After I came out of heart surgery, I was told that I wouldn’t be back to work for a while. I was also told that I wouldn’t know how long I’d be out of commission. 

I knew that I had to set up an out-of-office message with my work email, but I wasn’t sure what the message should say. 

These messages should always say when I’m going to be back. Since I didn’t know when I was returning, I would at least say that. 

I didn’t want to go into details about the heart attack but I didn’t want to imply that I wasn’t ill. I’d just say that I was out for health reasons. 

This was the result: “I’m out of the office for health reasons. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

Apparently, this sounds pretty dire. In fact, it got a few of my coworkers pretty worried. Looking back, I don’t think that this is any better than saying “I’ve had a heart attack. I might not survive.”

I never did figure out a better message.