{"id":24773,"date":"2018-07-19T14:32:39","date_gmt":"2018-07-19T19:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/?p=24773"},"modified":"2025-05-09T19:18:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T00:18:48","slug":"5-steps-to-prepare-peggy-huddleston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2018\/07\/19\/5-steps-to-prepare-peggy-huddleston\/","title":{"rendered":"Special Guest Post: 5 Steps To Prepare for Heart Surgery by Peggy Huddleston"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For years, I&#8217;ve heard about the fantastic, mind-body techniques of Peggy Huddleston. \u00a0Many patients in our community, like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2018\/03\/21\/misdiagnosis-cardiologist\/\">Gina Fiorentino<\/a>, have raved to me about the benefits of Peggy&#8217;s book, &#8220;Prepare for Surgery, Heal Faster&#8221;. \u00a0 In addition, several cardiac centers &#8211; including Brigham &amp; Women&#8217;s Hospital and NYU Langone Medical Center &#8211; recommend Peggy&#8217;s CD and MP3 to patients.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-24800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/..\/Images\/peggy-huddleston-facebook2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"314\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If you didn&#8217;t know&#8230; \u00a0Research suggests that Peggy&#8217;s strategies help patients (i) reduce anxiety before surgery, (ii) reduce pain medication consumption by 25%-50%, (iii) diminish insomnia, and (iv) accelerate healing. \u00a0For these reasons, I was thrilled to recently connect with Peggy. During our exchange, I asked Peggy, &#8220;What are your most important tips for patients getting ready for surgery?&#8221;<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-24780\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/..\/Images\/book-cover.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\" \/><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Peggy&#8217;s 5 Steps to Prepare For Heart Surgery<\/h2>\n<p>Peggy listed the following 5 steps to prepare for surgery:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Step 1. Calm preoperative jitters guided by relaxation CD or MP3. \u00a0Feeling peaceful in the weeks before surgery strengthens your immune system and creates\u00a0the biochemistry that enhances healing.<\/li>\n<li>Step 2. Visualize your best recovery by turning your worries into positive, healing imagery.<\/li>\n<li>Step 3. Surround yourself in the love of your family and friends before surgery. \u00a0Ask them to think of you by wrapping you in a &#8220;Blanket of Love&#8221; for the half hour before surgery. If you ask 20 individuals to do this, you will feel peace and love surrounding you in the holding area.<\/li>\n<li>Step 4. Use Healing Statements, words spoken during surgery when you are highly suggestible. They reduce the use of pain medication by 23-50%.<\/li>\n<li>Step 5. During your preoperative meeting, ask to have your anesthesiologist or a nurse in the operating room say the Healing Statements during surgery. There is a page of Healing Statements in Peggy&#8217;s book which you cut out and give your anesthesiologst the day of surgery.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>While I was unaware of Peggy&#8217;s strategies to prepare for heart surgery at the time of my operation, I would definitely investigate and embrace these practices if I needed another procedure. \u00a0As many of you know, I personally struggled with anxiety before and after my heart valve surgery. \u00a0I also over-consumed pain medication during my recovery.<\/p>\n<h2>Hear &amp; See Peggy Talk with Dr. Cohn!<\/h2>\n<p>To learn more about preparing for heart surgery from Peggy, here is a great educational video that she filmed with Dr. Lawrence Cohn. \u00a0(As you might recall, Dr. Cohn was a leading heart valve surgeon who also had an aortic valve replacement procedure. \u00a0While Dr. Cohn recently passed away, his legacy is that of a &#8220;titan&#8221; among his peers. \u00a0Luckily, I was fortunate to know him and to film a few <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2011\/05\/26\/preparing-heart-surgery-weight-smoking-exercise\/\">educational videos<\/a> with Dr. Cohn over the years.)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hQVs1vwietA?showinfo=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Thanks Peggy!<\/h2>\n<p>On behalf of our community, I would like to extend a mighty &#8220;Thank You!&#8221; to Peggy for her work, her research and her passion of helping others at times of need!!! \u00a0Hopefully, Peggy&#8217;s mind-body techniques will help patients in our community better prepare for surgery!!!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/healfaster.com\">Visit Peggy&#8217;s website at HealFaster.com here.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/healfaster.com\/about-the-book\/\">Learn about Peggy&#8217;s book.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2016\/02\/24\/patient-mind\/\">Video: The Patient Mind Before-And-After Heart Surgery<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-patient-stories"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24773"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40934,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24773\/revisions\/40934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}