She lived 55 years with a life-threatening secret; it took a bike ride to unfold this medical mystery

There’s no denying that life is unpredictable and it has a funny way of shifting gears when you least expect it. This is what happened with Diana Warren, a 55-year-old from Colchester, during a casual bike ride for cream tea, which turned out to be a life-changing medical condition that she had been living with for over five decades, and this discovery changed the way she looked at life. Read on to know more about the mysterious health condition that went without detection for more than 50 years and how it changed her life.


What really happened to Warren?
The journey started back in June 2022 during a 14-mile cycle with her wife, Lisa. They had stopped at a cafe for some food to give them energy when Diana suddenly blacked out while sitting down. At first she tried to think it was a hot flush or a simple faint but after a week of her wife telling her to go to the doctor, she finally went. To her shock, the tests showed that she had a hole in her heart since birth.


How did this condition change her life?
This sudden diagnosis was like a wake-up call for someone who was active all her life! Diana went to St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, where the doctors tried to fix the hole in her heart three times with an operation. When that did not work, she had to undergo another operation to fix her heart in April 2024. The operation was a success and a pacemaker was added to help her heart beat properly.


Passion for cycling
Getting better was not about resting; it was about getting back on her bike. As soon as the doctor said it was okay, Diana started training and slowly got her strength back and went to the gym to get her legs ready for cycling. She is not doing this alone; her brother Gary and sister-in-law Teresa will be with her when they cycle from Clapham Common to the Brighton seafront this June. For Warren, this cycle ride is very personal. After being scared of what was happening to her, she wants to help the British Heart Foundation so they can keep helping people who have been diagnosed with heart problems. She thinks that giving back is a way to say thank you for the care she got and she wants to show that having a heart condition does not mean you have to stop; it can be the start of something. Now Diana is getting ready to cycle 54 miles from London to Brighton to help the British Heart Foundation.