Susan1 talks about how diet and exercise helped her cope with waiting for a heart transplant.

Transcript

And so this whole time you know, I’m trying to manage my diet and stay positive. And you know, living with this congestive heart failure. One thing that I found really helpful was to swim. And so I made my meal preparation a big focus of my day so that I could you know, make sure my meals – I knew what I was going to eat ahead of time. So that I could keep you know, any kind of salt consumption down to a minimum.  And I would swim every day. I wouldn’t be swimming hard, but I would go to a pool that I had a membership for. And I would swim lengths. And you know I would do what I could do. I usually had to stop at every end of the pool, do a valsalva manoeuver [to slow heart rhythms]. But then carry on, and I made this my mental therapy as well as my physical therapy. And I think it, you know, it helped keep me mentally straight in the head. Thinking positive. You know, about transplant. Because I think a big part of it is your mental outlook right? You’ve really got to stay focused and be prepared for it.

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