Cannot Travel After Heart Attack

[commentator]

Go Preds! Thankfully your company is a large one, based in a northeastern area. They'll very likely treat you better due to having better and more knowledgeable HR. I would also assume, since you are having heart attacks, that you might be a bit older than 40, say, and that you might have been with the company for some length of time. Hopefully they will see you as a valuable employee with experience, as well as an accommodation they need to make. You're not being paranoid, just reasonably cautious. If as I suspect, you're in the mid state area, the "by train" idea is sort of a no go, but it's an excellent suggestion that you'd be able to do the closer locations by car and let others deal with the far away fly jobs. That sounds like a very reasonable accommodation to me.

 

[justalayman]

Go Preds! Thankfully your company is a large one, based in a northeastern area. They'll very likely treat you better due to having better and more knowledgeable HR. I would also assume, since you are having heart attacks, that you might be a bit older than 40, say, and that you might have been with the company for some length of time. Hopefully they will see you as a valuable employee with experience, as well as an accommodation they need to make. You're not being paranoid, just reasonably cautious. If as I suspect, you're in the mid state area, the "by train" idea is sort of a no go, but it's an excellent suggestion that you'd be able to do the closer locations by car and let others deal with the far away fly jobs. That sounds like a very reasonable accommodation to me.

They live and work in Tennessee so I’m thinking the train, as you NEsters speak of a train, isn’t going to be a possibility. When we speak of train travel in the Midwest it’s usually Amtrak and we’re going multiple states away.

Corp headquarters are in Conn.


We also don’t know what a close location is. Again, we’re speaking of Tennessee.


It would help a lot if the op would weigh back in on this

 

[xylene]

I would get a second opinion about the medical necessity of this.

 

[quincy]

The doctor's recommendation might be an overly cautious one - but it is often recommended by cardiac care doctors that someone with any heart issue avoid when possible air travel (or long car rides without frequent stops).

I think anyone who has had recent heart surgery would want to closely follow their own cardiologist's advice.

 

[xylene]

The doctor's recommendation might be an overly cautious one - but it is often recommended by cardiac care doctors that someone with any heart issue avoid when possible air travel (or long car rides without frequent stops).

I think anyone who has had recent heart surgery would want to closely follow their own cardiologist's advice.

I was also thinking that it could be conservative for a reason and the doctor is being couched or the OP has not grasped the seriousness of their health condition.

Bluntly, if I was told to not travel for a year, I would question if I was fit to work.

 

[quincy]

I was also thinking that it could be conservative for a reason and the doctor is being couched or the OP has not grasped the seriousness of their health condition.

Bluntly, if I was told to not travel for a year, I would question if I was fit to work.

I don't know. Just because it is recommended that you don't travel (and I am assuming here that the doctor was referring to long-distance and/or plane travel) does not mean you are unable to work.

 

[xylene]

I dunno either, but a doctor saying "you probably don't want to be more than 5 minutes away from medical help." would not make me feel like my open heart surgery was a big success.

 

[quincy]

I dunno either, but a doctor saying "you probably don't want to be more than 5 minutes away from medical help." would not make me feel like my open heart surgery was a big success.

Good (but depressing) point.

 

[predsfan5150]

Having friends who are pilots, they will tell you that (and have told me) that if someone has a medical incident aboard a plane, to land the plane in an emergency....you are looking at often two hours from distress call to hospital. 25% of heart bypasses fail within the first year. I had a triple. I am just fine to work - I just have a very cautious cardiologist who understands statistics.

 

[justalayman]

Having friends who are pilots, they will tell you that (and have told me) that if someone has a medical incident aboard a plane, to land the plane in an emergency....you are looking at often two hours from distress call to hospital. 25% of heart bypasses fail within the first year. I had a triple. I am just fine to work - I just have a very cautious cardiologist who understands statistics.

Everything I’ve read says after a few weeks there should be no restrictions if the work was successful. A year seems extremely overly cautious.

 

[predsfan5150]

Everything I’ve read says after a few weeks there should be no restrictions if the work was successful. A year seems extremely overly cautious.

I have sent him an email (last week) asking for clarification. I understand international flights....but flying from TN to CT involves two 1.5 hour flights. Waiting to hear back.

 

[justalayman]

I have sent him an email (last week) asking for clarification. I understand international flights....but flying from TN to CT involves two 1.5 hour flights. Waiting to hear back.

And you fly over or near a lot of modestly large airports near major cities when flying from TN to CT which would allow for a shorter response time, even compared to flying to someplace like California.

since I haven’t had my chest cracked I don’t want to sound like I’m all knowing or not sympathetic. I wholly understand caution and if a doctor told me these are the rules, well, that’s what we pay them for.

 

[cbg]

Everything I’ve read says after a few weeks there should be no restrictions if the work was successful. A year seems extremely overly cautious.

I will be the first to admit that every individual case is different, that medicine is not an exact science and that every human body works differently. But both my parents had bypass surgery - one a triple and one a quad - and both of them were cleared with no restrictions within 8-12 weeks. If our OP needs to be within 5 minutes of medical care in all situations for a full year AFTER being cleared to return to work, then I would say either the doctor is being incredibly cautious in setting the restrictions or he is being negligent in clearing the OP to work at this time.

However, that is not a legal issue, and how the ADA applies in our OP's situation is. Predsfan, when you get the clarification from your doctor, and after you have talked to your employer, come back. It'll be easier to tell what your legal rights in this situation are when we have a little more info. It's not entirely clear-cut.

 

[commentator]

I too have had open heart surgery, and I must say, we have some of the best heart specialists in the country around here, and they do very good work. That said, I have done lots of traveling, and though I might point out that while traveling in a car one is often more than 5 minutes from medical care, I do think that restricted work travel (especially by air) would have been a very reasonable restriction for a certain period of time after my surgery. Thankfully, I did not have to go back into the work world quickly after surgery. But I did find the drill of travel, particularly air travel a bit daunting for a while.

For a while, though I was considered fully recovered and released by my doctor, I felt just a bit.....fragile. And in cardiac rehab, I was repeatedly warned about trying to do too much too soon. There is a bit more danger involved in that first few months after surgery. I was told the same type thing. We don't have to push that type of mentality that we're going to soldier through, be back at work and in tip-top shape and able to do everything we did before right away. We as a nation already are working ourselves to pieces anyway.

Since my surgery, (that one at least) though I haven't been traveling for work reasons, I have done quite a bit of air travel. And sometimes, I've had to make accommodations for myself. And sometimes I just haven't been up to it. Especially that first bit of time after the heart surgery. Sometimes when traveling by air, you find yourself really hurrying, really rushed and stressed, and let's face it folks, having to really hustle, carry weight (your luggage and paraphernalia) and change plans and time zones very quickly.

Especially since, as a member of a traveling work group, you'd certainly be less inclined to request such accommodation as a wheelchair when you were really tired or a longer lay-over so you could have less of a walk(or run) through a crowded airport, I think the no air travel for some period of time restriction would be appropriate. At least if you were driving, you could more set your own pace, plan a rest or check with a medical facility if you felt you needed to.

 

[cbg]

Just let me clarify here.

I don't think, as a lifestyle requirement, a travel restriction is unreasonable. However, what is not clear here yet is whether it is reasonable as an accommodation under the ADA, which is not the same definition.