The Etape de Tour Saved My Life - lessons for cyclists (and others)

The 10 things I learned from Open Heart Surgery

The afterword to the 5 part story of how a perfectly innocent doctor's signoff for an Etape de Tour bike race entry form revealed a collapsing aortic heart valve, resulting in 44 year old cyclist Nigel Dalton having open heart surgery in early 2008.

Feel free to make an appropriate hand gesture and go "well, duhhhhh!" at any of these:

1. You can find a way to keep riding bikes after open heart surgery - you do not have to give up your passion, or wrap yourself in cotton wool. Racing - probably not, and you should own the best protective gear possible plus carry some extra equipment (see part 5). Ride with friends who know what to do if there's a tumble, and avoid drafting complete strangers.
   
2. Not all serious health problems have visual, external symptoms. As a fit, active cyclist I had no symptoms at all for what should have been a debilitating condition. My heart took a year on drugs to shrink back to its normal size after surgery. Get an annual medical checkup. I'm talking to you guys out there, mostly.
3. $600 (about $300 after an Australian medicare rebate) spent on a full ECG and stress test is the best investment you can make in your cardiac health if you are in your 40s. Contact your GP or someone like the Victorian Heart Centre at Epworth Hospital in Melbourne. Don't piss around with this stuff, monitor your blood pressure at the very least.
   
4. Get a personal trainer with rehabilitation credentials (like Trewrehab) to manage your physical recovery program after big surgery. Being in a gym with all those athletes around will be much more motivating than being in a class sharing a few exercise bikes and tips on giving up smoking, and I think it's more likely you will avoid the dreaded cardiac depression.
5. If you're ever given the choice of suffering the acute embarrassment of an early in the evening pain-killing suppository by the pretty, charming blonde nurse with tiny, delicate fingers; or waiting until later that night so it doesn't wear off by 5am - take it early. I did, and the night nurse/former Soviet bloc weightlifter with fingers like a rolled up Saturday editions of the New York Times will never know my immense relief at that decision.
   
6. Do what you are passionate about before you suffer a major health problem, so that when you are questioning the meaning of your life afterwards (brought on largely by the avoidance of the opposite condition!), the answer comes fairly easily. Hopefully it was "doing what I am already doing" as I was lucky to discover.
7. It took me 12 months to recover fitness after open heart surgery (valve replacement). They'll tell you 3 months so as not to depress you, but don't count on it. See item 9 as the corollary to this lesson.
   
8. After 2 months, whilst you feel so much better, you are not back to normal. Beta blockers (like Sotalol in my case, to prevent cardiac arrhythmia), anti-coagulants (Warfarin), Panadol and the healing process will combine in ways you never imagined to make some job requirements as a Manager almost impossible. You NEED high blood pressure to 'pop' new ideas from that brain! Get more sleep as you are learning to listen to a whole new set of signals from your body as to what 'tired' and 'enough' are
   
9. It does get better every single day. Celebrate that.
10. Hug your family every day (and your friends whenever you can) because there is a chance in this world you might not see them tomorrow.