Who to Tell

In October of 2018 I had open heart surgery to correct a congenital heart defect. This post is part of a series of informational posts. These posts are good if you are having open heart surgery soon. If you haven’t already, check out the rest of my informational posts.  Want to know the whole story? Check out my Introduction post.

When I found out that I was having open heart surgery I realized that I needed to tell some people. Now there were some people I obviously would tell, my extended family, my teachers, my coaches. Aside from those people I told all my friends that I was having open heart surgery. I didn't go into all the details with all of them but I didn't need to. All my friends were really understanding and nice about it. I was worried about telling people, but I shouldn't have been. I think that if they are your good friends, and important enough to tell then they will be understanding.

I swim, so I had to tell my swim coaches I told my head coach soon as I could. When I told him about my surgery I also told him I wanted to tell the whole swim team. He and I set a date that I would tell everyone. I was really nervous, but it went just fine. I planned what to say ahead of time, and only told everyone the basics.  I said, "I wanted to let you know that on October first I'm going to have open heart surgery to repair an atrial septal defect, a hole in my heart." A lot of kids came up to me later and said something, it was really nice. Afterwards I felt like I had the whole swim team behind me. I would encourage you to - if you have a large group of people that you are with all the time, such as a team or class - tell everyone