I’ve stopped blogging for a while now, because something quite interfering happened to me.

As I was walking the mountains of China in 2024 …

…and probably even before that, I gradually noticed that my walking condition was not as good as it should have been and as usual after a few months of severe walk trainings. I noticed I was out of breath quickly and could not go for the absolute peaks of the mountains I was walking (the Huang Shan, The Wulingyuan and the Tianmen mountains in Central China and the karst hills of south west China). It was rather hot and I did get food poisoning, so in my mind there were an excuses, but that didn’t feel like it covered it. My travel guides were probably surprised by this, but so was I. Returning to The Netherlands I noticed effort like walking with speed or running to catch a train became more and more difficult and a stinging pain radiating from my left shoulder all over the thorax area between the shoulders to the top of my lungs where it burnt a bit, got gradually worse and prevented my walks more and more. I had to walk slowly and at first take a break, later breaks on relatively short walks, like from the railway station to the office or home.  Seemed to me that there were veins, tendons and muscles which probably had gotten stuck (probably when I threw another heavy 20 kilo backpack on my shoulder).

After a medical checkup instigated by my employer, the advise was to make asap an appointment with my doctor and he immediately didn’t trust my own diagnoses and said he wanted to have me checked in the local hospital at the cardiology department.

After CT-scan and subsequent Catheterization (where they inject contrast fluid via your arm into the blood circulation system and make the obstructions literally visible on a television screen), the verdict was a lot different from what I expected. The CT-scan already indicated that there might be some obstructions in the blood vessels around the heart, but the Catheterization made it crystal clear that there were severe obstructions in three such vessels on 4 different locations.

The subsequent advice was to allow open heart surgery and have 4 by passes executed, which at my (relatively young) age, would give better results for life quality in the subsequent years.

After the initial shock I quickly recovered and thought: Well, this has to happen, if I want to heal and do mountain and long distance walks again, so why worry. Let’s get it over with.

End of July I was in surgery. Open heart surgery first of all means opening the ribcage (which means breaking the sternum bone and then widening the space between the left and right ribs.

The problem with me was not the heart itself but those veins coming from the arteries that are on top of the heart. They provide the engine with oxygen.

During the surgery, under full narcosis, a heart/lung machine is connected which takes over heart and lung functions during the surgery. The heart and lungs are chilled and stopped because this makes it easier to treat the veins which are on top of the heart and underneath the lungs. Imagine surgery on those while the heart is still beating and the lungs are still breathing.

4 bypasses were needed and they used veins from the breast areas and from my left arm, …

which are used to connect the large arteries which lead the blood through the heart, with a position on the smaller veins that are on top of the heart. That position is past the obstruction. Blood always chooses the road of least resistance …

I woke on the Intensive care department and felt tired and quite groggy, because of the anesthesia and subsequent morphine painkillers. Recovery went quick and only 3.5 days later I was allowed to go home. My recovery was quick. No pain. Very tired though. I had to walk stairs before going home, but although slowly, that went well. Physical base condition was excellent, so now my sternum bone has to heal and grow together again, and all bruises and internal wounds need to heal too.

I’m gonna pick up blogging again, now that I’m feeling a lot better and heart rehabilitation is on the verge of starting up. Building up some physical condition is priority one now. My basic condition was quite good because of my walking mentality, but my physical condition has degraded a lot due to the previous months of not being able to do real long distance walks. A bike test was done which was good but which also revealed the need for subsequent training. In the end my goal is to do long distance walks of max. 40 kilometers and mountain walks again.

So now you know why I have been so quiet in the previous weeks, months and now I know why my walking achievements have been a lot less than they should’ve been.

I’m gonna restart my blogposting from now. Of course about my China by train travels, but also about some destinations much nearer to my home.

I’m not there yet, but proceeding and working steadily toward a Wandelgek 2.0!