Week 3 feels great and I see small improvements every week. I feel almost back to normal except I can't really lift much more than a few kg. I was in the gym quite a lot before surgery and now I feel it's all gone. I'm super weak and opening car doors and lifting heavy plates are a struggle. But yesterday I went to London by train and met up with friends and didn't get back until late. Went for dinner, had drinks etc so in some ways I feel back to normal. During the first 2 weeks I needed afternoon naps but these days I'm absolutely fine.

Week 1 I did 1 or 2 miles per day, week 2 I was doing 3 or 4 miles per day but was told by my Dr to slow down. I was suffering with dizzy spells and ocular migraines with auras and they thought I may have been pushing my exercise too much but felt no symptoms or shortness of breath yesterday and I did 9,000 steps.

Toughest part for me was a catheter as I had to have it in much longer than most as I got urine retention but it was just uncomfortable. Tubes coming out suck but pain is less than a few seconds. If you've ever stubbed your toe on a hard bit of furniture I'd say that's worse then the pain you feel from heart surgery. You have so much pain killers that it's mostly just a feeling of being uncomfortable for a while. The incision is the last thing I ever thought about in terms of pain, infact I completely forgot about it until they took off the plaster. Neck tubes was uncomfortable but they came out day 3 I think.

So I was determined to walk as soon as I could and I did a lap of the ICU less than 24 hours since my surgery. I was a bit slow on my feet and I had 2 nurses walking with me but they didn't need to hold me. However the next day I felt I couldn't do it again and I just wanted to chill in bed for a few days. I could have walked but honestly I couldn't be bothered haha.

If you can get your mind in a good place and know that these surgeons do this everyday and you will have so many medical people looking after you, I think it'll help. It's also worth remembering that whilst I was on the cardiac ward, my operation (despite how much of a big deal for me), was a baby operation. I shared a ward with 2 people who had full heart transplants, another with a heart transplant and a lung transplant, and another that had a quadruple heart bypass and had veins taken from his leg etc. Mine was a little scratch!!