Hadrian’s Wall
When I was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome in the middle of my final exams for my Classics degree, Cardiac Risk in the Young helped me through that difficult time. They supported me all the way through my ablation operation, and through the additional tests in the year after that which finally diagnosed me with sinus […]
Running the London Marathon for CRY
Running the London Marathon for CRY I still can’t quite believe I’ve ran a marathon! But, we did it! In October 2015, I had two big things on my mind, I was awaiting the date for my electrophysiological study to both confirm the diagnosis of my Wolff Parkinson White Syndrome and to hopefully cure me […]
Trust your gut
So yesterday I died again, for the 9th time. Luckily, I was already at a hospital, unluckily, I didn’t have my ICD to protect me — it had been switched off. So a bit of back story; having had 8 cardiac arrests previously, my consultant Cardiologist had referred me to see the Transplant team at […]
One Year On
It’s now been Seven years since my out-of-hospital, pre-ICD, sudden cardiac arrest — and I have had 7 further arrests and ICD shocks — but I found this old blog post I wrote one year after the event, that for me is an interesting look back at how I felt during those initial months. Perhaps […]
I’m not a Zombie anymore…
I used to like to think of myself as a real-life Zombie. I mean, I am un-dead, even MORE than just un-dead (I think it’s more accurate to say I am un-un-un-un-un-un-un-undead now). I am THE Walking Dead, the real-life Dead..Poole. One of my favourite zombie movies is Zombieland, where they outline the rules when […]
The Nightmares
Let’s get real for a second, this shit is scary. I don’t like to show it, half part my upbringing in a macho-Australian culture, and half part the fantasy of trying to be a stoic, heroic videogame character. But I can’t pretend that this doesn’t affect me, and there is no better place this manifests […]
How a Suit saved my life
When I collapsed for my initial out-of-hospital cardiac arrest when I was 20, it was at a train station in an Australian town called Caboolture. It was the closest train station to my home town on the Sunshine Coast, but had a reputation for being a rough neighbourhood, a town primarily occupied by people on […]
To the girl on the train
At my local train station where I caught the train to my Internship, there was a gorgeous girl who took the same train. Every day, I would try and get the courage to say hello, but couldn’t. One day, we were even seated opposite each other, and yet I still didn’t say a thing. For […]
Red Bull Gives You…
Before my initial out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest, before I knew what Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy was or that I had it, and before I had an ICD — I was working at my first internship in the city. Every morning, I would hop on the 7:15am train to get to the office by 8:30am. At the final […]
The 8 Times I “Died”
These are the stories of the 8 times I died (well episodes of VT/VF 🙂 ) 1 :: Train Station :: 20 years old I don’t remember much about the initial cardiac arrest that started it all, only 3rd party stories from my family and friends who had to experience it for me, and some […]