After nearly five years of contending with a deficient aortic heart valve, my 72-year-old heart began to lose ground even with a modified work program of writing. The valve, properly replaced by skillful surgeons who added three by passes, is now functioning very well. But my cardiologist urged that before re turning to normal life, I should spend another three weeks in the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program being initiated at the St. Helena Hospital and Health Center. To remain in northern California, where I had spent many of my younger days, was very attractive, but to lose three more weeks in my writing seemed unfortunate.
So I urged that I had been reared an Adventist (which my cardiologist knew well) and was accustomed to a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet. I pointed out that I lived in the country where exercise was found in garden and basement work shop, and so I really had no need to spend three weeks learning how to eat and exercise. The doctor insisted, how ever, that I would be much better prepared to preserve what I had gained by God's blessing in surgery if I joined the group. Medically trained children and knowledgeable friends urged me to comply, so I enrolled in the H.E.A.R.T. program. My wife, Frieda, joined me as a "companion" in this new and exciting experience.
I did not need to be reminded that Ellen White, in specifying the objectives of our medical institutions, stressed again and again their role in health education. In 1867, her first call for a health institution stated: "I was shown that we should provide a home for the afflicted and those who wish to learn how to take care of their bodies that they may prevent sickness." Testimonies, vol. 1, p. 489. Now here we were at one of our oldest Seventh-day Adventist medical institutions, with well-qualified personnel ready to give us the help we needed. Everything seemed to fit together.
The Cardiac Rehabilitation Program is one of the newest of the four live-in health restoration programs offered at St. Helena. The others—Stop Smoking, Weight Control, and Alcoholism—each run from one to three weeks. The south west unit of the hospital is dedicated to these endeavors, with the rooms on a certain floor reserved for each particular group. Most of the motellike rooms overlook the orchards and vineyards of the Pratt Valley and nearby Sugarloaf Mountain. This part of the medical center is served by a beautiful dining room in which each group, with slightly staggered hours, partakes of food especially prepared for their particular needs.
The program begins
On opening day, my wife and I moved into our comfortable, attractive room, with a view of the valley I knew so well as a boy. Within a few hours we found the program to be made up of four major elements: modified diet, monitored exercise, instruction in heart functions and care, and stress control. The lectures, demonstrations, and study made a full and varied program.
The first step was a careful medical examination, including a treadmill test to determine the heart's reaction to physical stress. This furnished guidelines for the exercise program. Underwater weighing established the percentage of body weight made up of fat and provided the desired weight toward which each participant should strive. Other tests followed.
The first evening in the dining room, we found a table set aside for the six of us—the heart group. But there were eight place settings, and we learned that one or two of the guiding team would usually eat with us, especially the con genial, well-trained nutritionist. Other specialists and the medical director would also eat with us from time to time as a part of the social-instructional pro gram.
The modified diet
We all knew that we would have to adjust to a modified diet and were prepared for innovations and deprivations. The table was very attractive, but what caught our eyes was the side table with its huge bowl of fresh fruit! We soon learned that there was no restriction on the amount of fruit we could eat. In fact, somewhat to our astonishment, although the food served was low in fat (about 15 percent compared to the usual 40 per cent) and very low in salt and sugar-free, we did not have to count calories and could eat freely of what was before us. Some expressed concern about a weight problem (and each of us could stand to lose some weight), but we were assured that we would lose. All of us did.
For six months the nutritionist and her associates had been ferreting out appropriate recipes, creating new ones, and borrowing and modifying others with an eye to providing just what was desired by avoiding or minimizing prescribed ingredients, yet selecting that which was nutritionally adequate and appetizing. The plan was to introduce a wide array of acceptable food preparations to the group and to provide the recipes identified with the meal, and which were to be taken home for practical use. Naturally some items were more acceptable than others, yet what some lacked in familiar tastes was usually made up in an exceptional eye appeal. Since the nutritionist ate with us much of the time, there was opportunity for discussion, sometimes for rather brutal criticism, and often words of approval.
The dietetic instruction periods, together with printed material to take home, added to the lasting value of the course; but another feature was even more effective. On alternate days, each of us could go right into the specially prepared kitchen, select a recipe (or have one assigned to him if he hesitated), and actually prepare the dish, with the dietitian standing by to help. Good things from "pocket" bread to fresh apple pie came from that kitchen. We all got the feel of preparing acceptable foods in an attractive form, some of which those that survived the liberal kitchen tasting found their way to our dining table. We discovered that the modified diet, while taking perhaps a little more time to prepare, is practical, eye appealing, and satisfying. An afternoon trip to the supermarket gave us a drill in reading labels as a guide in the selection of acceptable foods.
The exercise program
Since participants in the program have usually had major heart problems, some anxiety persists regarding exercise in spite of assurances. Impressed on all involved even those who have had major heart surgery only four or five weeks earlier—is the fact that a proper exercise program is vital to the future welfare of the heart.
The rehabilitation program features instruction first, then actual exercise, either on the track or in the gymnasium. Under the special direction of the exercise therapist and the watchful eye of the nurse clinician, especially trained in cardiac monitoring, we were soon going through our warming-up exercises on the mats, and then walking around the track at the rate of nine laps to a half mile. With encouragement, careful monitoring, and occasional cautions, we were soon in a well-organized routine. We all marveled at how quickly our hearts came into line as far as endurance and heart rate were concerned. By the end of the three-week course, some of us were walking two miles in the forty minutes allowed! Again and again we were instructed and cautioned concerning the necessity of a proper "warm-up" for the walking exercise, and five minutes of "cooling off" at the end. Occasional exercise in the swimming pool was more attractive to some than others.
Stress control
The matter of stress control was significant to most of us. Under a well-trained Adventist psychologist and his assistant, we were led day by day to probe our lives for motivations that may have added to our problems. It did not take us very long to find the particular stress-inducing factors in our lives. We learned of such things as the Internal Timekeeper, the Worrier, the Pleaser, the Saber Tooth, the Critical Judge, and the Internal Con Artist. In group discussions remedies were sought. Added to this were the periods in which we received instruction on how to relax by having the mind tell the body to "let go."
The cardiologist directing the program met with us from time to time and presented pertinent lectures supplementing those of the nurse clinician. As a result of the excellent instruction on heart function and care, each participant qualified in cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the end of the program. When the three weeks of intensive study and work were over and we were handed our certificates, we all agreed that what we had gained could never have been obtained on our own by reading or individual practice.
Our life style
Now we, Arthur and Frieda White, are home. We came back highly motivated to mold our life style by what we learned. Indeed, it is quite essential that we do so. Of course, we have the usual activities of our home on an acre of land with garden and well-equipped basement workshop. But we have added daily cal isthenics and a brisk two-mile walk each morning before breakfast. On good days we walk on an almost-level footpath by a nearby stream. When it snows or rains, we use a covered shopping mall about two miles down the road. Careful daily records of heart rate and walking time are forwarded periodically to our exercise therapist at St. Helena. We sense improvements as day follows day.
The dining table certainly shows the new life style too. It has always been conservative, but now there are no sugar, salt, or oily salad dressings in sight. The table is attractively supplied with an abundance of good things in which fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as dried fruits, figure prominentnied by "instant" nonfat dried milk. Fresh vegetables prepared in appetizing ways, with a minimum of salt, make satisfying meals together with legumes.
Bread is seldom seen on our table; its place is taken by pocket bread made with acceptable ingredients, or by corn chips made from tortillas prepared without shortening or salt. Butter and margarine have been replaced by "butters" made from low-fat cottage cheese colored with carrot juice or yellow food coloring and flavored with "butter buds." "Mayonnaise" is a product of garbanzo flour and lemon juice. Fruit, fresh or dried, is the usual dessert, but we occasionally have a lemon chiffon pie with crust made of oatmeal and applesauce, or one made with whole-wheat flour and cashew nuts, and a filling of pineapple juice and lemon juice, thickened with arrowroot flour. Waffles for breakfast may be made with oatmeal along with sunflower and sesame seeds. Our syrup is made of a combination of apple juice, pineapple juice, and a little maple flavoring thickened just a bit to resemble syrup.
But I need not go on. This is not a lecture session, but a little glimpse of how we do. We fare well, eat to our fill, and gradually lose weight (or hold our own once we achieve our goal). We have been amazed how quickly one's taste buds adjust to a modified diet of low fat, little salt, and no sugar.
It goes without saying that we have to exercise great care when we are invited out for a meal or must eat at some food establishments. But we keep in mind that food that may come short of our rather rigid new standards is not poison, and that adjustments can be made in other meals of the day to compensate for slight digressions. Perhaps some of our friends hesitate to ask us for a meal, and we can understand that.
The matter of stress control is a little easier to manage now that I am retired and working only on one major project writing the biography of Ellen G. White, a three-year task at best. I have to avoid meetings and conversations that might give rise to stress, and limit my working hours to the daytime. In the evenings I rest and relax. We find it well to follow a very regular program, with activities at about the same time each day.
Some may question the necessary in vestment in the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program. It does demand a change in life style. But I can testify that it is well worth the time and cost. If it can save a heart attack, it is well worthwhile, and may save a life. If it can save heart surgery, a very expensive procedure that may cost eight or ten times what the rehabilitation program does, it is well worthwhile. If it can contribute to comfortable and worthwhile living and to living longer, its value cannot be measured in dollars.
But families need not wait to enroll in such a helpful program. Many of the principles can be put into use in the home by making some of the adjustments I have mentioned. There is a growing awareness generally along these lines, and helpful literature and cook books are available to those desiring them.
In the new life style that has come to our home, we have the satisfaction of good health, weight control, and of knowing that it is a way of life within Spirit of Prophecy guidelines and fully approved by those dedicated to increasing the length of life and making it worth living.
