Surprisingly, the nurses got me moving the minute I came round from the anaesthetic. At first, I felt extremely weak, and physical movement was tough. The trickiest thing was training my brain to re-coordinate itself with my heart.
I started slowly at first, walking just a few metres. Then, incrementally, day by day, I increased the distance. By the middle of December, I was walking up and down the streets near where I live, in all weathers, wearing a Dryrobe to keep warm.
I benefitted enormously from a cardiac rehabilitation centre called CP+R (Clinical Prevention and Rehabilitation), which gave me daily advice over Zoom. Soon they had me lifting weights, running on a treadmill and testing my VO2 max. All the while they were checking my heart rate through a monitor. It was invaluable guidance.
That was over the winter of 2025-26. My recovery was surprisingly fast. Since then, I’ve been skiing in the Alps and cycling in Crete. In late June, I’m heading off on a 10-day solo trek in Kazakhstan, and in August I’ll be trekking 200 miles in Montana.
In the future, I’m confident I can be just as active as I was before my operation. But I don’t think I’ll be climbing to such high altitudes. It would be foolish to die unnecessarily on a mountain.
I’ve pretty much stopped drinking alcohol because it has such a dramatic effect on one’s heart rate. I’ve changed my diet, too, reducing carbohydrates and increasing nuts, fibre and protein. I eat a couple of boiled eggs twice a week. Three days a week I make a smoothie with macadamia nuts, walnuts, almonds, kefir, fruit and whey powder. I eat chicken breast every day.
Many men are famously reluctant to seek medical advice. I suppose when I brushed off my original high blood pressure reading, I was guilty of this myself.
I think men suffer from a paradox: we are supposed to be physically strong; we are the ones who go to war. But, at the same time, we seem to have this irrational fear of visiting the doctor or the dentist. We bury our heads in the sand rather than dealing with the problem. It’s like an elephant being fearful of a mouse.
One positive thing to arise from my near-death experience is that, in May, along with the Cleveland Clinic and my local GP surgery in Oxted, I set up a one-off heart check-up clinic for local men. I wanted to help others avoid what had happened to me.