What are the long-term consequences of a heart attack? I cannot speak from a qualified medical background, but the interest shown in my previous posts about my own experience may give you hope if you have recently survived a heart attack and are wondering (as I did at the time); Is my life over?
To recap, I had a heart attack in September 2010, just after my 60th birthday. I wrote about it in this post. I did not think it was serious. The doctors and later a cardiologist thought otherwise. They kept me in the hospital for a few days and told me I could not return to farming. Within a week of returning home, I started walking. Starting with 500 metres a day, I gradually increased my daily walks until I was walking 4.2 km every morning. The odd distance was because a mailbox 2.1 km along our quiet country road provided a convenient turning point. I was also back on my rather difficult horse within a couple of weeks.
The cardiologist did not think a stent or bypass surgery was required. I was prescribed the conventional mix of statins, blood thinners, and ACE inhibitors for cholesterol and blood pressure control.
After a few weeks, I was well enough to do short-duration jobs for farmers, some truck driving, crop scouting, operating a crop dryer, and managing a seedling greenhouse. These provided some desperately needed income while trying to get an online business started.
The doctors were happy with my progress and reduced my medication. I kept up my walking, intermittent farm work and many hours cutting and splitting wood. I did notice that I no longer had the stamina for many hours of continuous hard physical work. By 2016, I still felt good, but Sue noticed I was slowing down. At my annual check-up with the cardiologist that year, he was not happy with my performance during the stress ECG on the treadmill. He referred me to a cardiac surgeon who recommended bypass surgery with the warning that without surgery, I would almost certainly have another heart attack within five years and that it would probably be my last one. A good reminder of the possible consequences of a heart attack.
Life After Bypass Surgery
On the 13th of February 2017, I had a double-bypass surgery. It was not the most pleasant experience, but I was walking circuits around the hospital after three days and home after five. I started walking on the road a few days later and, within a few weeks, was back to my regular 4.2 km morning walk. It was not long before I could walk the distance in less time than before, and I added some longer 6 to 10 km walks.
My stamina improved dramatically. I no longer had the feeling that “someone switched the engine off” when I pushed myself beyond a comfortable level of exertion. Once again, I could walk upstairs quickly, spend hours cutting and splitting wood and do more physical work than I had done since the heart attack.
One of my goals was to walk one of the routes of the Camino de Santiago before I turned 70. In September and October 2019, just after my 69th birthday, I walked 250 km (150 miles) from Porto in Portugal to Santiago in Spain. The journey took me 12 days, I carried everything I needed in my backpack which weighed 9kg (20lbs), I stayed in mainly Pilgrim hostels, some with rooms with 6 occupants, others with large dormitories with 30 or more beds.
It was an amazing adventure, and I had no health problems, no lack of energy. Before embarking on the journey, I had thought that I would be one of the older pilgrims. On the road, I met many men and women in their 70s and some in their 80s. It was after the end of school holidays and university vacations, so there may have been more young people on the road in July and August.
I wrote about my experience in these posts.
Thoughts On The Consequences Of A Heart Attack
15 years after my heart attack and 8 years after bypass surgery, I have found out that life is certainly not over. The heart surgeon who operated on me told me that once I had recovered, I could do anything I wanted. Climb mountains, run marathons and ride horses. She thought my knees, probably from the stress of too many marathons, would stop me before my heart.
New Look For Our Podcast
You may know that my co-host, Kathleen, and I changed the focus of our podcast At the end of 2023, we switched to interviewing guests with health and wellness expertise. Earlier this year, in 2025, we rebranded the show to reflect our new focus. We are now Health Declassified, and we have had many fascinating guests sharing the latest developments in topics as diverse as epigenetics, essential supplements, nutrition, women’s health, and longevity.
We are noticing an increasing awareness of the need to take responsibility for our own health. A growing number of people are investigating natural remedies, alternative and holistic health solutions. We aim to bring more experts to our podcast in our bi-weekly guest episodes. Every Thursday, Kathleen does a “deep dive” into a health topic and I give an update on current and future guests. We send out a weekly newsletter with details of the deep dive and future guests. You can get it by subscribing here.
A range of natural remedies we endorse – and we take some of the products ourselves- is Dr. Morse’s Herbal Health Products. The range includes tinctures and capsules for detoxification, products to assist kidney function, for men’s health, and women’s health.
Here are some of the tools we use to produce this podcast.
Kit for sending emails and caring for subscribers
Hostgatorfor website hosting.
Podbean for podcast hosting
Airtable for organizing our guest bookings and automations.
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