Red flags: RTÉ's Michael Lyster on recognising the signs of heart failure

RTÉ’s Michael Lyster ignored blatant symptoms until his heart function was down to a dangerous 15%, says Margaret Jennings

VETERAN RTÉ sports broadcaster Michael Lyster must have witnessed some heart-stopping moments at GAA matches throughout his career, but none of it prepared him for his own cardiac issues which he has experienced over the past five years.

The popular Sunday Game Live host admits that on some level he felt “invincible” when he ignored blatant symptoms — like gasping for breath in the middle of the night- that eventually pointed to heart disease, in his late 50s.

“You think you’re the strongest person in the world and it’s not until it’s pointed out to you ‘no, you’re not invincible. In fact you’re nearly dead’. That’s when you begin to get a different perspective on things,” he tells Feelgood.

“Looking back on it now, you’re thinking to yourself ‘what kind of a plonker was I, not to have figured there was really something wrong here?’ But you keep staggering along with the thing, hoping it will get better by itself, you know, until you get to the point where it’s obviously not going to.

“I was given no choice but to deal with it if you like because the function of my heart was down to 15% — it was barely functioning,” he says.

If somebody said to me now, ‘you know I feel this way – I’ve swollen ankles and I’m waking up in the middle of the night breathless I’d be grabbing them by the arm and I’d be lugging them down to the local hospital.

The 64-year-old father of four is sharing his personal journey publicly, to urge people not to do what he did; to pay heed to symptoms and also if like him, they have a family history of cardiac problems, to get checked out even if they feel well.

Although Michael’s symptoms lead to the diagnosis in autumn 2012, and he was put on medication and tackled his diet and exercise, he experienced a TIA (a 24-hour “mini stroke”) in 2013 and then a full-blown cardiac arrest in 2016, when he collapsed in the hallway after being dropped home from golf with a friend.

It was pure chance that he was not alone and that his wife, Anne – who had no CPR experience – just pounded his chest, which kept his blood circulating until the emergency services arrived.

“Essentially my heart just stopped beating and I dropped dead. So it was one of those things - if you get intervention straight away you have a chance; if it goes longer than a couple of minutes you’re a dead man, so...that’s just the luck of the draw, that one,” he says.

For those of us who think we might panic on the spot to witness someone collapse, he advises: “Do something! Because you can’t make the situation worse. Don’t stand there scratching your head, saying ‘oh jeez there’s something wrong with him’, you know. What Anne did, was she went straight into action, even if she didn’t know the technicalities of it.” As a result, he says, he has gained three extra years, he must be thankful for, that most people in that situation don’t get.

Does that give him a heightened sense of living for each day? “Absolutely. The reality of it is, without overstating it, I actually should be dead. Unfortunately for most people who have cardiac arrest – I think the survival rate is about 8% - so chances of surviving are very, very slim. And I’m in that very slim group and, of course, it gives you a different perspective on life.”

There’s no point in worrying about the chances of it happening again, he just has to embrace life to the full, he admits. “I do have a defibrillator fitted – like the thing you see in the wall of your local GAA club; it’s inside in my chest, inside my skin. And if I get cardiac arrest it would buy me a certain amount of time; it gives your heart a shock and if your heart has the ability to respond, it should kick it back into action again.”

With a cardiac disease diagnosis, at least there is something that can be done: “You do get better. My heart function is now at about 40%. I’m functioning and that will do. If you intervene early enough you can get it sorted out; it’s not a death sentence. But it will be if you don’t do anything about it. Had I done this thing years ago, I would have saved myself all the rigmarole I’ve gone through over the last five years, or I certainly would have given myself a better chance of avoiding it, rather than things getting to the stage they did get,” he warns.

With retirement from the job he loves looming next year, Michael carries his one-day-at-a-time philosophy to the future:

John Lennon said ‘life is what happens when you’re busy making plans’. And that’s very true.

Michael Lyster joined the Mayor of County Cork, Declan Hurley, on Wednesday at Novartis Ringaskiddy plant, to launch the ‘Acting on Heart Failure’ European initiative, as part of a heart failure awareness day for staff there. Mayors from around the world are invited by the International Heart Hub (iHHUB) to commit to raising awareness of heart failure. The campaign is supported in part by Novartis Cork.