has cycling helped save your life

Yes it has saved me having to sit in with the missus all weekend!

Wait, thats not what you meant right?

All jokes aside glad to hear you have made it through and have been able to get yourself fit enough to do something you obviously are getting a lot of enjoyment out of.

Firstly,glad to here your ok now.To answer the question,cycling may pro long my life so thats as good as for me.
My father had heart attack and quad by pass at 51 and my brother died of heart attack at 50,so as im 50 now it was a tad of a worry.Also smoked for 35 years which isn,t good.Had all the tests and came back ok and started cycling last september,so hope fully this will stand me in good stead.
To be fair I was always fit with being in army and competative in another sport till mid 30,s then sort of nothing for years.

Firstly, it is great to hear that cycling has meant so much to you, at such a difficult time.

Ten years ago I was taken seriously ill, and ended up in hospital for 3 weeks whilst everyone tried to work out what was wrong with me, and how to save me. In short, I caught a cold on the Tuesday; collapsed in the GP surgery on the Wednesday; got admitted to hospital the next day after collapsing in A&E; then over the next few days my kidneys began to fail and my lungs filled with fluids and I didn’t eat or drink and I vomited bile for days and generally felt like I was dying. My SATS slowly fell to 88, my heart rate began to soar and my breathing became frighteningly desperate.

What I did not realise at the time (and neither did the doctors), was that I was actually dying. It was only when a Consultant noticed my swollen ankles after about 7 days that the alarm bells started to really ring. One emergency ultra-sound later, and they all realised I had a very significant pericardial effusion (fluid build -up around my heart). Next thing I know, I am rushed into a cardiac ward and surrounded by every doctor and nurse in the building, and plugged into every machine anyone could lay their hands on. They all stood around, apparently waiting for me to go into cardiac arrest. To say I was scared would be an understatement.

I was transferred as a medical emergency to a specialist cardiac hospital thye other side of town that same night, where a team was awaiting my arrival. My frantic wife was told to sign a consent form, it being noted that I was relatively likely to go into cardiac arrest and that I could well die during the procedure. She asked what the consequences of not doing the procedure were. ‘He will die within the next 24 hours’ they said……………..

They drained something like 1.5 litres of bright orange fluid from around my poor heart that night. It was left to drain over the next few days. The whole thing was horrifying. By the time I went home, I had lost a ton of weight (I had only weighed 66 kg anyway) and I could barely walk, I was so weak. It took me over 6 months to recover.

ANYWAY, to answer to OP’s original question – my wife and I were told on several occasions that the only reason I had survived long enough for the doctors to make a diagnosis, was because I was such a healthy cyclist, with a very strong heart. They said that ‘Joe Public’ would have died several days before diagnosis, and that I was very, very lucky to be so fit.

Cycling has been my life since I was a teenager. I used to race, and I used to (and still do) go to the Alps every year to cycle up ‘em. I am not as fast as I used to be, but then I am not as young as I used to be. I am not sure how much I can put this down to the scar tissue that remains on my peri-cardium, but I suspect getting older and a little fatter is really the main cause :oops:

Before anyone asks what was actually wrong with me, the doctors never said. It seems they did not know. They just said ‘virus’, which is a tad vague.

I've got Crohns disease that's dramatically decreased my quality of life. The bike on the other hand has improved it greatly

I got skinny! Love life now a days!

Saved me from wasting my life sitting around smoking and drinking.

Unfortunately has led to me almost losing my life a couple of times, but you could argue that other people's driving, rather than me cycling, did that.