Devin, best wishes on the health deal. Not fun.
On the rockers, it would be well worth checking into the use of a 1.6 rocker for a couple of reasons. First, stock rockers don't deliver a full 1.5 lift, and although a lot of guys have used them successfully, since you have to buy rockers, you might as well step up to some good ones, adjust them once, and be done. Then you won't have to worry about having one fail. The extra lift of a 1.6 rocker will help in the Hp department, and the rpm range for your build will be very low, so not much worry about problems there.