BY KAREN BOSSICK

Professional athlete Heidi Dohse thought her active lifestyle was over in 1982 when a rare heart arrhythmia forced her to have her heart electrocuted and eventually undergo open heart surgery.

The procedure left her 100 percent dependent on a pacemaker—something she’d long thought   something elderly people in nursing homes wore. But a wearable heart rate monitor helped her monitor her heart rate, eventually going from her hospital bed to racing bikes in multiple road and mountain bike endurance races across the world.

The former senior program manager for Google Cloud Healthcare will describe her personal journey as a heart patient and her volunteer work with Tour de Heart in a free presentation titled “Empowering Patients to Live Amazing Lives.” She will speak at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 13, at PeakFit, 141 N. Main St. in Hailey as part of PeakFit’s free speaker series.

Dohse got her first pacemaker implanted in 1983 and later began working with medical device engineers at Boston Scientific to tweak the pacemaker to get the performance she needed to become a competitive cyclist. She is now on her eighth pacemaker and she says the heart beats have gotten smoother and more natural.

Her Tour de Heart has been involved in such things as a clinical study to determine if cognitive behavior therapy or mindfulness-based cognitive therapy improves physical activity and patient-reported outcomes.

Depression and anxiety are significant issues for those diagnosed with heart disease, she says.

“There is not enough hope and inspiration for people dealing with heart problems,” she says. “My personal goal, and the reason I created Tour de Heart, is to show what is possible when we have the tools and information to manage our heart health.”

COMING UP:

Hailey nutritionist Jamie Truppi will headline PeakFit’s free speaker series at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 16.