All I can do is share my experience with emergency open heart surgery following a sudden aortic dissection. It was my thoracic ascending aorta. The recovery was substantial at age 50. I was not really myself for probably two years. I am 61 now and feel better than I did before the surgery although it’s been 11 years. I don’t know what your experience will be but I think three or four months is unrealistic unless your thoracic surgeon himself has had open-heart surgery and recovered from it in three or four months. I will say this that I was back to work within six weeks, but I was not driving for the first few months, and I was generally a mess for at least the first year. Again, I had an emergent dissection so that may have made a difference, but I have to be candid with you. I think 3 to 4 months to recover at 81 is pretty optimistic and I don’t think realistic. The other thing you need to realize is that you need a trainer who has expertise in cardiac rehab. Just your run-of-the-mill trainer is not appropriate because I had one after my surgery and he tried to make me do planking and forced me to run on a treadmill beyond my ability. After you have a dissection that’s repaired, your job is to get better and that’s a slow and steady effort. I did a lot of walking, and that helped quite a bit, but I would never go back to planking or dead, lifting or grunting of any kind. Again, I’m presuming that they are going to put an aortic graft in your chest and I think that the days of pounding grinding, grunting and planking in the gym are over. That doesn’t mean you can’t do cardio, it just means that you cannot do things that jack your blood pressure up. I’d be very cautious about any advice to be back in the gym at three months. I had trouble carrying a pillow from the car to the lake house at four months. Depending on how good shape you’re in and how well the surgery goes, you could have a longer recovery than 3 to 4 months. I would plan on it. Peace.