Want to know how you can help? Here’s my tips below:

1. Listen and follow their lead. Its really quite easy but so many people misstep  here. Listen to their words when they answer they are just okay (because usually they are feeling worse than they are letting on). Listen when they say they want to go do something and act on it. It usually means they are feeling good that day and they often know the next day could be quite different.
2. Don’t tell them they are “fixed now”. I have been told this multiple times by well meaning people. I am not some toy that you put a little glue on the wheel and its good to go. I had major heart surgery people, they cracked my chest open, attached vessels from my leg to my heart to restore blood flow and closed my chest with seven sternal wires. It didn’t fix me and it didn’t even heal me, all it did was manage a problem, I still have heart disease. Telling someone they are fixed, doesn’t take into account the physical, emotional or spiritual suffering the person is going through. Just don’t say it, we don’t like it. We will never be fixed, just healing.
3. Be Patient: Remember you are not going on this journey FOR us, but WITH us. You can witness an ounce of our suffering and help us with the simple tasks, but we are carrying the weight of the burden of our disease. Those first few months after any procedure are scary and emotional. We are trying to navigate what our life will look like now,  so be patient. Listen for the 19th time about whatever is going through our head. Don’t be frustrated when we cancel on you at the last minute, any good heart patient learns to listen to their body.
4. Give them a break, but also give them a push when needed. When they are cranky or tired, give them a break. Even just getting up to shower, get dressed and make breakfast, often tires us out, especially at the beginning. Not to mention once we take our 15 morning pills, we are prone to any less than stellar side effects. Often times, we usually don’t intend to be mean, we are simply just tired, in pain or both. But also don’t be afraid to encourage us. We like encouragement. Invite us out to dinner, or even bring dinner in. Come in your PJs and watch a movie with us. There can be a lot of social isolation with heart disease, especially post surgery and sometimes we need a little encouragement.
5. Have a heart of compassion, not pity. Please respect our privacy. When you ask us how we are feeling, please respect our answer and not press for more answers. We learn early on after our diagnosis to build a support system. Those are often our closest friends. They know everything, our medicine side effects, our fatigue, our concerning symptoms, our emotional battles with ourself. And our support system listens with compassion and helps us along the way. If you are more of just an acquittance, still let them know you care, and ask how they are doing, to show compassion, but also respect the person if they aren’t willing to share more info. Trust me, showing compassion and placing the heart patient first before your ‘need’ for more information, means a lot to us. We love being cared for!
6. Be a supporter of your “Heart Patient” friend, cousin, niece, nephew, aunt uncle. All Open Heart Patients wear a ‘badge’ of honor on our chests, it goes about 8 inches down the middle of our chest. You can usually catch a glance if you look about an inch under the collar bone. Sometimes we wear it proudly and other days its a unfortunate reminder of a very serious illness we fight. It gives us great encouragement when our friends, family members and support system proudly “rock the red” in honor of heart disease, donate to heart research or even participate in heart walks. Its a reminder we aren’t in this alone. It doesn’t take much to rock red for a day, we are rocking it everyday.