Episode 44

full
Published on:

2nd Apr 2024

The Unexpected Challenges: COVID, Cholesterol, CABG, and Cardiac Recovery

#44 Boots Knighton chats with Laura Hoorweg to share her heart surgery ordeal post-COVID. Laura attributes her heart condition to her fight with the virus, contrasting doctors' claims of genetics. She opens up about her surgeon's efforts for minimal scarring, her spiritual journey through heart chakra healing, and tackling cardiac depression. Laura and Boots discuss the challenges of surgery recovery, including navigating emotional vulnerabilities and finding strength in meditation. They highlight the significance of accessible resources, like the British Heart Association's exercise videos, for post-surgery care. Tune in to hear about their personal battles with heart health and the resilience needed to overcome them.

A Little More About Today's Guest

Laura Hoorweg is an international Spiritual Counsellor and Clairvoyant Medium. She has a laser-like way of seeing relevant details in all the areas of your life. She is perceptive in ways that feel like your own deepest knowing. She brings a compassionate, no-nonsense presence to her work along with a huge capacity to see and outline the most positive life-affirming way forward. She is both a seer and a counselor. A refreshing combination!

Do you want to gain clarity, direction, conformation, and new perspectives on your life, relationships, business, and life purpose?

Clients experience life-changing shifts working with Laura. She assists her clients in getting in touch with their authentic selves and exploring new opportunities in their careers, relationships, and lives. She specializes in guiding her clients through major life changes and challenges.

Laura is dedicated to assisting others transform their lives and find their own guidance and inner peace.

Laura's ability to tune into your being is quite profound. She guides you through any issues you may be having with amazing clarity and compassion.

She is honored to lovingly assist people in contacting loved ones who have crossed over and to provide comfort and confirmation that love never dies and those we love and care about are truly never lost to us but simply transformed.

Her passion is to empower people to live their lives in the most authentic and passionate way possible, aligning their lives with their own divine mission and discovering and developing their own spiritual gifts.

How to connect with Laura

Website: www.spiritspeaks2.me

Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/SpiritSpeaksToMe

Email: laurahoorweg@gmail.com

Join the Patreon Community! The Joyful Beat zoom group starts in September 2024.

**I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. Be sure to check in with your care team about all the next right steps for you and your heart.**

How to connect with Boots

Email: Boots@theheartchamberpodcast.com

Instagram: @openheartsurgerywithboots or @boots.knighton

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/boots-knighton

Boots Knighton

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Open Heart Surgery with Boots

Transcript

We feel it is important to make our podcast transcripts available for accessibility. We use quality artificial intelligence tools to make it possible for us to provide this resource to our audience. We do have human eyes reviewing this, but they will rarely be 100% accurate. We appreciate your patience with the occasional errors you will find in our transcriptions. If you find an error in our transcription, or if you would like to use a quote, or verify what was said, please feel free to reach out to us at connect@37by27.com.

Boots Knighton [:

You can either buy into the Kool Aid of the general traditional medical system, or you can choose not to. Laura Hoorweg chose not to. And she says that's a really big piece of her recovery and why she is doing so well after having a bypass surgery. I'm so excited to bring you my conversation today with Laura Hoorweg. She's so fascinating to talk to, and I had been looking for someone who could dive deep in with me on the spiritual aspects of open-heart surgery and she and I definitely go there and it was easy to do. She's an international spiritual counselor and clairvoyant and she just had this laser like way of seeing relevant details and all the areas of surgery. So, I'm so happy to bring you this conversation. I hope you enjoy this episode. Let's get right to it.

Boots Knighton [:

Welcome to The Heart Chamber. Hope, inspiration, and healing. Conversations on open heart surgery. I am your host, Boots Knighton. If you are a heart patient, a caregiver, a health care provider, a healer, or are just looking for open hearted living, this podcast is for you. To make sure you are in rhythm with The Heart Chamber, be sure to subscribe or follow wherever you are listening to this episode. While you're listening today, think of someone who may appreciate this information. The number one-way people learn about a podcast is through a friend. Don't you want to be the reason someone you know gained this heartfelt information? And if you haven't already, follow me on Instagram, 2 different places, at Boots.Knighton or at The Heart Chamber Podcast. You can also find me on LinkedIn as well as Facebook. But enough with the directions. Without further delay, let's get to this week's episode.

Boots Knighton [:

Laura Hoorweg, thank you so much for joining us today on The Heart Chamber Podcast. It is such a treat for me to be able to interview yet another Canadian for this podcast. I love all my Canadian friends. It is always such a treat. So, thank you so much. You're so generous to spend a little slice out of your day with us.

Laura Hoorweg [:

Thank you for inviting me. It's really good. I'm really looking forward to our chat.

Boots Knighton [:

So, Laura, you are my first heart buddy who I've interviewed who has needed bypass surgery. And it wasn't because of lifestyle. It wasn't because of a congenital heart defect. So, walk us through your story from like the 50,000-foot view.

Laura Hoorweg [:

Okay. Well, it all started before we even knew about the COVID pandemic because what ended up happening is at the end of 2019, just actually just around before Christmas, I got deathly ill. Like, I was so sick that I was bedridden for like 2 full weeks. When I say bedridden, it's a good thing I have an en suite because I was literally so weak that I had to crawl to the bathroom. So, I was right on the verge of checking myself into the hospital, and then, I started to slowly get better. And it took me about another 3 full weeks to get back to what I would call normal. And as that happened, I started of course, moving around more and going out, trying to go out for walks and things like that, getting back to my usual routine. And what ended up happening is I had all these weird symptoms.

Laura Hoorweg [:

I had this burning, burning it felt like my lungs were on fire. Like somebody was sitting on my chest. So, I'm like, what's going on here? And the first thing that came to me, of course, was, because by this point now, we're into January and we've heard about COVID and I'm going, oh, that's exactly, I know that's what I had. There's just no question. I thought it was respiratory complications after having COVID. Because basically COVID is like having severe pneumonia. That's what I thought I had. I thought I had pneumonia, but it ended up being COVID. Then it came of course right into lockdown time in Canada. And it was just a mess trying to get in to see my doctor. And then there were more complications because he ended up having a car accident and he had concussion syndrome. So, he was not working for quite some time and then only working on a partial basis. So, long story short, we're talking about 2020. I didn't actually get into really physically see him until the spring of 2021. So, at this point, he initially thought it was respiratory as well because of all the signs and symptoms and all that kind of thing. But he said to me, he said, well, you know, just to make sure, I want you to go in for a stress test.

Laura Hoorweg [:

So, then I had to wait because of all the things with COVID and again and again and again, you know, the lovely COVID situation. Took me a while to get in for the stress test. By this time, it's gone on to the end of spring. And then all of a sudden, I go in for the stress test and I'm doing the stress test. And the short story is I failed miserably. I failed to the point where, the technician told me to please stop. We're stopping the test, like, in the middle. And I want you to sit down, and I'm going to go get the cardiologist and bring him in to look at your readings. So, the cardiologist came in and he's like, woah. He said, you have a serious issue. He said, you know, you've got serious things going on. And he says, I want to get you in for an angiogram as soon as possible where they shoot the dye through the heart to look at what's going on. And he wanted to get me in within 2 weeks. But because of so many things going on with the hospitals and everything, it took almost 8 weeks. Okay? But so, what ended up happening is he just told me, okay, I want you to go home. I want you to sit on the couch and I don't want you to get off. Said I don't want you lifting anything. I don't want you doing anything. Nada. So, I went in for the angiogram and they did the test and I'm lying there on the table, and the cardiologist that was doing the test, he looks at the screen. He just goes, oh. He goes, we can't stem that. Okay? I was mentally and emotionally prepared that I would probably have to end up having some stents but soon as he said that, like, my heart stood out, stopped, I got very, very anxious. And he rolled over on his chair, and he's got his diagram, and he's showing me what the problem was. And what he showed me was that I had 2 major blockages, like 70% blockages in the left-hand major artery of the heart, which they call the widow maker. He said, we're not letting you leave because normally an angiogram is a day procedure. He says, we're not letting you leave. We're admitting you, and we’re going to get you on to surgery just as soon as possible you need a heart bypass operation. And I’m like, oh my God. I’m not usually a teary person, but I just broke right down because it was just such a shock. Quick thing in the hospital is when you go in and you're not on the list, they told me at the beginning that I could be waiting anywhere up to 10 to 15 days to actually get in for the operation. But what ended up happening is I had 2 fairly serious angina attacks, which is serious chest pain where they had to medicate me in the whole smeary.

Laura Hoorweg [:

The head nurse of the cardiac floor comes in, and he goes, well, darling. He says that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. He goes, you're now at the top of the list, and I don't want you to eat anything from now on. He says, because you're going in for surgery first thing in the morning. So, that was pretty wild. And it was quite the experience because it just sort of kept rolling from there. Because I have a latex allergy, which is a very dangerous thing when you're going into surgery, and they have to prepare the whole OR. It's not just changing gloves. They have to make sure there's no latex products, no nothing. Everything has to change. And somehow there was a miscommunication between the charge nurses upstairs and the operating room. They will be down in the operating room and I'm, you know, you're already, like, very intensely anxious and everything. And then one of the OR nurses sees my bracelet, my warning bracelet on my wrist and she looks at it and she goes, she's got a latex allergy? You guys didn't tell us. We're going to have to redo that entire surgery room. Right? And I'm lying there going, oh my god. You know? So, I ended up lying there for probably about another half an hour, which I shouldn't have had to do, which your anxiety just goes through the roof. Okay? So, then I get into surgery and have the surgery and everything like that, which of course I don't remember. But what I do remember very well is waking up in cardiac intensive care, which was not a pleasant awakening whatsoever. Because when you're having heart surgery, you're on a heart bypass, they got stuff shoved down your throat. You're very much more, I think, anesthetized than you are in normal surgery. And it was like it was hard to wake up. It was almost frightening in a sense because it's almost like, I felt like I wasn't going to be able to wake up fully, come back to myself. And there was like 6 beds in cardiac ICU. And the bed right across me was a man who was in, I think he ended up dying. He was in really, really bad shape. So, there was all kinds of noise and confusion and people running in and out and everything trying to help this, trying to treat this man who had come out of surgery and was not doing well. In my normal vernacular, it was a bit of a shit show.

Boots Knighton [:

I'm hearing some potential differences in American healthcare versus Canadian. Because, like, when I woke up from my open-heart surgery, I was in my own room. So, that must not be a thing in Canada?

Laura Hoorweg [:

No. They put you into well, at least at the hospital I was in, and it's a heart center. It's one of the regional heart centers. Right after you come out of the surgery, they put you into cardiac ICU to make sure and you can't leave cardiac ICU until they make sure that you're not going to have any big episodes and that you're fine. So, you don't stay there. I think you stay there usually; I don't know. I think it's about 6 hours or so. I think it really depends on what shape you're in. I didn't stay there very long. I was only there a few hours because I came out of it really well. And they actually took out my drainage tubes right away. They took them out before I actually left ICU and took me to my permanent room. Right? But I guess they do that as a precaution, just like that man, that poor man across from me, he needed the intensive care.

Boots Knighton [:

I was in the ICU room also, but my point is it was my own room.

Laura Hoorweg [:

Oh, no. I think that depends on your insurance and the hospital you're in and the amount of beds that are available. There's a whole bunch of different lovely things that are dependent on that and where you are. No. I was not by myself. Actually, you know what? I was actually glad. I think if I'd woken up in that state in a room by myself with only, you know, caregivers, nurses, or whatever in the room, I think that actually for me, personally, would've been more scary than actually because I was being distracted because there was stuff going on around me. So, it sort of took my focus somewhat off myself. So, actually, actually, no. I hadn't thought about that before. But actually, I think it helped me.

Boots Knighton [:

I haven't spoken to a single heart patient who said it was a piece of cake waking up from heart surgery. It's for me, and I think for you, from the way you're describing it and almost every other heart patient, those first few hours after you wake up are the hardest of the entire journey.

Laura Hoorweg [:

Yeah. It was pretty wild. It was pretty wild. I think the other thing that was really kind of earth shaking for me was when I was wheeled up and brought to my regular room, they weren't going to lift me. Okay? I had to get off the gurney and get myself into the bed. Well, you know what, you know what I'm talking about. They give you a bunch of instructions about how to move and what you can do and what you can't do.

Boots Knighton [:

And they expect you to remember.

Laura Hoorweg [:

Yeah. They expect you to remember. I remembered some of that but I certainly didn't remember all of it. So, they did give me some instruction and some help. But it was brutal. It was really brutal. And then of course, they all went away and I'm in my bed and I'm at some point, get up so I can go to the bathroom. And just trying to roll over and sit up, trying to use the technique they'd been teaching us, but it was brutally like, I've never had pain like that in my life.

Boots Knighton [:

So, you had mentioned that you had COVID, and then all of a sudden in 2021, you needed this heart surgery. Was there a connection?

Laura Hoorweg [:

There's no question in my mind. Now the powers that be, I don't know what it's like in the states. But here in Canada, I tell you the medical profession is denial, denial, denial. It wasn't COVID. When I was in the hospital, the cardiologist in the hospital were trying to tell me that I had a genetic cholesterol problem. I literally laughed in their face because I'm very good at having all my tests every year and doing my physicals and blood work and all that stuff, never had a cholesterol problem. Okay? Never. If I needed any more confirmation, when I actually got out of the hospital and I went for my first post op session with my own cardiologist, I told him what they said, and he just looked at me and he just kind of chuckled to himself. Which in your case, he said, that's not possible. Okay? Because you would have shown signs of it before. He would not admit. And, of course, I went on to tell him my theories. He would not admit it was COVID, but he also wouldn't say that it wasn't. After that, I started doing a lot of research. Okay? And that's when things started coming out because all these women over 50 who had either had COVID or after and this is after the injections came out, the so-called vaccine. 1 or the other, they had all these weird cardiac issues and other issues.

Laura Hoorweg [:

But the big one that interested me was all the cardiac issues. So, there's no doubt in my mind that this heart condition, the blockages were somehow caused by my COVID experience. But nobody will actually admit it. Some people have come a lot closer that I've talked to, but I've also seen epidemiologists and all kinds of different doctors online talking about all these women with all these different heart problems that were not from something congenital or, you know, genetic or anything or even lifestyle related in a lot of cases. Right? There were some younger women, but it was predominantly women over 50. I don't know what the connection is, but also women either, in menopause or postmenopausal, which I found very interesting because that has a lot to do with the hormonal balances in the body. So, my intuitive feeling with that is that COVID was doing something on a hormonal level as well. And this is what's caused people all kinds of weird problems.

Laura Hoorweg [:

You know, when I was in the hospital, they told me basically that the recovery time was between 6 months and a year. And I got to 6 months and I laughed and then I got to a year and I laughed again. You know, to be back to normal pre surgery, would be probably 2 years. Okay? And I'm still dealing with an issue with the scar on my chest because it kind of went patchy colloidal. Because the problem with the scar is whenever I stretch, it pulls. If I stretch or if I exercise or do certain, certain things, it can be quite painful. And just even like, I have to watch what I wear and where I wear my necklaces and where buttons are clasped. Because if there's something in bras, if there's something rubbing on it, it's very, very sensitive and it's not a happy place.

Boots Knighton [:

Everyone I've spoken with has a very different relationship with their scar. There are no 2 heart patients that share the same experience with their scar. It's such a personal journey. Everyone's body is different how it heals from the sternotomy.

Laura Hoorweg [:

I also have an 8-inch incision on my right calf where they took the vein to do the bypass. Well, they also took a vein and they also took a mammary artery. I only had 2 blockages, but I technically had a triple bypass because of where they were. That's what they had to do and to make it work. Well, I had initial problems with the healing of the incision on my leg because it’s kind of broke open and I had some problems with it and stuff like that. But in the end, it actually healed up very well and it healed up flat, whereas I had the problem with the scar on my chest. And, honestly, I think part of it is because being a woman, having the girls there, moisture and, you know, when you perspire and stuff like that, I honestly think that that might be part of the reason that it didn't heal as well as the incision on my leg. That's just a theory. They were not the same after and they kind of rebounded, but they will never be the same again. There's just no two ways about it. And that's something else that I had to deal with.

Boots Knighton [:

I experienced the same. And when I had to have my sternal wires removed, my left boob, it took over a year for all the bruising and swelling to fully go away. A year.

Laura Hoorweg [:

Usually, surgeons are extremely cold. You're lucky if you actually ever see your surgeon. A lot of times, they'll send their residents to do the pre talk and the post-surgical talk and all this. I had a wonderful, wonderful surgeon, Dr. Wong. He was amazing. And he was so different too because I found out through the nurses that he was not only a heart surgeon, but he was also an artist. Okay? A very different kind of personality from a surgeon. Usually, surgeons are very technical. They're very hard. They're very unemotional. He was the exact opposite of this, and I'm going, wow. Like, he came and saw me himself before surgery and just explained things and asked me if I had any questions. And the cute story is I said to him in the pre surgery chat. I said, could you please give me a little pretty scar? And he laughed at me in a lovely way, not in a mocking way, but in a genuine caring way. And he said, I'll do my best. Well, the short story is that when I came out of surgery, one of the nurses came in to look at my incision and make sure everything was kosher. And she looked at it and she go, wow, you have a really small incision. And I laughed again because I thought she was joking. Right? And she looks at me and she goes, oh, no. She says, I'm not joking. Most people and she used her hands to show me. She says, most people have at least a 6 to an 8-inch scar, and mine's only about 4. Okay. Four inches? And she goes, wow. She said, yeah, exactly. And I'll tell you why. The reason is the surgeons don't care again. They don't care about optics. The larger the incision, the easier it is for them to work. You know, depending on the surgeon, they will do as big as an incision as they want to make it easier for them to work. Okay? But he went out of his way and he actually did exactly what I asked him to do, which was really mind boggling, which is kind of cute.

Boots Knighton [:

That is incredible that he could do all that he needed to do with only a 4-inch cut. That's amazing to me. I want us to dive into a topic that I can very rarely get heart patients to address, and that is the spiritual component of open-heart surgery. I often find myself talking about this and writing about it. I know that I went through a soul transformation, SOUL, soul transformation, after my open-heart surgery. I'm 3 years out. I was just a few months ahead of you. I really feel like I am just now fully getting to know myself since open heart surgery. I just want to spend some time in this area with you and help unpack it for listeners.

Laura Hoorweg [:

So, you have to look at it from an energy point of view. And right away, you know, they're cutting us in half right across our heart chakra, you know, if you know anything about the chakras. And that's a huge thing. Okay. You want to talk about having your heart chakra opened both in a physical and an energetic sense. Not to mention in that spiritual energetic sense. You have somebody putting their hands into your body and actually physically touching your physical heart. Okay? But they're also putting their hands right into your heart chakra, your major energy center that is the control between your lower chakras and your upper chakras. So, that's what our heart chakra is. It's not only about love and all those wonderful components. I look at the heart chakra as something that holds us together energetically because it holds us to the lower chakras and the upper chakras and is the bridge between those energies. Because the upper chakras are more to the spiritual energy, whereas the lower chakras are what ground us and connect us to the earth. So, if you look at it from that point of view, the heart chakra is hugely important in our spiritual energetic makeup. So, this is major stuff from a spiritual point of view. And, yeah, of course, it's going to have a massive opening in your spirituality and the way that you look at yourself. Okay? Your energetic makeup, which is what is really our spirituality because our soul is energy. Our spirit is energy.

Laura Hoorweg [:

And when you start messing with the energy system of the body, it has an incredible effect. The biggest thing that I found is, I felt extremely vulnerable. You know, they talk about wearing your heart on your sleeve, this is like that on steroids because literally it's opened the energetic wall of not only the physical wall of your ribs, but also the energetic wall to this so powerful and important chakra in your body, this powerful energy center, which really guides a major part of your spiritual energy.

Laura Hoorweg [:

About a year, year and a half after I had had my surgery, I thought I was healed physically. Okay? I didn't think so much about the energetic side of things because I had been so focused for so long because you got to go through all this rehab and, you know, all this stuff. You get very focused on your physical. Even being an intuitive, I kind of forgot about what it would do to me energetically. And I got caught on it because I was not back to myself in the way that I thought I was. So, that was a pretty big awakening for me because I thought I was back and I wasn't.

Boots Knighton [:

So, you mean you were like lacking energetic boundaries that things that normally would not have affected you affected you?

Laura Hoorweg [:

Exactly. That's a very good way of putting it. And it also left me vulnerable emotionally. Emotionally vulnerable, which I didn't consider at the time. And that can be perilous in this world sometimes.

Boots Knighton [:

And the other thing is the cardiac depression. Did you experience that?

Laura Hoorweg [:

I didn't think I did for a while. It wasn't heavy for me, but it was definitely brought on by the fact that it was so frustrating for me. Everything was taking so long. And we had talked prerecording the other day about the fact that I've always been a very physical person. I've always been strong and I've always been fairly athletic. Although I could stand being more athletic, but that's another story. The point is you lose that sense of yourself. And that's another thing that I found that made me vulnerable because I realized I always considered myself strong and powerful because of my intellectual bent, because of being intelligent, and my physicality of being physically strong and able. Okay? But when you go through something like that that's so physically disabling and you're so weak. And I, for a long time, I was terrified. What happens if I get hit in the chest or somebody who doesn't know or if I fall or, you know, am I going to split myself in half? Like, that was terrifying to me. And I think that's where some of that depression came from. But I didn't really realize that I was experiencing it until a girlfriend asked me. I love my friends, because she was reading up on stuff. And she goes, well, you know, I read this stuff about cardiac depression. And she says, you know, how are you feeling? Are you getting really depressed? And I had to sit there and think about it for a minute. And I went, oh, that's what that is. Because I thought it was just my frustration about being in a limited physical state. But I realized afterwards that it was actually a real psychological depression. It wasn't super heavy for me, but I definitely experienced it. Yeah.

Boots Knighton [:

My surgeon also came to see me the day before my surgery. I was already checked into the hospital too, and he sat down with me. He, like, spent quite a bit of time with me saying, you've got to watch out for this depression. It's a real thing. It can get really serious. And I was already on medication, and luckily, I was because it made my bout a little less intense. But, you know, none of us heart patients get to have heart surgery in a vacuum. Life continues to happen around us. COVID was happening, and then my mom was in the process of dying as I was in the process of fighting to save my life. And she died 9 weeks after my open-heart surgery. And so, I had such a complicated recovery.

Laura Hoorweg [:

Those extenuating circumstances would be just so brutal when you're already dealing with your own mortality and your own recovery. And, oh my goodness, I can't even imagine. But I will tell you one of the biggest things that I think helped me kind of fly through it, without having a lot of that going on was my meditation practice. You know, I've meditated solidly for 10 years. And I always say that when I started my meditation practice, it saved my life back 10 years ago, because I was a whole another different shit show. But it was also instrumental in my healing process.

Boots Knighton [:

I can't agree more. I too meditate, and it has been my lifeline every morning. I have found that the most helpful things that have helped me heal, that have been the most effective have all been free or close to free.

Laura Hoorweg [:

Oh, you're right. Oh, okay. I'll tell you something else that happened to me that maybe some people have experienced or maybe they will experience. Most people that go in for bypass surgery have already had at least 1, usually multiple heart attacks. Okay. And they're usually older than I am. Like, I'm 62, but I'm not, you know, I was like 60 when I had my surgery. And in terms of bypass surgery, because it's not a preexisting condition or anything like that, that's pretty young.

Laura Hoorweg [:

But the thing is when I came out of recovery, and like I said, I was always been very active and I was athletic and all this stuff. And of course it was still during COVID. So, they had us doing rehab exercises on Zoom. Okay. And the problem I was having was this whole group of people that were in my group all very much, very, very much older than me. And obviously most of them I think had very little exercise experience prior to their heart surgery. Okay? I went to a couple of sessions, and I just said, look. You know, I appreciate all your help. Because this was through the hospital. Right? I appreciate all your help, but I said this isn't just doing it for me. I said I'm a younger person. I said I'm very athletic. I said, this is not going to get me better. Okay. Doing your exercise routine is not going to get me better. So, what I did is I said, thank you very much and bye-bye. And I started looking for team and I found actually, this is a good thing if anybody wants to find a good freeway. I found on YouTube there's a whole series of post recovery from heart surgery exercise routine from the British Heart Association. And it was fantastic because it was perfect. It started in levels. Okay? You start at the level and you just keep moving to the next level as you conquer one level, and then it gets harder and harder and harder. I think there's about 5 steps, 5 plateaus, 5 videos in the series. And it's all free. It's all on YouTube, and it was fantastic.

Boots Knighton [:

And I don't blame them necessarily, the medical industry, and it is an industry. They need to, like, find a reason why the patient needs x, y, or z. They need to try to understand it in their minds. And so, if they can place you in the bucket of lifestyle choice or cholesterol, genetic history or whatever, they're just trying to categorize you because that's how it's set up. There's no room for nuance or hypothesizing. It's like, no. We need to be black and white, put you in this bucket, and then send you on your way.

Laura Hoorweg [:

Yeah. Exactly. That's another choice. You can buy in to that. You can drink the Kool Aid or you can choose not to, and I chose not to. And honestly, I think that was a really big piece of my recovery was choosing not to buy in and not to drink that Kool Aid.

Boots Knighton [:

Mm-hmm. Same. And, hence, this podcast. Anything else you want to add?

Laura Hoorweg [:

Yeah. Making a choice. I think that is the big thing. People don't realize, and I'll put a little spiritual bent on this. Cause when we make a choice, we set an intention. Okay? When we make that choice, we send that intention out to the universe and we are manifesting what we want. Okay? If you don't make that choice and you don't send out that intention, then you're just in the willy nilly, the universe is going, okay, what does she really want? Well, she's going along with everything, so I guess that's what she wants. So, we're not going to change it. We're not going to manifest anything different because she hasn't done it. Okay. Or he hasn't done it. He hasn't made that choice. He hasn't made that intention. So, we're just going to let the chips fall where they may.

Boots Knighton [:

What I'm hearing you say is we can either have a standard Western medical recovery, or we can have an amazing life wide open, absolutely thriving, kicking ass recovery.

Laura Hoorweg [:

Exactly. You have a choice. Yep. You know, we're talking about heart operations, but I don't care what your medical issue is. I think that applies right across the board. You are going to choose how you are going to come out of whatever or how you're going to deal with whatever situation it is. And it comes down to also medications too. You can choose, you know, do I want to be medicated to death? Or maybe there's some alternative things that I can do, that can help me. And maybe I can be on less medication or maybe I can get myself off of the medication altogether.

Boots Knighton [:

Wow. Laura Hoorweg, thank you so much. This has just been an hour of a lot of revelations for me. I'd like to even think about it. And for the listeners, I just so appreciate your generosity and spending an hour of your day with us. Thank you so much.

Laura Hoorweg [:

Oh, thank you for having me on. It's been a wonderful experience. And I'll tell you, you've made me realize some things that I hadn't even realized just going through the experience again. It's always enlightening.

Boots Knighton [:

I'm so glad. Thanks again.

Boots Knighton [:

Thank you for sharing a few heartbeats of your day with me today. Please be sure to follow or subscribe to this podcast wherever you are listening. Share with a friend who will value what we discussed. Go to either Apple Podcasts and write us a review or mark those stars on Spotify. I read these and your feedback is so encouraging and it also helps others find this podcast. Also, please feel free to drop me a note at boots@theheartchamberpodcast.com. I truly want to know how you're doing and if this podcast has been a source of hope, inspiration, and healing for you. Again, I am your host, Boots Knighton, and thanks for listening. Be sure to tune in next Tuesday for another episode of The Heart Chamber.

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About the Podcast

Open Heart Surgery with Boots
A podcast for heart patients by a heart patient
Formerly called The Heart Chamber Podcast, Open Heart Surgery with Boots airs every Tuesday for conversations on open-heart surgery from the patient perspective. Boots Knighton explores the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual experiences of surgery with fellow heart patients and health care providers. This podcast aims to help patients feel less overwhelmed so you can get on with living your best life after surgery. You not only deserve to survive open-heart surgery, you deserve to THRIVE!
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