Today marks exactly one year to do the day from when I suffered a cardiac arrest out of nowhere and was diagnosed with Brugada Syndrome. It feels like sentences like that are always followed by something along the lines of “and my life changed forever”… it doesn’t feel like that for me.
Yes, in some ways my life does feel drastically different. Almost like I’m absolutely worlds away from the me from one year plus one day ago who was completely oblivious to his heart being a ticking time bomb.
But then, at the same time I feel the exact same. Oftentimes the experience of going through a cardiac arrest, nearly dying and getting diagnosed with a life-changing heart condition is nothing more than an interesting anecdote when meeting someone in a hostel. I haven’t had to change that much in my day-to-day and it hasn’t stopped me from doing anything I’ve really wanted to, evident by the fact I am beginning a spontaneous 3000km trek in just over 3 weeks.
I must say I do get a strong feeling of imposter syndrome. I’ve seen stories of so many others who’ve gone through similar events and have really struggled since - frequent hospital returns; daily medication; scares of their defibrillator going off; etc. When I’ve told anyone what happened 99% of the time their reaction is the same: their mouth drops to the floor, they’re speechless for a moment, then eventually muster up something along the lines of “wow that must have been terrible”. My response is generally always the same…
“Nah”.
Often followed by me ordering another pint if said conversation is in the vicinity of a bar. Not the typical response you’d expect from someone who came so close to death and needs a battery in their chest to protect them from their dodgy heart. Especially with the fact that I was advised to drink 1/2 drinks maximum per day. And to that I say: “cheers!” 🍻
All jokes aside, it does feel like the main change is I don’t drink spirits anymore (great excuse to turn down that shot I didn’t want), don’t get drunk anymore (something I rarely do anyway) and got banned from driving. The last one is a bit annoying but it just means I’ve had to become a bit more of a leech for lifts and is only temporary anyway. None of these are major life changes, more minor inconveniences in the grand scheme of things, if that.
I’ve never really struggled to come to terms with it either. Maybe when I was initially told in hospital it was hard hearing what had happened and properly understanding it, but within a few days I felt fine about it and was just bored from being stuck in a hospital room. I feel really lucky I’ve been able to just accept it very quickly, obviously massively helped by the fact it’s barely got in the way of me living my life.
In a weird way I’m actually somewhat grateful it happened, because beyond everything else it’s made me far more grateful and appreciative of just life in general. It sounds incredibly cliché but you never consider things like this as capable of happening to you until they do. It happened to me and I very easily could have been gone like that, but I was given a second chance at life in my eyes purely because I got very lucky.
On October 10th I set off to walk the entire length of New Zealand, over 3000km, and I couldn’t be more excited. I feel more driven than I’ve ever been in my entire life because, albeit a very long journey and likely difficult journey, completing will induce a feeling I don’t think I’ll have ever felt. I feel privileged to have been allowed to be in this position after what happened when so many every year are taken away just like that.
It’s weird. You never know where you’re going to be or what you’ll be doing in a years time. Such a short space of time in the grand scheme of things yet so much has happened. A year from now, I’m obviously hoping to have successfully completed this trek from one end of New Zealand to the other. But who knows, maybe I’ll have decided I liked it so much that in a year I’ll be in the process of walking home to the UK from New Zealand.
Something tells me that’s pretty unlikely though.
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