This hill was killing me.

Sweat drenched my shirt, dripping into my eyes.

My breath came in short painful gasps, and my stomach felt like I was in the middle of an epic sprint. I was about to be sick and had to stop.

For the third time.

On my short walk home from the bus stop.

“It’s just a virus” I told myself.

I told my wife, “I think I’m coming down with something” and she pointed out that I have said that quite a few times over the past few months. And maybe I should go to the doctors.

The next day I planned to go to work because, for the most part, I felt OK…when I didn’t move too much. But when the walk to the car already had me sweating, I decided calling in sick to work was probably the best course of action. I booked in with the doctors that afternoon, had a sleep, played some PlayStation and felt a little guilty for not going into work.

At the Docs I was expecting the old virus, bed rest and fluids response so I was a little surprised when, after some tests, he recommended I go to hospital.

And that, my friends, is when the fun started.

Waiting in the emergency department I still expected it to be a whole lot of nothing.

At first my symptoms were a bit of a puzzler for the docs, and after much discussion they decided to do an echo cardiogram (ultrasound) to have a look at my heart. During the ultrasound both docs leaned forward and squinted at the monitor and one of them said “What is that?”

“What is that?” is in the top ten on the list of ‘Things you don’t want your Doctor to say’.

The that was a sizable egg type thing in the right ventricle of my heart, bouncing away happily with every beat. It looked like there was barely any room for the blood to get around it. No wonder I found walking exhausting.

The first thought was that it was a clot on its way to the lungs. This was all but confirmed by the cardiologist, when he performed another echo cardiogram. He advised there was a 1 in 100 chance it was anything else.

I had a CT scan and then stayed overnight in the hospital awaiting the results.

I got an early visit from the doctors the next morning, which I did not take as a good sign. The doc advised that she did not think it was a clot and that it might be a rare type of tumour called a Myxoma.

“Tumour” and “rare” are both in the top 5 on the list of ‘Things you don’t want your Doctor to say’

After some more tests the consensus was that the ‘egg’ was a myxoma. Being the size it was, I had probably had it for a looong time.  When I physically exerted myself I got exhausted and out of breath very quickly. But as the egg grew over the years my body’s interpretation of physical exertion declined until walking down my driveway was enough to make me a sweaty, palpitating, mess.

The good news was that it had been caught in time. Tumours that large in the heart are often not discovered until they do a post-mortem. Also, the vast majority of these tumours are benign. So..yay.

But the bad news was that  they would have to crack open my chest and tinker with my ticker.

Open. Heart. Surgery.

“Bonesaw” is in the top 20 on the list of ‘Things you don’t want your Doctor to say’

I went to hospital on the Wednesday night and I had the surgery on the Monday. This was a really quick turnaround, but even so, that would have to have been the longest, long weekend of my entire life.

On the Monday the surgery went smoothly and the egg, henceforth known as Gertrude, was removed, all 9.5cm x 4.7cm of her. I’m not sure how much she weighed, but she looked pretty hefty.

I was up and walking by the Tuesday and was out of the hospital by the Saturday, which is crazy fast.

Now, four weeks or so out, I am doing pretty well. I am walking more than I did before the surgery, and adding a little more every day and to be honest I already feel a lot fitter than I have done in a while. And I am looking better, I have more colour in my face. Folks have said I look better than I have in years.

So yeah, dramatic post is dramatic! It goes without saying that I definitely had to postpone my section hike this year, which sucks. But considering that without Gertrude being discovered when she was, the hike would: A) Not have been fun and B) most likely killed me I think I have to look on the bright side.

I realise that I am incredibly lucky that the symptoms got to the noticeable stage when they did. Because man o man it would not have been a fun time for it to happen on the top of some mountain in Tennessee.

But the LASH (long ass section hike) on the AT is still on the cards, just next year and I am still all systems go for the West Highland Way later this year in Scotland. But, right now I am just focusing on my recovery and, fingers crossed, I can start hiking again in June or July this year. This time without dragging Gertrude along.

To quote Monty Python “I’m not dead!…I think I’ll go for a walk”.