The Graduate
Today was my last day of Evergreen Hospital’s Pulmonary Rehabilitation program , celebrated with a certificate, a graduation cap and a speech! I started rehab back in March of last year then abruptly quit in May when I landed in the hospital with a line infection. I then took the summer off (to play with kids…and, sadly, spent another 8 days in the hospital) and resumed the class in September. Insurance will only pay for 36 sessions and even though I switched from “rehab”, i.e. recovering from my bad winter health to “prehab”, i.e. gearing up for a lung transplant, insurance doesn’t recognize the difference. I did, however, make sure that after my lung transplant surgery, I can do another 36 sessions because I’m certain I will need that to get back into shape. Evergreen offers a post-rehab program called “Power Exercise Class” and that program has more people, less monitoring (i.e. no blood pressure cuff unless you’re looking really unwell),...