Fast or slow?

On my current placement I had one patient who had been an inpatient for more than a month after contraction pneumonia and acute on chronic cardiac failure. He spent 9 days in ICU on a ventilator and had been transferred to my hospital for rehabilitation to regain his strength due to the prolonged period of bed rest. Finally he was discharged from the hospital and had been referred for Easy Breather classes to further improve his limited exercise tolerance. My job was to do a pre-assessment prior to him starting the classes.
Everything was going well with the assessment until I measured his heart rate before starting the 6 minute walk test. I wasn’t sure whether to believe the reading on the oximeter which told me that he had a heart rate of 39. I confirmed this by palpating his radial pulse and decided to talk to a nurse who had treated him as an inpatient before doing anything else. The nurse came to and confirmed the slow heart rate and was considering admitting him to the hospital again. I planned to contact his doctor to discuss the slow heart rate and then allow him to decide what to do. We were discussing this with the patient and decided to check his heart rate at the same time to make sure things weren’t making a turn for the worse. Upon palpation his heart rate was now around 82 bpm and it slowed down when he wasn’t doing anything but just sitting in his chair. After discussion with the nurse and my supervisor we decided to do the 6 minute walk test because his heart rate responded well to increased stimulation and returned to a normal level. The test went perfectly and his heart rate staying within a reasonable level during the whole test.
The main thing that this experience taught me was the ability to utilise and work with the other health professionals around me to ensure a patients safety. We worked together as a team and determined that the patient was safe to join the Easy Breather class.