ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: to unveil women's existential movement after cardiac surgery. METHOD: qualitative phenomenological study. The research setting was a hospital in Minas Gerais, in which ten women were interviewed between December 2011 and January 2012. RESULTS: after hospital discharge, the women experienced physical, social and emotional impairments, and expressed the desire to go back to the time before their diagnosis, because they felt as though they still had heart disease. This vague and average understanding led to three units of meaning that, from a Heideggerian hermeneutic point of view, revealed the phenomenon of cardiac surgery as a present circumstance that limited the participants' daily lives. CONCLUSION: nurses supporting women patients after cardiac surgery should promote health considering existential facets that are expressed during care. The bases for comprehensive care are revealed in singular and whole meetings of subjectivity.