Published 10:37a.m. 3rd April 2008

| Mark Furler and AAP

Updated 4:18p.m. 3rd April 2008

Lisa Curry-Kenny tell of her heart surgery at her home on Minyama Island. Photo: Cade Mooney

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Former Sunshine Coast Olympian Lisa Curry-Kenny today broke down in tears after revealing the trauma of undergoing heart surgery.

Curry-Kenny underwent an operation to implant a cardio-defibrillator at a Brisbane hospital on Monday.

She had been suffering from an irregular heartbeat, a condition known as myocarditis, which could result in a heart attack if left unchecked.

The 45-year-old sportswoman today addressed the media at her Minyama Island home, flanked by her husband Grant and children.

Curry-Kenny said she was devastated upon first hearing she needed an operation to implant a cardio-defibrillator because she was such an active person who just loved to paddle four hours out on the ocean.

"I'm like a kid with my toy being taken away.

“At first I was really devastated and angry and upset but at the same time, now that I look back, I’m actually relieved that they’ve found it (the irregular heartbeat),” she said, breaking down in tears.

“It’s just something I never thought would happen to me.

Like many, she said she thought heart problems mainly happened to people who were older, unwell, unhealthy or who smoked and drank a lot.

"It has all happened so quickly. I'm probably still in a bit of shock about it.''

Curry-Kenny said going into surgery was 'really awful'. "I wasn't 100% sure that I needed it,'' she said, acknowledging that there was only a 'very small risk' of her having a cardiac arrest.

But she said husband Grant assured her she was doing the right thing and it was not worth gambling with her life, no matter how small the risk.

Curry-Kenny said her children were the most important things in her life and she never wanted them to come home and find her 'dead on the floor'.

"It was the right thing to do. I would rather be alive than not be alive.''

”I think it’s a really good warning for people to get things checked if they don’t feel one hundred per cent."

Curry-Kenny said she was unsure whether she would be able to compete as an athlete again.

She said she was still having breathing difficulties and was sore.

"I still have the heaviness in my chest where I can't breathe,'' she said. "The soreness radiates from my sternum right up to my neck.'' She also discovered she had a fractured rib.

Curry-Kenny said her experience was a reminder to all athletes and coaches about how hard they pushed themselves.

"It's a very fine line we push. We train so hard - sometimes we push through things that we possibily shouldn't,'' she said.

Curry-Kenny said never really got that sick training.

But she said: "I knew that if you train through a virus it can go through to your heart. I knew that. But I just never thought it would happen to me.''

She admitted as an active competitor and mother she was always burning the candle at both ends.

Curry-Kenny won 15 gold, seven silver and eight bronze international medals, and represented Australia at three Olympics: Moscow in 1980, Los Angeles in 1984 and Barcelona in 1992.