Sheets was 48 years old when he developed a persistent sore throat. A former boat builder who had just opened his own woodworking shop, he worked out six days a week and was active hunting, fishing and biking.

He had none of the usual precursors to any kind of heart problem. So, when he developed a sore throat, he figured it was the onset of a cold or flu.

After putting up with the irritation for months, Sheets went to his doctor. After numerous tests, the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong. Then Sheets took a stress test that revealed an anomaly.

He went to Bangor for a heart catheterization, which revealed that a major artery on the right side of his heart was 100 percent blocked, and the corresponding artery on his heart’s left side was 70 percent blocked.

“I was one bad day away from a terminal heart attack,” said Sheets.

Cardiac rehab nurse coordinator Bernadette Dempsey (standing left) oversees her patients’ exercise.

Surgeons inserted five stents in Sheets’ right artery to open the blockage. Another stent was inserted in his left artery during a second surgery.

“After all that, you figure life’s pretty much over,” Sheets said. “When I got to rehab, I said, ‘What am I going to do? I’ll never work out again. Life as I knew it was over.”

At the rehab center, he met Bernadette Dempsey, the center’s cardiac rehabilitation nurse coordinator.

“Bernadette has other ideas,” said Sheets. “With her assistance and friendship, she showed me that you can go back.”

Sheets credits Dempsey and her assistants with helping him and fellow rehabbers shake the inevitable depression that follows “close encounters with the reaper.”

Each patient’s heart rhythm and heart rate is monitored continuously as they exercise at the Maine Coast Memorial Hospital Phase II Cardiac Rehabilitation program.

The hospital-based setting, which provides monitoring and immediate medical services if needed, allows patients to maximize their rehab efforts and prevents them from overdoing it.

“I flew through rehab,” said Sheets. “I felt I could push myself. I made great strides. If I was doing this at home, who knows what could’ve happened.”

Dempsey said heart patients experience the first phase of rehabilitation while in the hospital after heart surgery, as nurses help them walk the hallways.

Cardiologists then refer patients to phase II rehabilitation programs like the one at Maine Coast Memorial.

Dempsey said the secondary prevention program after heart surgery involves education classes and monitored exercise sessions for one hour three days a week.

The rehab program can take up to 36 sessions spanning 12 weeks.

After graduating from phase II, patients are encouraged to continue with phase III, an off-hospital-based exercise program.

“It’s up to the person — what they want to work on,” Dempsey said of the hospital’s rehab program. “We know what the patient needs to do, but we need to meet them where they’re at, what they’re ready to work on.”

She said many heart patients, especially women, are reluctant to enter the rehab program. Those who do benefit from the services provided by Dempsey and her exercise assistants, Beth Meginnis and Anita Sommers. Patients also benefit from the camaraderie of fellow patients and eventually overcome their fear and depression.

“They build relationships, not only with us but with the people with them,” said Dempsey. “It’s so healing for them. They’re really building up a support system. The best sellers of this program are the people who come into the program.”

Dempsey said patients enter the program wondering what they can do physically and afraid to do anything because their hearts are damaged.

“They have no confidence,” she said. “This definitely builds confidence. Their confidence builds as they build stamina. Once they come here, they are amazed at how much better they feel.”

Dempsey said the patients’ initial expressions of defeat are replaced with declarations such as “I can do more than I thought I could do” and “Now I’m passing him on the hills. I feel like I can do more. I feel better.”

Two years ago, Sheets thought his lifestyle was played out. Today he does the same things he did before heart surgery, only more.

“It gave me the spark I need to get back to what I was doing before,” he said of the rehab program. “I’m back to working out six days a week, but doing more, and I’m hunting, fishing and biking. I’m more active now than I was before.”

For information on the cardiac rehabilitation program at Maine Coast Memorial Hospital, call Bernadette Dempsey at 664-5434.