My friend Jean calls it living life out loud. She means talking about what is going on in your life so others can benefit from your experiences. That doesn’t mean airing your dirty laundry on Facebook to get attention. In my case, if you’ve been following along recently, you know it means talking about heart disease and my own experiences with open heart surgery, recovery and cardiac rehab.

Probably the funniest response to one of these columns was from my heart surgeon. I went in for a follow up a few days ago. After he checked me out and gave me his seal of approval, he asked how my first column about heart disease (Don’t Make the Same Mistake I Did) appeared in the paper the same day he released me from the hospital. I told him I had been bored in my hospital bed. I had time to write.

I’ve really enjoyed hearing from others who have had similar experiences. Many of the people who’ve sent me notes or emails have had great advice or encouragement to offer. The coolest part of talking about it though, is realizing I’ve made a difference in someone else’s life. While not unheard of, needing five bypasses at 48 years of age is somewhat unusual. By writing about my situation others who are close to me in age, or even younger with some family history or other risk factors, are realizing that they aren’t immune to heart disease and need to get themselves checked out. Because of my experiences, they are calling their doctors and going in for a physical or a stress test.

“Cousin Bill” got a clean bill of health from his doctor; Gene was scheduling a stress test; and Chris, a friend since high school, sent me an email to tell me that he was planning major changes to his own lifestyle and meeting with his doctor to get approval for his plan. I also got a very nice letter from a new friend named Dick who had bypass surgery several years ago and received a stent just a few weeks ago. Now, Dick is preparing to leave on a long vacation in his RV. He closed his letter with this thought: The road has not been smooth, but we make the most of what time the Good Lord gives us.

If by living my life out loud (when it comes to heart disease) I can help a few people live longer and “make the most of what time the Good Lord gives us” I’ve done my job.

A couple years ago, I wrote a book called Keep on, Keepin’ on: A Breast Cancer Survivor Story about my friend Jean Hanna Davis as she went through her second round of chemotherapy. My next book, due out in April from Best Publishing, is titled Dive-abled: The Leo Morales Story, about a man who lost his entire right leg to cancer and has set world records as a diver.

Cancer has always been a bigger personal issue for me than heart disease. I’m not trying to say that I think cancer is any less important now, of course, but suddenly heart disease prevention has jumped right up there.

Right after coming home from the hospital, a friend referred to me as a survivor. I told my wife that I didn’t feel like a survivor, at least not in the same sense as Jean or Leo. They endured surgery and chemo and radiation and then still had to adapt and change their lives. In my case, I had two procedures and now I’m adapting my exercise and eating, but all of that is about looking forward and preventing a recurrence. On the other hand, and something I can’t take too lightly, I’m extremely lucky that the blockages in my heart didn’t kill me outright. It would have been easy for me to be walking down the street and simply hit the ground.

It didn’t occur to me until I was released from the hospital that February is Heart Month. My new-found heart awareness led me to dig into it a little more and I discovered that we have recognized February as heart month longer than I’ve been alive. President Lyndon Johnson, a heart attack survivor, signed a proclamation declaring it in 1964.

According to the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association, “cardiovascular diseases which include heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure is the number one killer of women and men in the United States accounting for 17.3 million deaths per year. It is also the leading cause of disability. More than 85 million Americans are living with cardiovascular diseases or the effects of stroke.”

It’s not like we need to make huge changes to our lives to be more heart-healthy. Get at least 30 minutes of moderate, focused exercise a day, at least five days a week. Eat more fiber and less sodium and saturated and trans fats. It’s not like you need to become a vegan or go live in a commune—unless you want to, of course. These are simple changes that we can all do.

And maybe with more of us living and not having to deal with heart disease, we can focus our attention on ridding the world of cancer, too.

Over the last few months I’ve noticed a few odd things about the way I’ve been feeling. In fact, now that I think about it, those odd feelings go all the way back to last summer. I remember getting winded mowing the grass and feeling embarrassed. I told myself that I must’ve let myself get in terrible shape. I hoped none of my neighbors saw me bending over, still holding onto the lawnmower, to catch my breath. You probably read about this in my column last week.

There are other instances from the last few months, but you get the idea. The last few weeks, before my doctor’s appointment, one of my greatest concerns was to not to mess up the holidays while rationalizing that what I was feeling couldn’t be related to my heart.

In all, the surgeon performed five bypasses on my heart a couple weeks ago. And then I spent five more nights in the hospital beginning the recovery process. As my wife and I have discussed several times already, the looming lifestyle changes and eating habits are a marathon, not a sprint.

Since I announced through social media that I was having heart surgery, an incredible number of my friends have told me their personal stories. One friend jokingly admitted me into the “broken hearts club.” My younger daughter told me that some people celebrate a situation like this by considering the day after surgery as their new birthday.

With this weekends’ Valentine holiday fast approaching, the odds are good that I won’t make it to the store to get my wife a gift. I realize now that worrying about not messing up the holidays would just have made the rest of them worse if I had keeled over in the snow. So, my Valentine gift this year is a bit indirect. It’s about me, but it’s for them. I promise to take better care of my own heart so there will be many more valentines in the future. Birthdays, too. And no more broken hearts.

If you decide to make the same pledge, my guess is your loved ones will appreciate that as much as a box of chocolates. (But you do have to put in the work, too.)

Entering the hospital, I passed a friend from church who was going home. The first thing she told me was how much she enjoyed these columns. And then she asked why I was at the hospital. I hadn’t had a chance to tell my family, primarily my daughters, at that point, so I evaded the question as well as I could.

Recently, something happened in my life that has changed my perspective on, well, just about everything. I went to see a cardiologist because I was experiencing some chest discomfort. (I was sure it was just heartburn. I was way too young to have heart problems.) By the end of the day I had been admitted to the hospital and was waiting on a heart catheterization and probable stent. After the heart cath, they determined there were blockages and I was going to have to have bypass surgery.

There are so many clichés about events like this. Every one of them makes the writer in me flinch, so I will do my best to avoid them. Still, when you fail a stress test (I told the doctor I’ve always been good at taking tests…) it is definitely a wake-up call. While I don’t plan to completely shift the focus of this column to talking about my heart, I imagine it will come up regularly in the next few months as I work through cardiac rehab and improve my overall health. If you can learn something while I learn it, we both benefit.

For now, I will say, don’t think you are “too young” or “it can’t happen to me, I have no family history.” I am 48 and have no family history of heart disease, either. But I have severe coronary artery blockages and have heard it said several times already that I’m lucky it just didn’t kill me.

Pay attention to the warning signs: Chest pain and discomfort. Shortness of breath, especially on exertion. Pain in the chest after exertion. Decreased ability to exercise or do physical work. I had all of those. In hindsight, I realize I’ve been denying them for several months now.

In a previous life, my job was creating CPR-related training programs and teaching people to be instructors and instructor trainers in CPR. I’ve held the rating of “Master” trainer. I still denied what was going on and justified it away, even though I knew the symptoms backward and forward.

Don’t make the same mistake I did. You might not be as lucky.