At 43, a doctor told Jarrod Travaglia, ‘I’m not sure how you’re still alive’, before triple heart bypass

He’s telling it again in the hope that he can help prevent what happened to him happening to others.

Just before Christmas, Travaglia, a former prominent Victorian Premier and Sub-District cricketer and amateur footballer, was taking his son to basketball at Balwyn.

They walked about 250m up a hill to get to the stadium.

By the time they reached it, Travaglia, 43, felt like he had run a marathon.

“I was gasping for air and I’d only walked a couple of hundred metres,’’ he says.

“I told my son to go with his teammates because I didn’t want him to see how I was feeling.

“I went into the changerooms and put my hands on my head. I knew something wasn’t right then.’’

Still, he slapped some water on his face and went off to score his son’s game.

That night at home, he had what he calls a “bit of a turn’’.

He had a lump in his throat, he was shivering but at the same time sweating, he was light-headed and it felt like his heart was going to leap out of his chest.

“My wife said, ‘Do you want me to call an ambulance, what’s going on?’’’ Travaglia says.

“I said, ‘Just give me a minute’. I went over and splashed water on my face and had a couple of Panadol, and then my heart rate came down and I got my breathing under control. I went to bed that night and slept like absolute shit and then got up and went to the GP and said, ‘Something’s really not right, we need to dive further into this’.’’

He immediately underwent tests: a heart calcium score, angiogram, echo scan.

The results shocked him and his doctors.

“They found out two of the main arteries to my heart were 100 per cent blocked and the third one was 85 per cent blocked,’’ Travaglia says.

“The cardiologist said, ‘I’m not sure how you’re still alive at the moment’. They hoped to fix it with stents but once they got in there, they saw it was set like concrete and the blockages had been building up over a long period of time. They said they couldn’t unblock something that had been blocked for as long as they’d been. They said, ‘The only way to do this is to cut you right open’.’’

Heavily medicated, Travaglia was allowed to go home on Christmas Eve and spend two days with his young family.

He returned to Cabrini Hospital on December 27 and underwent a triple bypass the following day.

It was an eight-hour operation.

Travaglia says there had been signs all was not well with his health: shortness of breath, spells of dizziness, “not sleeping great’’.

He put it down to getting older and not being as fit and active as he used to be (he had retired from cricket at the end of the 2015-16 season after a long run as a leading Subbies player with Oakleigh).

There were also the day-to-day demands of running a business – the family flooring company in Oakleigh – and being a husband and a father to sons aged nine, four and one.

“I just wanted to think it was part and parcel of turning 40 and you just expect that’s the lifestyle you have to put up with,’’ Travaglia says.

But deep down, he says, he knew something wasn’t right. There was more to it than being a bit unfit, eating “crap’’ or pulling up rough up after a “big night’’.

Early in 2023, he had a high cholesterol reading.

Told by the doctor to return in six months, he never did. There had also been an episode that was later assessed as a minor heart attack but at the time, was put to down to a bout of panic and anxiety.

There was a family history as well.

His mother’s father had died of a heart attack at age 55 and Travaglia’s father, prominent former local football and cricketer Gary, had an event with his health 18 months earlier.

Travaglia says it “all came to a head’’ when he took that walk to the basketball stadium and felt like he’d run a marathon.

*****

Before joining Oakleigh in the Subbies, Jarrod Travaglia had played Premier Cricket at Fitzroy-Doncaster, as a left-hand batter and left-arm paceman.

At both clubs, he was a successful, popular and respected player.

His former teammates were among the people he messaged as he recovered in hospital last New Year’s Eve.

He wasn’t looking for sympathy, he said.

He was looking to raise awareness among his family and friends.

“I looked for every other reason to blame other than going to the doc and demanding a full health check, which would’ve picked up this problem probably 11 months earlier …’’ he wrote.

“Play on, she’ll be right … having what I’ve now been through, ignoring the signs is not the answer.

“Please, please can I encourage all my mates, wives/husbands, mums/dads, for your new year’s resolution, please go and get a full health check. Apologies for the sombre NYE post but if this can help one person, it’s done a job!’’

Travaglia spent eight nights in Cabrini – he cannot speak highly enough of the care he received in the cardiac ward – and this month finished a six-week rehabilitation program that began four weeks after his surgery.

He says it was mentally and physically stimulating.

Travaglia could not walk 250m in December.

He could not walk five metres around the hospital ward after his heart bypass.

Now, he’s pushing out 10 to 15km a week and training for a half-marathon in July.

He’s not yet allowed to run but his goal is to hear the starter’s gun as a representative of the Heart Foundation.

“I’ve never done one but it’s something I want to sink my teeth into and focus on,’’ Travaglia says.

He has made changes. He’s given up caffeine, has a “very limited’’ alcohol intake and is conscious of his diet, eating fish and vegetables and drinking fruit juices.

“When I get up every morning, I’ve got a bit of a system. I go for my walk-run, do my medication and then do a veggie smoothie,’’ he says.

“It’s getting into a routine. That’s something I’ve never really been good at but I haven’t missed a morning since I left hospital. Every morning at 5.30, the alarm goes off and it says, ‘Morning walk, get the f--k up’.

“Routine is the biggest thing now. You don’t want to lapse and go back into bad habits.’’

*****

Jarrod Travaglia says the post he sent out from his hospital bed on New Year’s Eve resonated with men around his age.

He’s encouraged them to take control of their health and be “proactive’’ rather than wait for something to happen.

Some of his friends got tested and are now on cholesterol tablets.

It was a “wake-up call for them’’, Travaglia says.

His great friend at Oakleigh, Benny Drew, was shocked to learn of Travaglia’s condition.

He says he considered Travaglia “healthier than your typical 43-year-old’’ and “probably the last person you’d expect to have such a dramatic health problem’’.

Drew is not surprised Travaglia is going out of his way to turn his situation into a cautionary tale for others.

“In true Jarrod style … one of the best leaders I’ve men I’ve seen on and off the cricket field … it hasn’t been about him. He hasn’t wanted attention, but he certainly wants to bring it to the attention of others so they get checked out,’’ he says.

Drew believes about 55 people in Travaglia’s immediate circle have taken themselves to their GP.

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Travaglia says he was a “blokey bloke who ignored signs for too long and what I now want to try to do is help people pick up the signs early and do something about it and don’t leave it as late as I did’’.

“Because going through open-heart, triple bypass surgery wasn’t the most enjoyable thing.

“I wouldn’t want anyone else to have to go through it. Jump on top of it early. That’s the greatest bit of advice I can give anyone.’’