2024

I can say now, now the year has passed, that 2024 was better than 2023. But it still strongly ranks in the top 3 worst years of my life.
This post is a personal check-in for the start of 2025. A single blog post to put a retrospective of 2024 in about my heart, hobbies and life, and also aggregate a bunch of my health data into one place. They probably shouldn't be the same blog post.
Overview of the year
January 1st 2024, I was 4 months on from major heart surgery, and brother, I felt like shit. They tell you that it takes 6 months for it to start feeling a bit more normal. It took about 8 for me. But it did eventually change, in what was probably a long gradual change but felt like a single moment. There are a bunch of really small physical things they don’t explain to you that you’re going to feel. As an example, for the first 8 months when I would lay on my back in bed it felt like my heart was physically sinking into my chest. It was weird. I am glad that my body felt like it accepted its fate, and it and I decided to collectively start moving on.

Just before that physiological acceptance happened, I think I had a minor mental breakdown. March and April were long. Pretty much every single one of my daily walks I would cry, and I would cry randomly as I remembered what had happened to me. I started sessions with the local Sheffield mental health service, and while the actual sessions themselves didn’t help that much, the reading resources they gave me did. Specifically around living with heart problems and uncertainty. It was validating that they feelings were so common that they made a whole booklet about it. Plus it was a change of pace, I couldn’t take another rehab sessions with a group of geriatric men.
This was also peak I hate work zone. While the physical side felt like it was becoming normal, my memory is something that is still not quite right. Or rather, it’s not the same as it was before. And being on top of remembering stuff at work makes it so much easier. I am still struggling to remember things still. Peoples names are sometimes an absolute mystery to me. I forgot the name of one of my colleagues for about an hour recently, whom I've worked with for almost 2 years. It sucks. Now, a lot of what I do at work goes through a notebook and pen. Writing stuff down makes remembering a lot more manageable.

In June I had a surgery to remove the sternal wires that were holding my ribs together. Not to be gross about it, but I spent the first 7 months of 2024 bleeding constantly from my chest. I pulled off this persistent ooze marvellously in my opinion, I don’t think many people noticed. But, even the recovery for this fairly basic wire removal surgery wasn’t straight forward. I would say you can’t win them all, but I’ve been taking losses for almost 2 years now. If you ever want gross details and to see some photos of a surgical wound opening up a couple of weeks after a surgery just let me know.
For September I was off work the entire month, due to a large amount of accumulated annual leave. I didn't realise it when I booked it off, but that time out of work was necessary. After the main surgery last year, I went back to work fairly quickly. By December 2023 I was back to working 5 days a week full time. I felt like I needed the routine. I wrote a blog post about that closer to the time. But I realised after some time that I hadn't given myself the time to just have air, and space. It turns out I needed space to just wallow and grieve, which helped more than anything else that happened over 2024. I also wrote about grief.

For November, I went a bit crazy and did, perhaps, a bit too much. I went out more than I had all year combined, and had a great time. I saw new and old friends, went to events, drank (still not smoking, yet), and did some more planning for the future. I paid for that by dying of a cough for most of December. But it was worth it. It was this month that I decided that if I have been given time on this planet to continue living, then I should spend it doing things for and with people. I started using the nonsense phrase “Infinite Time”. I think that’s probably my favourite blog post of the year. It’s honest.
Work
I work as a web developer, focusing mainly on the frontend. I’ve been doing web development as my (mostly) sole focus since I got my first part-time dev job in 2014.
This was a weird year. I have spent a lot of it questioning what I do. Not just in terms of the industry and my career, but as a person. What does it mean to sell my labour for capital? Can I continue to be happy doing that, knowing that time is potentially limited? If not, what would make me happier? Just normal stuff.
I don’t have any answers for any of those questions. I think companies which use the labour of others for the profit of a few are immoral, but I also take part in that same practice at work. Especially now as I move into 2025 having been promoted to my teams Engineering Manager.

The position for this opened up in late August, and after thinking about it for 30 seconds I realised I didn’t want to do it. I enjoy being good at coding and my job, and I didn’t especially want to be anyones manager. So I wouldn’t be. My September break rolled around, and I still agreed with my decision in October.
My team was still without an engineering manager in November (the company was correctly taking its time and looking externally), and I wanted to try something different with a new epic at work. We haven’t changed how we do development since I joined the team 2 years ago. So I put it forward to the team, and the team agreed to try it.
It worked out, and I wanted to start trying putting work into peoples hands which would make them happy, give them ownership over something when we’ve been lacking it. I realised I could probably be a good manager for my team.
I move deeper into the labour aristocracy with this job change. And my day to day will have less coding in it. We can’t control companies and capitalism. But, hopefully, I can make the people who make up my team at work happier and more fulfilled with the 35 hours or so a week they spend giving their labour to someone else.
Books
From 2020 to 2023 I don’t think I completed a single book. Not sure why. Never was a big reader growing up.
In amongst appointment waiting rooms and stays in hospital, I started reading. I finished the first book of The Expanse in December/January. Now, I’ve read 5 of them, 3 Susan Sontag Books, and 5 other books. Considering I went from zero books for 4 years, 13 books in a year is a triumph.
In 2025 I want to read more. I think this should be a habit for me. It has really enriched me this year. I’m only like halfway through The Expanse so I will finish that. But I want to read some classics. A friend recommended Moby Dick so I’ll give that a go. And I picked up some James Joyce books including Ulysses, along with the the Emily Wilson translation of the Odyssey so I can read it and become a weirdo chud on Twitter.
Hobbies
I swear in the UK, we make all kids play a random musical instrument for at least a couple of years (recorder orchestra in year 5 massive). For me growing up, that was piano, and for a little while, flute. I stopped playing piano around aged 16, because playing for exams was destroying my soul. I didn’t really touch a set of keys again until a couple of years ago, when I got a nice digital piano. It wasn’t being used anywhere near enough to warrant the purchase, but I kept it around. The second half of this year with a month off work, with space to breathe mentally and not have work and life hanging over me, I started to play it more. I really enjoy it again.

That was also true for drawing and painting. And basically everything else. When you don't work and just have free mental time, you get to just do things you want to.
With a job, and life, we don’t make time for hobbies because they feel frivolous to the idea of staying alive. Someone recently said that I have too much free time. I think that is partially true. But mentally I have also worked hard to ensure that I can use this free time for things I enjoy. I still rot on the sofa, and play shitty video games frequently. But an hour or two every couple of days for something else. Yeah I can do that. And it's been one of the best things of the year.
Health
Feel free to skip this section to the end if you don't want to read some GCSE grade graph analysis.
If there's one daily device I have benefitted most from, it's my Apple Watch. It remains on my wrist almost 24/7, only leaving to be charged. It provides me some weird comfort to know that it is always recording my heart beat. A couple of times during my diagnosis and post op issues, the data has been vital for pleading my case of "I am not okay, please look at me". If you have heart problems or have concerns, consider getting one!
Wearing it all the time makes a lot of data over a year! Most of this section is presenting the data included in my Apple Health export, which was then parsed poorly with a quick Python script, turning the data into a Plotly graph. I'm sure there is a good reason to not put this data online, but fuck it.
General
Before we get into the Apple Health stuff, let’s just talk about my general health.
My health has been better! Besides the constant ticking of my heart, my heart valve and piping changes mean I get out of breath easily walking up hills, but I'm not getting exhausted physically. It’s a weird sensation, and I wish I could do more strenuous exercises like running. Getting properly healthy with this major health concern hanging over your head is a journey which I will be on for the rest of my life.
A bit concern post op was the atrial fibrillation. For about 3-4 months post surgery, every day my heart would have moments where it would freak out for minutes at a time. It didn't feel great. To try and help, the hospital put my on beta-blockers, which aim to reduce and control your heart rate. This sucked even more! My heart rate would suddenly plummet to 35-40bpm, which feels like you're dying. I am happy to report that for almost all of 2024, that has not been a problem, and I am so glad about that.

For my weight, when I got home after my first two surgeries, I had lost 10-12kg over the 2 weeks since being admitted. Where I am today, I have put that 12kg back on, and I think that's great. Losing weight can be a great thing to work for, but it freaked me out that I lost that much weight so quickly. I didn’t feel right, so I’m glad I got some chub back on.
Otherwise all things considered, I have been pretty healthy.
Heart
Starting with the most obvious metric Apple give you: your heart rate. Here's a graph of my monthly min, max and average heart rates.
There's two things I think worth talking about here. Lets start with that max heart rate in September of 190 bpm.
As part of your recovery, you're told that you need to maintain an active and healthy life style. One thing they mention is playing a sport like tennis. So, I tried badminton.
Two things happened. I tripped over my own foot after 5 minutes and twisted my ankle. I thought that was hilarious. And then, in my out of practice shape, I looked at my Apple Watch 10 minutes later midway through a game and noticed my heart rate was 190. I wasn't out of breath and didn't feel like I was exhausting myself, but I was sweating a lot. At that moment I learnt the difference between the heart rehab sessions exercises and real exercise on your heart.
Second I want to talk about the trending up of my average heart rate. I don't really know why. In the second half of the year I did ramp up a lot of things I was doing. Walking quicker, doing more etc. But I can't explain the whole average being moved up like that.
Lets see if the resting heart rate also trends up. For this, Apple Health segments out the heart rate data which occurs during a recorded exercise, so we can see how it looks when I'm not tripping over myself and making a fool of myself at badminton. Here's a graph which plots the 2022, 2023 and 2024 resting heart rate:
Interesting! If we look at just the 2024 trend, it is almost a flat line, which is good and that average heart raising was probably for other reasons! But there's something unavoidably obvious here, and that is my resting heart rate in 2024 is ~10bpm higher than 2022. I was a lot healthier in 2022, consistently exercising with weights, regularly using an exercise bike etc. The goal for 2025 could be to start trying to trend that back down a little bit. But it is well within the healthy range for my age.
I have also included the 2023 data, just to show how an aortic dissection changed my resting heart rate over the year. I find it really interesting!
Recently I have learnt a potential reason about why my heart rate is harder to control, which I'll explore more in future. It will be the greatest challenge for exercise going into 2025 and beyond.
Walking
This is my main form of exercise. In 2024 I walked an average of 6.2km a day, totalling around ~2250km. The Apple Watch is never going to be perfect at calculating this, but I'll take that big number
The amount of walking I'm doing has trended down over the year. Until my surgery at the start of June, I was taking the amount I was walking pretty seriously. I needed to do at least 5km a day or else, and I don't think I missed a days walking until that surgeries recovery. After that, I took it a bit easier. I still walk every day at least 4km, but I can have a day off every now and then.
Walking speed is one I didn't expect to see trend down. I think in reality this data is telling a bit of a lie. I think my walking speed has been pretty consistent over the year in reality, but the Apple Watch can't tell the difference between a brisk uphill walk on the lovely Sheffield hills, to a leisurely walk with the dog, or a day off where I just walk around the house. Because I was taking no days off at the start of the year, my walking speed is just higher.
In my goal to start running though, I think my walking speed will be a key metric. I should build up for my usual 12 minute km's, increasing it slowly and seeing how quick I can get before my heart rate gets too high (around 160bpm).
Stairs
I put this one here as a bit of a joke. Stairs at the start of my recovery were my arch nemesis. My home office is up 2 flights of steep terraced house stairs, and when I go to the office there are 3 flights between the ground and the front door. And they would absolutely kill me.
I thought my stair ascent speed would have increased a lot. But apparently not! Maybe I'm just not viewing it as much of a challenge anymore, and just taking the stairs like a normal person would without pushing myself. No one wants to see you crawling into the office at 9am completely out of breath from 3 flights of stairs.
God knows what I was doing in week 16 to end up climbing so many flights of stairs.
Sleep
I love sleep. It's sick. Alongside wearing it all day, I often wear the Apple Watch to bed as well. It's pointless gamifying of something I need to do, but I just like seeing the numbers at the end.
The calculations for my sleep hours per day are a bit effed. I had to write a quick bit of code to try and estimate it based on a series of events the Apple Health data export had in it. It resulted in these two graphs:
These are meaningless, because I know I don't sleep this much. Apple Health knows it too with their smart algorithms, and it generally rates it an hour or two lower per day. But I did the best I could with what I was given here.
V02 Max
This is such a Mickey Mouse metric from Apple Health. To work out your real V02 max, you need a whole setup with a mask to record oxygen consumption and a treadmill. And you’re telling me my Apple Watch can do it? Nah mate.
If we ignore all that though, lets look at what the graph has given us. I've extended this graph to the start of 2023, so we can see a fuller picture of how my aortic dissection and surgeries have affected it.
Right around April 2023 when I first had my dissection, we can see it takes a bit of a dive. From 42 to 36 by the time I was about to have my surgery. Post surgery, it continues down to 34 by Christmas (we'll ignore the bump to 38, who knows).
Suddenly Apple Health is calculating it seemingly every single day in 2024, and we build ourselves back up to 38 again, before the June surgery knocks it back to 35. Now, we're holding pretty steady at ~37-38.
I don't know what these mean, I'm sure Apple is doing something mega clever here. But it has made a fun graph for us to look at.
End of the year
Every year ends the same way. I love the build up to the Christmas. I like that pretty much everyone you see out and about is on the same page, and we’re all looking forward to some time off work. Then Christmas actually comes, and it’s the hollowest I feel all year. Childhood trauma persists through adulthood trauma. But I do get to spend 3-4 hours cooking Christmas dinner, which I love doing. I should cook more.

This blog has been cathartic for me. I don’t expect anyone to read it, and I don’t think anyone does. But it has been healthy for me to put things out into the world. Who knows what 2025 will be like. Hopefully, I keep doing myself the small kindness of writing this shit.