Tip 2: Be patient with yourself.

Exercise naturally makes the heart beat faster, so it’s completely OK (and quite common) to feel uncertain or have doubts. What exercises should I do? How hard can I push myself? How will my body react?

Stroke survivor Dan Kenny remembers having these same kinds of questions as he was preparing to get back on his treadmill. (He received Abbott’s Amplatzer Talisman PFO Occluder to close a hole in his heart.)

Before his stroke, the high school engineering teacher from Illinois stayed active by playing hockey. But after his recovery, when the doctor cleared him to go back to physical activity and be himself again, “I started reflecting in my mind: What is ‘being me’? What do I do now?”

The challenge was partly psychological because he had his stroke shortly after turning 40. Post-stroke, he wanted to know that he could still be Dan Kenny: hockey coach, problem-solver and guy who “doesn’t sit still much.”

Two things helped him in particular. First, his care team, which he praises for reassuring him they’d do everything they could to help him make his comeback. Second, being open about his condition with others. Rather than take it easy or hold himself back, he would explain his health history and ask others to keep an eye on him in case anything looked “off.”

But, for the most part, he found courage from within.

“I remember in that first month back, there were times I’d be like, ‘Do I feel something? Is there something going on in there?’ ” he recalls.

“And, as I would do a little more, I’d realize, ‘I’m OK, I’m OK.’ ”

Tip 3: Pay attention to your heart rate.

Pushing yourself to your upper limits is a surefire way to derail your recovery and comeback. Monitor your heart rate so you can gauge whether an exercise, activity or level of intensity is safe for you.

“Generally speaking, we want to avoid extremes of heart rate shortly after a procedure,” Geloo says. In many cases, your doctor might even advise you to not go over certain thresholds for a set period of time before letting you try something more physically demanding.

You now have even more reason to listen to what your heart, and the rest of your body, is telling you.

As Kenny says: “I’m more in tune with my body now if I feel like something’s off. I wasn't an advocate for my own body before as much as I am now.”

Tip 4: Bring others along for the journey.

Of course, you’re probably not the only person monitoring your comeback.

Caretakers, loved ones and friends can be every bit as invested — which means their worries can easily turn into your own.

“People do need reassuring, and you shouldn’t dismiss the concerns that the patient or their caregivers might have about increasing activity,” Geloo says. “I just use it as an opportunity to educate and let everyone know the goal we’re trying to reach.

“I always used to tell my patients our goal is to get you back to where you were before you had this procedure — and even better. Usually, that resonates with people.”

Meanwhile, one way to ease caregivers’ minds is to show them you are taking your recovery seriously and being responsible when it comes to your health. You can even borrow this technique from Kenny’s playbook:

“I realized as part of my recovery that I had to say to the people I was with, ‘Hey, this has happened to me,’ ” Kenny says. “Just making others around me aware in case something happens.”

Tip 5: Make exercise something you love.

If your workout is something you enjoy and look forward to, well, you’re not going to need much convincing in order to do it.

As mentioned, Kenny loves hockey. He was actually gearing up to play in an annual pond hockey tournament with his brother and friends when his stroke sidelined him.

“Going back and putting my skates on for the first time and playing again — that was a great feeling,” he says.

It’s hard to even put into words what a comeback like that means to Kenny, to his family, to the team that helped restore his life, and to the many, many people out there in a similar situation.

Just try, for instance, to describe what happened to pro football player Damar Hamlin, the captain of our Abbott HeartMates team. Try to imagine his journey from a life-threatening cardiac incident during a game to his return to action just one season later.

Only the people who have experienced it firsthand truly know what it’s like. That’s why Hamlin is helping us build a HeartMates community that supports and celebrates its members for life’s big wins.

“These comeback stories are occurring every day,” Geloo says. “The patients are heroes. Their family members, the bystanders who helped are heroes. The physicians and nurses and caregivers in the hospital are heroes.”

Geloo, Hamlin, Kenny: Any of them would tell you how incredibly strong you have to be in order to thrive with a heart condition or bounce back from a surgery. And guess what? You’ve already done that.

Maybe exercise is the easy part, after all.

These materials are not intended to replace your doctor’s advice or information. For any questions or concerns you may have regarding the medical procedures, devices and/or your personal health, please discuss these with your physician.

This testimonial relays an account of an individual’s response to the treatment. This patient's account is genuine, typical, and documented. However, it does not provide any indication, guide, warranty or guarantee as to the response other persons may have to the treatment. Responses to the treatment discussed can and do vary and are specific to the individual patient.