Bret Michaels Having Heart Surgery

Open and say owww! Poison man is set to have hole in his heart repaired in January

Bret Michaels' ticker is getting a tune-up.

Months after being hospitalized for a brain hemorrhage, followed by a spectacular recovery and then a "warning stroke," the Poison frontman is now scheduled to go under the knife in January to repair a defect in his heart, his publicist tells E! News.

"It's for the hole his heart," his rep said. "I don't know any specifics."

While it has the ring of a power ballad, the condition is something the 47-year-old Michaels has lived with all his life.

During his spring residency in the hospital, doctors discovered that the bandana-wearing rocker/reality star had a "patent foramen ovale," a hole in the heart that had nothing to do with the stroke he suffered but was something he's had since birth that is "operable and treatable."

Michaels confirmed the health issue on his website back in May and indicated he was taking a regimen of blood thinners to treat it.

The singer, who also has type 1 diabetes, just kicked off his fall Roses and Thorns tour, which wraps in December. He'll take some time off and then head into surgery the following month.

But he won't be bedridden too long.

Michaels' next project is his autobiography, Roses & Thorns: The Reality of My Rock & Roll Fantasy, coming out in March.

"The next thing he has is his book tour [beginning] March 15, on his birthday," his publicist said. "After the holidays, he'll do this and then have time to heal before the whole book publicity campaign."