For a long time now, I believed that in early February 1997, I had a heart attack on a yacht during a race around the Swan River in Perth Western Australia. Now, after a check-up in the past two weeks in order to get a public vehicle (bus) licence, it seems I didn't have an acute myocardial infarction, but rather suffered a bout of broken heart syndrome.

The conclusion at the time about the heart attack was probably right, because Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or BHS, presents with very similar symptoms. But in 1997, it was not something the medical profession knew about, and hence I was given intravenous heparin, and an angiogram found no evidence of blockage of the coronary artery. In fact, the attending doctor at the hospital, when I saw her later, said she remembered me as someone coming in with a heart attack and a miracle happening in front of her.

There is no doubting that Takotsubo cardiomyopathy can be fatal. It is a bulging of the left ventricle in the heart. It occurs in under 3% of patients presenting with heart attack symptoms. Provided the patient survives the initial attack, the heart restores to its original, unimpeded condition.

It certainly appears to be linked to high stress such as experienced during a break-up of a relationship or some of high emotional event. In my case, it was after a break-up.

I think this has been one of the most important revelations in my life. Firstly, my heart basically has no damage. This has probably been well demonstrated by my cycling adventures in touring, commuting and randonneuring since my cardiac event.

But even more so, my battery of tests involved an exercise that required me to achieve 90% or higher of my predicted max HR. This is where it got really interesting -- my heart specialist wanted me to get to 90% of my predicted maxHR on the treadmill, with the calculation for maxHR based on 220-age... that is, for me, 162. I told him that my maxHR was likely between 182 and 187 based on actual observation. We had a minor discussion about the 220-age being quite accurate.

As it was, I "blitzed the test" and have "a high exercise tolerance" (his words) and my prediction was more accurate than his! I got to 162 and surpassed it with 167 being the maximum shown. And I was still able to converse a little. The maxHR indicated from that result was 185.

Anyway, I have a clean bill of health, and it seems I can dispense with the claim of having had a heart attack. Instead, I just had a broken heart, which of course was well and truly mended on meeting Machka in 2003!!

The week ended with me starting a new "dream" job... and I didn't even need the bus licence to get it.