. This is just one example of a litany of things that we do every day that suddenly became monumental tasks. Some were scary, others just difficult. The first thing that I found though early on is Starting at zero gives you focus. You have nothing to lose, you have what is in front of you and that is all. You have to pay attention to what you are doing. Things I totally took for granted were now all new. I learned very quickly that setting a small goal, hitting it, and then setting the next one was the key to success. In my normal life, professional or otherwise, I don’t think I have had this level of clarity often times.

I am a very busy person, I am constantly working on something, many times into the wee hours of the morning. I don’t always think about the bigger picture, just the next thing that is on fire, the next thing that has to get done. Starting at zero made me stop and think about what I wanted, and what I had to do to get there.

The second thing I learned about starting at zero is, you really aren’t starting at zero. You have all the skills, knowledge, and experience you had before. You may have to adapt them to your current situation, but they are still there and that is a godsend. Depending on your situation, you may have to come up with new skills or learn new things, but you have done it before and that should give you confidence you can do it again.

The final thing starting from zero has given me is perspective. My friends and family joke that I am a workaholic, which they may have a point. But when you have stood trying to catch your very next breath and wondering if it’s all going to be ok, that email that you needed to write or the project that is not doing as well as you hoped it would seem trivial in comparison.

It has been 5 weeks since my surgery, I am walking 1000s of steps every day (without having to stop and breath), and doing most of the things I used to (no weightlifting for a couple more months heh). I am well beyond zero now, but it stays with me. I remember the not-so-good times. I am grateful for everything I have and can do now.

I would love to have an amazing closing line for all this but all I can say is, if the hard thing is happening, don’t fear zero, you can handle it. It may take time but you got this.

Have an amazing life!

Feature Image by Andrea De Santis from: Pexels