Vim & Vigor - Summer 2020 - CH - 31

31

Managing Heart Failure for a
Better Quality of Life
A congestive heart failure
(CHF) diagnosis can mean
a dramatic life change for
many patients.
When your heart is
weakened and unable to
pump blood to the rest of
the body efficiently, you
may experience fatigue,
shortness of breath, swelling in the legs or feet,
weight gain and coughing.
This can make everyday
activities a challenge.
The hospitals of
Community Healthcare
System offer inpatient
education services that
help patients diagnosed
with CHF understand their
condition and the lifestyle
changes necessary to manage it successfully. The goal
is to help patients remain
safe in their home and
avoid hospital admissions.
Community Hospital
heart failure inpatient

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SANDI HOLLOWAY

Care for Your
Heart

If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with congestive heart failure,
speak with your cardiologist about
a referral to a heart failure program
with Community Healthcare System.
Visit COMHS.org/heart or call
Community Hospital, 219-513-1180,
St. Catherine Hospital, 219-392-7086
or St. Mary Medical Center,
219-947-6823.

Learning to Listen
to My Heart

I often talk with other heart failure
patients about the importance of
taking care of yourself, but I haven't
always followed my own advice.

In 2018, when my dad was
dying from an aggressive form
of bladder cancer, I took care of
him and did his hospice care. It
took a toll on me.
I started gaining weight again. I
wasn't feeling great. And I was short
of breath. It turns out I was having
episodes with the heart failure, but I
was thinking it was the weight gain.
So I would try to work out and end
up thinking I had the flu.
One day, I was in the kitchen
talking with my husband, and I
started getting confused, and my
words stopped making sense. So my
husband called 911, and I went back
to the hospital in an ambulance.
I underwent more testing, and
when I left the hospital, I had to do

program manager Diana
Kovach, NP, says the staff
educates patients and
families about important
lifestyle adjustments.
Receiving a diagnosis
can be overwhelming. "It
helps when we meet with
family members, who will
often take note of information that the patient might
miss," Kovach says.
Inpatient services and
education for CHF patients
is also available at
St. Catherine Hospital in
East Chicago and
St. Mary Medical Center
in Hobart. Additionally,
St. Mary Medical Center
provides the Congestive
Heart Failure (CHF)/Chronic
Obstructive Pulmonary
Disease (COPD) Clinic for
CHF or COPD outpatient
checkups, medication
administration and condition assessment.

physical and occupational therapy
and work with my medical team to
find the right balance of medications to treat my symptoms.
Since then, I've been doing
better-even if it's taken me longer
than I might have liked to get there.
I have really beautiful things
in my life. I have my wonderful
husband, daughter and son. I
have a great support system in my
family, friends, and the network
of volunteers and fellow heart failure patients I've met through the
American Heart Association. I've
found lots of joy in gardening.
For me, planting is amazing,
because you can see something
grow, and it's so exciting, because
it's new and it's life. *
VIM & VIGOR SUMMER 2020

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http://www.COMHS.org/heart
Vim & Vigor - Summer 2020 - CH

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