Life after Heart Disease Diagnosis
Finding Meaning Amidst Cardiovascular Challenges
Hi there,
Since being diagnosed with cardiovascular disease last summer, my life has been upended. I have asked myself why I do anything that I do. If your life can end at any moment—which is true for any of us—why do anything?
Categories of Purpose
1. Necessity
I’ve come up with three things. First, necessity. Some things we do because we must. Like filing your tax return, fixing the boiler or eating and sleeping.
2. Love and Friendship
Other things we do for love and friendship, like attending the funeral of the son of a friend. Or inviting friends over or visiting them. Or chatting to your life partner or children.
3. Moments of Beauty and Awe
The third category is things like noticing a beautiful dawn or pausing to look at the stars and planets, watching birds, noticing an interesting cloud formation, or playing with the dog. For me, it includes journaling, being self-aware, listening to music, doing a jigsaw or other leisurely pursuits.
Emotional Rollercoaster
I abandoned last week’s substack, leaving it incomplete and unpublished because of emotion. I felt low. The transition from acing a stress test last summer and my cardiologist telling me I’d a beautiful heart after he showed me the video of my heart from the echo test, to the discovery of a significant narrowing of my arteries following a CT scan and angiogram was quite the rollercoaster.
My emotions don’t manifest that often, but they did last Friday. I decided not to attend a Toastmasters party that night, just not feeling up to it. I was honest enough to tell two friends in the club why I wasn’t attending and it was as if telling them allowed some tears to flow. I lay on the floor in my kitchen with my dog. He looked at me and I looked at him and my eyes moistened.
Minutes later, I shared my feelings with Ruth, my amazing wife. We hugged and watched simple colourful lights on our patio perform a little lightshow for us. It was a beautiful moment.
‘We hugged and watched simple colourful lights on our patio perform a little lightshow for us.’ Video of our little lightshow, January 2025 © Joe Armstrong
Embracing Simple Joys
In the last week or so I spotted a magnificent dawn, photographed it and shared it on Facebook. I’ve seen eye-catching cloud formations in the sky while walking the dog. We spent a lovely evening with friends who had invited us over for dinner. I’ve been captivated watching scores of birds eat from our feeders in the back garden, and lucky enough to observe and video a woodpecker, the first one I’d ever seen.
Video of Great Spotted Woodpecker, 8 January 2025, County Meath, Ireland. All rights reserved. Joe Armstrong © 2025.
Overcoming Challenges
I’ve attended for the first time an ExWell group for people with chronic conditions. It encourages everyone to be physically active and to become fitter through regular supervised exercise classes. I was lucky enough to speak yesterday to Dr Noel McCaffrey, the founder of ExWell, at a monthly online support group organised by the Irish Heart Foundation. To attend the next online support group, email support@irishheart.ie
Moving Forward
Dr McCaffrey encouraged me to get back on my bicycle, which I’ve been avoiding since I was told after my angiogram not to get my heart beating too hard. Not knowing how hard was too hard, I have tended to avoid the bike, hoping to find a device for the handlebars that could alert me if I was going over my recommended maximum heart beat.
In theory, you take your age away from 220 to get your maximum heartbeat per minute. If, like me, you’re 62, that’s 220 minus 62 = 158. But it isn’t that simple. Depending on the severity of heart disease, a patient may be told their maximum heart rate should be 70 percent, 80 percent or 90 percent of that figure, so the maximum beats per minute for a cardiac patient aged 62 might be 110 (70%), 126 (80%) or 142 (90%), rather than 158 (100%).
Choosing Joy
I wasn’t sure what my recommended max beat per minute was, so even if I’d settled on an app, it would have been useless. I’m going to take the doctor’s advice to ignore the analytics, stop wearing my heartbeat monitor during physical exercises, and just enjoy myself.
I came home from my first Exwell event feeling exhilarated by the physical exercise. I later discovered that I had entered the peak heartbeat zone for a healthy person my age during the Exwell session!
I’ve always loved cycling. I’m gonna fix that puncture and get back on me bike!
Happy days,
Joe
Joe’s acclaimed first memoir In My Gut, I Don’t Believe is available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, Hardback and Audible editions. His second memoir Saved by a Woman is available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, and Hardback editions.
Sorry to read of your troubles, Joe. As a prostate cancer survivor, also with a heart condition and myelofibrosis (a rare blood cancer), I can relate. I'm not quite sure how, but a raised awareness of one's mortality seems to bring, at least for me, a lightness to life. In terms of purpose, I like to think that one of our purposes, perhaps our primary one, is to feed others, be that literally with food, metaphorically or ultimately, through the redistribution of the stuff we're made of. I wrote about this in my post, "The wisdom of Donald Trump". Anyway, I wish you well and happy cycling (something I also enjoy).
Sorry to hear about this, Joe. Beside considering our mortality, appreciating life is something you have been teaching me. Thank you and please follow your doctors' instructions!