Heart failure might sound like a death sentence, but for Alan King, it turned out to be a life-altering experience that reshaped his perspective on health and happiness.

During a candid conversation with host David, Alan shares the gripping story of his health journey, detailing not just the clinical aspects but the emotional roller coaster that accompanied it.

From his initial heart failure diagnosis in 2007 to the subsequent challenges he faced, Alan reflects on how this condition forced him to reevaluate his life choices and priorities.

He humorously recalls how he once joked about being 'too busy dying' before the gravity of his situation hit home.

Through light-hearted banter, Alan's story reveals the importance of recognising one's limits and the necessity of lifestyle changes in managing chronic health conditions.

This episode is not just about heart health; it’s a testament to resilience, the power of perspective, and the unexpected silver linings that can emerge from life’s curveballs.

It's a weird thing to say, but the heart failure in its totality has not been a negative thing in my life.

Right.

Really. Because it's given me the life that I've had and I wouldn't change any of it.

Hello. Welcome to Life by Misadventure.

I'm your host, David, and today I have an amazing conversation coming with a friend of mine, Alan King, and Alan and I and Ben, who's our producer today is we run a podcast together where we talk about AI.

So we all co host the podcast and the reason that this topic came up is because we were just having a call. I don't even remember what we were talking about, but just in passing, Alan made a comment and he said, oh, yeah, I was too busy dying.

And Ben and I just kind of thought, you know, just being English and whatever, kind of being a bit funny and. And we didn't really think too much about it and just let it pass.

And then we got on a conversation a week or two later and it came up again and I think one of us said something about it. And then Alan was like, no, no, I'm serious. Like, I actually died. And we were like, wait, what? And he's like, oh, yeah, you don't know.

I have this condition. And this has happened. This is like the third time it's happened. And I thought that was absolutely incredible.

And I'm like, I really need to talk to you about this because I want to. I to want understand not only what happened, but how does that change how you feel about yourself and your family and everything else?

So that's who we have here today. So, Alan, thank you for coming on and talking about this with us.

Well, pleasure to be here, Dave.

Yeah, thank you, Brian. So just before we talk about the first time it happened, what was your life like? And. And you know, what were you doing? Were you active? Like, how.

Just what was going on in your life at the time?

And probably in the year leading up to it, I'd been feeling pretty unwell, actually, on and off.

I'd been to a friend's stag, actually, in Spain, and we'd had a few beers, or more than a few beers, and had a pretty late night right through to the early hours of the next morning, as you would do on a stag. And the guys were going to carry on, you know, it was. That was a Friday night.

They were going to carry on on Saturday and I remember saying to them, like, I'm going to have to go back to the hotel. I feel really unwell. And you know, and of course, everyone's assumes it's the alcohol, right?

Yeah.

And, you know, so I go and lay in the hotel and. And I'm there till the Sunday morning till they leave, you know, I'm literally unable to get.

And I remember laying in the hotel bed that night and just the room sort of spinning and almost kind of like a sort of surreal acid trip or something.

It was like I was just drifting in and out of consciousness and I remember them coming back at one point and then going again, but not really being able to communicate to them, almost like in a kind of semi com feeling. Anyway, so that was that. I did somehow managed to get myself to the airport with. With their help and then on a plane home. And that was probably.

Probably about three months before I. I sort of had full heart failure. Okay. In the Then months leading up to that, I was in and out of the doctors.

I sort of went a few times and said, look, you know, I really don't feel great. And they do an ECG and kind of go, yeah, you seem all right, it looks fine. You're 37, you know, what, what's the problem?

And I was sort of saying, yeah, but I really feel like not well, but that was it. That was as far as they would go with it.

So. So what was the feeling that you were feeling?

So just like all the blood was draining out of me, like just short of breath. Just like things were sort of. The walls were kind of closing in or something. You know, the vision was.

Felt like it would shut down and I'd have palpitations and you feel very sort of sweaty and unwell, basically, and dizzy. Very dizzy. You know, a bit. You know, if you stand up very quickly, you kind of go, ooh, well, imagine that on sort of steroids. And.

And the GPS were sort of having none of it at the time. You're going 37, you're absolutely fine.

And there had been a few incidences, I suppose, in my record, I suppose my health record back when I was a student where I'd had panic attacks and. Well. And of course now, on reflection, were they. I don't know, probably not. It was probably an early manifestation of this, but not as severe.

But so this went on. And on the very day that I finally did have the heart failure happen, I was actually on an advanced driving course.

Right.

Which was interesting because I'M sort of driving this car and I got this guy next to me in the car so giving me instructions and it's, it's like a kind of weird dream almost, you know, I mean, and we stopped at one point to have some lunch somewhere.

We were driving around kind of, you know, Buckinghamshire somewhere else is where I was living at the time, doing, you know, it's just an advanced driving course for work and stuff, you know. And yeah, I really kind of struggled to get through that day.

It was hard, you know, I was, it was, I felt weird, strange and unwell a lot of the time, but I didn't want to sort of say anything to the guy, do you know what I mean? Well, I probably should have done. In hindsight, if I'd known what was happening, I definitely would have done.

Yeah.

So I got home and it's probably four, five o' clock in the afternoon again, didn't really feel very well at all and thought, you know, I'm going to have to go to bed, you know, I've obviously drunk too much coffee or something or, you know, there's something affecting me that's not right. So I literally just took myself off up to bed, you know, and I guess just blacked out, was gone for the night.

And the next thing I know I'm sort of waking up and it's the morning, probably about half past seven, eight o', clock, and I literally step out of bed and just collapse, just go down, you know, and then I kind of wake up again 30 seconds later on the floor and sort of try and make sense of what's happening and just think to myself, I need to be in a hospital now. Like not, not in 20 minutes, not in half an hour. Yeah, not, not. I'm going to sit and wait for an ambulance. Like I just have to be there right now.

Now. Yeah. And were you alone? Well, so at the time, so my ex wife was there and, you know, I, I, I think I, I didn't even wait for them.

I just, I looked at them and I just said, I'm going to the hospital.

And just literally almost whatever I was wearing, you know, just walks out of the house, got in the car and where I lived was a place called Hazelmere, which is at the top of High Wycombe.

So it, you know, literally went down the hill in the car about two miles, just pulled straight into the hospital right outside casualty, just got out the car, left it, just literally parked outside the front door, you know, threw the keys in the car and just walked in And I just walked into the. To the hospital and just said, I think I'm dying, you know, and obviously, I don't know, they took one look at me and went, bring him through.

And just took me straight into the back, right. Wired me up and I, I blacked out at that point.

And then sort of when I came around again, at which point, you know, the family have arrived and there are people there and I'm. I'm wired up, basically, and I'm.

I'm, you know, what's happening, you know, and at that point they explained to me, you know, you're in heart failure, you know, you're out for a while, but now we've pumped you full of this drug and. Right. It's hopefully going to help try and get things under control and as well, what's happening to my heart?

And, well, it's, it's racing at 300 beats per minute. You've got come to this later, but I think called an ejection fraction, which is the amount of blood it pumps out. Right. You know, and that's.

That's down to sort of, you know, 15, 20%. And normal would be 70 or 80%. You know, that's. Each time it beats how much it clears the chambers.

And so essentially the thing's just completely irregular and just gone mad, basically. And whilst I was out, they'd done a. An echo, which is what the ladies get when they're pregnant, to have a look at the baby.

And they could immediately see that my left French core was just blown out, probably twice the size it should be.

Wow.

At this point.

Yeah.

And so what's happened overnight, you know, when you look back at that then, is, you know, I've obviously come home from the driving thing. I'm in heart failure at that point. I don't realize that obviously. Yeah.

And instead of what I should have done at that point, obviously has gone to the hospital. But, you know, I keep being told by the doctors that there's nothing wrong, you'll be fine, you're 37.

Yeah.

So, you know, I went to bed and so essentially I was in heart failure all night. And then I got to the hospital, I continued to stay in heart failure at that extreme level for about another 36 hours.

And, you know, the point which they have to kind of shock to get regularity back into the heart, eventually the drugs weren't kind of doing what they need to. And eventually the drugs do have an effect and things start to sort of calm down.

But that was about 36 hours and probably the funniest anecdote of all of that was my brother, when a good friend of his, very sadly, his wife passed away many, many years ago, and he sent me a text message basically because I texted him and sort of said this, by the way, this was pre iPhones, right? This was, you know, this was like a, you know, a Nokia.

I was going to say, yeah, it's probably.

Yeah, playing Snake in between, but sends a text message to me. I sent a text message saying, you know, they, they've done. The diagnosis is cardiomyopathy, diluted cardiomyopathy.

And he sends me a text straight back saying, oh, yeah, that's, that's what Gareth's wife died of. This is the news. This is the news I want right now. And so I, I text him back saying, yes, I am still in heart failure. So thanks for that.

Yeah, thanks for that. You've lifted my spirits no end. So I was in hospital then for a while and it was very low. The heart, you know, say this.

The ejection fraction was down to 25, 20, 25%, really, right when I left hospital. So.

So is that, is that what causes your heart to beat faster? Because it's like your body recognizes it's not pumping very much, so it starts pumping faster to try. And is that the correct.

My understanding, and I've actually spent a lot of time understanding the condition, is that there's a moment where for whatever reason, the heart's just become so weak it can't really function anymore.

So it's just, it's just lost control and then it's, it's trying to go faster to try and compensate, but actually it's so weak and it's not really doing an awful lot. So it's, it's like an over inflated balloon.

It's just stretched out of its shape and it's, you know, just flapping about basically like this and it's trying to get the blood. But essentially what's happening is there's not enough blood then getting into everything.

Yeah, my brain, everything's shutting down because there's, you know, and, and I think the reality is that if, you know, below a certain point, that's it, it just lights out, you know? Yeah. And you black out. And then, you know, you just hope that someone's gonna find you and help you get you back on track.

But yeah, that's pretty nice.

So I'm just going to look the camera and just say, we're not doctors.

No, no.

So none of this constitutes anything we talk about is not medical advice. This is just Alan's story of what happened to him. But, okay, so that's pretty nuts.

So that's sort of a couple of days that goes on, and then things start to calm down a little bit. Yeah, and then what? Well, how does your life, like, what happens in the next, like, week or so?

And then life's really different, I have to say.

I mean, it was sort of a real shock and awe moment for me because it was kind of like you're going along on one track and then I think in life, it's the things that kind of hit you from the side, isn't it, that you don't expect. They suddenly just push you into another track and then you have to kind of reevaluate everything. And what does this actually now mean?

And how do I go forward from here?

Because I'm now in an entirely new position, you know, and that's not something that, you know, I was expecting and it wasn't, certainly wasn't part of the plan, you know, so you go through a whole process of thinking what, what's actually possible for me now, what's capable. How much pressure can I put myself under in the future? What does this mean? How long am I going to live? And so all your priorities start to shift.

And at that point in time, the pronoun, the prognosis then wasn't great. I mean, it's got better over time because the new drugs have come along.

But at the time there was a new drug out called Ramapril, which was quite new, had been around for about four or five years at that point.

And at the time, with the level of severity of my heart failure, which was at the very severe end, I mean, they basically said to me, we can't believe you made it through the night, basically, that you're such a life, you know, you shouldn't be with us on paper, like, you shouldn't be here. We shouldn't be talking to you. Was about five years, that was with medication. It was probably.

Well, with a heart that bad, probably, you know, five years, you'll be doing quite well, you know, and statistically speaking, and.

But they did say at the time, but, you know, the ceramic pill drugs come out a couple of years ago and we, we don't quite know how well that's going to work here and what the longer term benefits of that are going to be. And as it turned out, very good. And it's been, you know, it's probably the thing that has kept me alive, you Know, in those.

And I'm not even on Ramapanoma because it's moved on again since. Right. There's new drugs.

But, but back then, you know, which is 20 years ago, amazing to think now that probably was the thing, you know, if it happened five years, if it happened when I was 30, I'd have probably been done, you know, because there was no ramp that, you know, it would have been a very different outcome. So I'm always minded of my, my grandfather who died of TB shortly before the cure for TB was kind of rolled out. You know, it's just timing, right?

Yeah.

Bad timing. And I think for me I got quite lucky really in that sense. But the first year was tough because it took a long time to get any kind of recovery.

You know, when I came to hospital, I had this sort of 20, 25% function, which means in reality walking up a normal house, stairs here, or whatever, you know, just a normal flight of stairs, I'd have to stop halfway up and basically sit down or, you know, I would go out in the street for a walk and an old lady would be overtaking me, you know, a 90 year old. And in fact the heart guy did say to me at some point, he said, look, you've got to remember you've basically got the heart of a 90 year old now.

You know, you might have a 37 year old's body, but that's not what's going on with your heart.

Yeah.

You know, and he said that's, that's really never going to change because this is a condition where there's no medical procedure for it. You can't go and have something fitted or a stem or a pump or there's no, there's no thing.

You've just got this heart muscle that's fundamentally now weak because the left ventricle has been stretched out beyond its capability and what it should be like. So it's thin, it's weak and it's never going to get stronger.

So do they know why that happens?

Well, it can happen for many different reasons. I think it can be genetic is the first thing to say. It can be down to lifestyle, you know, too much booze, too many cigarettes.

I mean, I certainly, you know, have my fair share of these and cigarettes. But then, yeah, no more than say my entire social group. They were all drinking the same and smoking the same. Right. So.

And they don't have this condition. So. So I think I probably wasn't at the extreme end of that in that sense. So it's probably more Likely in my case to be genetic.

Or you could be hit by a virus at some point which really attacks your heart muscle and you wouldn't know. Right, right. So like you just got a cold. Right.

But actually what it's really doing is the cold is almost like a cover and it's actually just attacking your heart muscle and causing you a lot of problems. So, so it could be a virus, it could be a combination of all three.

It could have been that, you know, I got a virus at university, let's say, I mean, I had glandular fever in my teenage years. I was swimming and at that point I was swimming and putting my body under a lot of strain from swimming as well.

So you think virus combination, then some drinking through university, you know, who knows right then. And they've never been able to pin it down for me.

And some, some people with this condition, they have been able to sort of clearly say, yeah, that was the cause.

Right.

But in my instance, they're not sure, can't really, they can't quite pin it down. Yeah, we don't know.

So, and so, so you, yeah, so that happens. Yeah, you sort of get your diagnosis at least you have an idea now, you know what that is.

And then is there any way, can you like work to make it stronger or does it, there's like nothing you can do really. You can, because you seem to get around okay now.

Yeah.

And I assume, and we've got a lot of story to go in between then and now, obviously, but is, is, is it the drugs that really that are helping or was there something you were able to go, okay, I need to go in and I need to walk, you know, X amount every day and that will build the strength up again.

So. So the frustrating part about the condition is exercise doesn't really help. If anything, it causes the problem. So.

And we'll come to that later when the second and third events, because really a couple of those were kind of self inflicted to some degree, but essentially, yeah, no doing more exercise or trying to. It's not like a muscle that you're trying to build up strength. You know, if I work harder, this muscle is going to get stronger.

The heart muscle doesn't work like that. It's just going to get more tired basically and more worn out. Right.

And so actually the things that will help it is rest, you know, lots of sleep, resting. So in that year, that first year, I was sleeping a lot, an awful lot. Right.

You know, sometimes 10, 15 hours a day, you know, I have to get you to Try and help the muscle recover. So the drugs that I took then and today, their job is solely, you know, beat blocks.

Things like, is to relax the muscle and make it rest as much as it possibly can. Okay. Which becomes a limiting factor in itself because that means you're almost like putting like a speed limit on a car now.

Now, this car can only do 40 miles an hour. Right. Because you want to rest. Rest the engine. Right. So, so, but, but, but that's helping it keep going in the long term. So it's about playing. Yeah.

Okay. Your, your peak performance is much lower now, but it will run for a lot longer. So the goal is to try and.

Try and manage it for as long as possible because the, the only other option, the only real option for this condition probably is a heart transplant. But that's like the nuclear route. Right. You go there when there's nowhere else left to go and you, you're literally done.

And, and actually there's an interesting statistic about that, is that I looked into this a few years ago. We might change slightly now, but there's about 3,000 heart transplants a year globally. So it's not that common. Yeah.

And so it's quite an extreme procedure. And to find somebody with the right heart at the right time is, you know, if you've got the condition, that's not something you're banking on. Right.

You know. Yeah. I don't see that in my future particularly. It's about managing the heart that I've got and then trying to do the best for.

And so over time, the ejection fraction for me went from 25%. I got it up to about 45, was probably 50, was probably the peak in terms of recovery. And that was through a combination of just like. Yeah.

Lifestyle, taking it easy to some degree and rest. I mean, look, you've got to have some level of exercise because you can't become completely unfit either.

Yeah.

Because that can be negative, but it's fine. But what you're not going to start do is work in, say, or start a couch to 5K or something. You're not going to do that.

I can run a marathon.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it's about sort of just finding that kind of sensible level walking, things like that. So.

But, you know, and I walk the dog every morning for a few kilometers, you know, these days, and I'll, you know, try and go out on the electric.

And it's quite hilly here as well, so that's probably.

Yeah, yeah, I'll go on the electric. Bike and I do a bit of paddle boarding. They are all fairly low impact and they don't.

Yeah, they don't require you to have a high heart rate, but things like running stuff, I've had to.

Yeah, can't do. So at the time. So you. You were married at the time. Did you have any kids or anything in the picture?

Two daughters, yeah.

Okay, so you had kids.

So how does that change how you feel about your family and how you live your life, like, within yourself, like, because obviously you've had this incident that's happened, and now you, you know, you've got this diagnosis and you're like, okay, and basically you've got five years is pretty much what they've told you. Yeah, at the time.

That's what I'm thinking.

So. So you're.

You're.

They've almost given you, like, a terminal diagnosis. How do you. How do you square that? What does. What does that do to you is.

I mean, to be honest, like, a large part of me just kind of buried my head in the sand about it and kind of thought, well, you know, everyone's gonna die from something, right?

And, you know, I sort of went down the route, very British route, kind of like, you know, stiff upper lip, and, you know, you get hit by a bus tomorrow anyway. And, you know, people are. Lots of people probably have things wrong with them. They just don't know. And then it happens.

And at least I know what the thing is. And, you know, in a way, there's almost a sort of weird comfort in knowing what the thing that's probably going to kill you is.

And, you know, and then. And then you're sort of aware and ready for it. But. But it certainly did change my outlook.

And, you know, quite soon after that, you know, a lot of life changes happened, I think, for me, and, you know, your priorities shift and you start to think about what you really want to get out of life and where you want to be and what you want to be doing. And, you know, because you think, well, you know, you don't know how long you've got, and it might be five years, it might be 10 years.

I was quite encouraged early on, I would say in the year one, when I used to go and see the cardiac nurse at the hospital in High Wycombe, and he would say things to me like, well, actually, you know, compared to other patients, you're doing really well. And, you know, he said, if all my patients were as good as you, you know, because I used to smoke and drink at that Point, Right. Yeah.

Obviously, when this happened, the, you know, the heart guy came into the. To the ward and sort of said to me, right. You know, do you smoke? And I was like, yes. He said, well, you need to never do that again.

Yeah.

And do you drink? You know, And I was like, well, you know, I enjoy. Enjoy a pint of Kidness. He said, yeah, you need to never do that either. Right. Okay.

Both things that are very bad for this condition. And so, you know, when I used to go and see the cardiac guy, and he would say, yeah, it's great. You've lost weight, you don't smoke, you don't drink.

Because I did just stop, by the way, both things straight out of the gate. And it's surprisingly motivated. You are. I tried to give up smoking for years. Right?

Yeah.

Yes. It's a failure after failure.

Yeah.

Someone says, that's it. You're gonna. Okay, I'll stop. And it wasn't difficult, which was the weird thing, caffeine.

So that's been the one vice that I've kind of clung on to and almost, I suppose, you know, I. I do drink decaf, I would add, mostly. And I try to, you know, limit that to some extent, but I think you kind of have to have something as well, you know, so that's. That's.

And they probably did tell me back then not to drink coffee, and I think I probably ignored that one. But. But he would say to me, look, you know, you're doing really well. You're doing all the right things.

So in my mind, I was already kind of thinking, yeah, five years. But I can't beat that. Right. Because that's. If that's the average. Right. That's accounting for all the people who just carry on smoking and drinking.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, don't change. Exactly.

Yeah. And the people who make it six months.

Yeah, exactly. So I'm thinking. So I'm thinking, well, you know, I think I can beat this. I think I can.

You know, probably at that point, I'm thinking, you know, because I was coming up 37, so not far from 40, I think, mentally, I was thinking, if I can get to 50, you know, and then. Okay, at that age, my. My daughters would be a certain age. And, you know, I would have seen them grow up. And.

And I think that was probably my goal, actually, at that point. No, I've set my targets high now because I'm 56, but at that stage, I think that's probably was the target. Yeah. And to try and do everything to.

To make that happen.

Did you make a bucket list?

Not. Not in the sense of, you know, here's a list of things I want to go and do.

But I definitely went through a process of deciding what's important and what's not. I mean, when I was laying in the hospital that first night, thinking, this is probably it, and genuinely thinking, like, you know, this.

Yeah, this is not good, and probably the end, I do remember sort of thinking I'd wish I'd spent more time with friends and family and less time worrying about work. And so I think it just. Rather than a bucket list, I think I realigned my priorities. You know, I wanted to surf more.

Things that I'd been sort of dreaming about doing, living up in Buckinghamshire, but never quite getting to do those sort of things. I mean, I live by the sea now, so I can surf and do stuff, right, and be out on the beach. And I love.

I just love being by the ocean, you know, I always have done, and. But somehow I found myself landlocked. And so.

So I think rather than a bucket list, I start making a list of changes I needed to make in my life for the next however many years.

Right, okay, so you've made some changes. You're ticking along, you're. You're feeling better, life's going along, and then you have another incident. What happens there?

Yeah, I. Funny enough, the. The second incident is probably the least dramatic of the three. I think the last one, which, you know, we'll talk about.

Yeah, we'll talk about that in a

minute, was probably, you know, more dramatic than the second one. The second one was quite incremental, and I saw it coming.

Okay.

You know, and it was at a point where I was very busy with work. I knew I was stressed. I knew I was working too hard. I knew I was getting tired. I knew I wasn't sleeping enough.

You know, I was on the road a lot with my job. I was, you know, pulling into services, eating a lot of junk food. I kind of knew what was happening for a while and that things were degrading.

And then there is a point, a tipping point, when you get, you know. But even then, it was kind of like on the. On that day, it wasn't like the first time where I've got to get to hospital.

I'm going to be dead in an hour if I don't. This is much more. I know things are getting serious. I can feel things aren't working properly. I need to get myself up to a.

You know, and it was much more Kind of calm and planned and you go up and you go and have a scan. They go, yeah. You know, your ejection fraction is way down now. You can see that, you know, you're in. Your heart's failing again and.

But it was much more controlled and also at that stage, because I'm on drugs for it as well. There are the drugs, some of the drugs I'm on, you know, try and stop it from going into complete meltdown like the first time.

And I don't think anyone think would ever be as spectacular as the first time, because, of course, there's no. There's no support there for it at that point. It's just running like, you know, a train out of control, basically towards a cliff edge, you know.

So, you know, the. Do you know what the percentage of people that make it past the first one?

I think it's probably 50. 50, right, yeah. And I think, as you know, I think the doctor did not.

The doctor, the cardiac guy in High Wickham did once say to me, you know, not many people make it past the third, you know, sort of incident. It's kind of like. Bear that in mind, you know, thanks. But. But I do remember thinking at the time, but if.

If the third was every sort of five or 10 years, that could be like 30 years maybe.

Yeah.

So, but the, I mean, this is the, you know, is the same thing you see in the media quite often, you know, footballers drop dead or something, or that, you know, someone just. It's that it's. You wouldn't necessarily. A lot of people have this.

Just think that they're overweight or they've smoked too much or they drunk too much. You know, they think they are correlated to, you know, not being fit.

Look, a friend of mine who I knew for years didn't know he had this condition, a guy called Dave, and he was cycling with another friend of mine, James. They both live in Bristol where. Where we grew up.

This happened about two years ago and they were on the Bath to Bristol cycle way and Dave pulls over and says, I've. My feet are really hurting me, and leans down to try and sort out his shoelaces, kills over and just dies there and then on the track.

And of course, the autopsy, it's dilated cardiomyopathy.

So he'd been living with it all his life and presumably he'd been feeling tired and short of breath and all those things, but it was undiagnosed because he just put it down to lifestyle and being tired and overworked, not Getting enough sleep probably. Yeah. So. So I think.

And maybe this, when this happened the second time, that was the trap that I was falling into is just kind of like, well, but it'll be all right, you know, I'll just, you know, I'll get some rest next week or they'll always be, I'll eat healthy next week or. Yeah. And, you know, I put on weight at that point and I saw I started to do all the things that you shouldn't do. Right.

Because you, you know, this is quite a number of years later. Right. And you're starting to feel, but maybe a bit more relaxed about things or less. Less. Yeah, maybe, you know, the fear of it's faded slightly.

Yeah.

You know, and so it happens again and, you know, and that's a big wake up call then.

Because then you kind of, kind of go, okay, actually, that thing's still really real and I need to treat this with a lot more respect than I have been.

So for the second time you were able to recognize because you knew what it felt like.

Yeah, I knew it was coming. And I think I probably could have said, I can see this happening in the next couple of weeks.

So I think being able to identify it a little bit earlier and get to the hospital, it wasn't as critical. So I'm in there and at that point my Jackson fraction has dropped from where it was at probably 45, 50. It's down to like 30.

So it's not down to sort of 15 or 20, which is the real red zone, you know, but.

And so I think I've managed to kind of intersect it early, basically, and say, okay, well, actually, you know, and, and they were able to then change medication, do some things. And of course, you know, I took action because I was able to recognize it and actually get some rest.

You know, I came off work for, you know, a couple of months and, you know, just took it easy.

Did you tell what were you doing for a job at the time?

Yeah, I was working at the imaqi. So I was at the IMAQI so long. It was all of this, all of these incidents where I was an employee of AI McKee, so.

And that is for people who don't know what that is.

Institutional mechanical engineers. Yeah, they were very good, very, very supportive, always around stuff. I mean, I'd given them good service as well, I suppose so.

And they knew that the moment I was able to be back and able to function, I would be.

And I was, in a way, never off that long with it because of the nature of the work that I had, I was able to do a lot of stuff, you know, remotely in telephone and online. So. Right. Quite quickly, I was able to be doing that.

I was about 10 years afterwards. Yes.

All right. Okay. So. Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, you had had a long time to kind of relax and we

were living in Swansea at the time, and. Right. I moved down here, I married my new wife, Emily, and, you know, it was a living in a new world, you know. Okay.

Lots have changed in that time, you know.

Yeah.

Other than my job.

Yeah. Okay.

Although that had changed because the role I was in, you know, the first time in the role, I mean, at that point, and then, you know, the last time with different roles as well. So.

So did it. I'm curious because.

And we'll maybe talk about this in a minute, but does it help to be able to walk into a hospital and say, I have X and I can feel it coming on, and they actually pay attention to you and treat it a bit more seriously than if you just wandered in off the street and said, my heart's doing something weird and I don't know what's going on?

Yeah, I think. Absolutely.

And, you know, that was the problem the first time when I used to go to the doctors and the GP is had they done an echo probably at any point, you know, in the six months leading up to this, they would have kind of looked at it and gone, okay, that's not good. But they didn't because they made assumptions that, you know, you're 37. We've done an ECG, which is. ECG is just a photograph of a moment. Right.

Yeah.

You know, it's not enough data, I don't think. And it sort of surprises me even now when I look back and think, well, why didn't you do an echo? Because it's not an expensive.

Every surgery is equipped with a echo, Right? Pretty much. Yeah. You can do these things. Should be able to do fairly easily. Right. So. But it does help. Yeah.

And I think, like, you know, you rock up at A and E and explain what the condition is and say, you know, I'm telling you, there's a problem. And I've got the Apple Watch as well.

I mean, in the last, most recent incident, you know, I had the Apple Watch, and, you know, I could see instantly was it wouldn't even record. My pulse was so weak it couldn't pick Anything.

Couldn't pick it up.

Yeah. So that in itself is a pretty good indicator there's something fundamentally very wrong. Yeah, but so, so when it happened

the second time, did you. So you were in hospital, did you have another heart attack while you were in hospital? Or were they able to.

So the second time they were able to sort of intersect it and get things under control. Ok. Much quicker and deal with it for the train runs out of, you know, control, as it were. So, so that, that was more straightforward in a way. Just.

I don't know. Was it as frightening? Not. Certainly not as frightening as the first time.

Yeah. But surely it focused your attention again.

It worried me more in one respect in, in terms of. Well, maybe more than even the last time in some respects.

Just because it was a sort of wake up where you kind of went, you know what, you know, maybe this is the beginning of. Because at some point the heart will degrade, Right. You know, the chances of me making it to 90, you know, almost zero. You know, it's.

I've already got a 90 year old heart. Right.

So at some point there will be this moment where it starts to decline and whatever drugs I take and whatever I do, it's just getting weaker and weaker.

Right? Yeah.

And so I suppose for me at that point it was kind of like there was a moment where. So you're thinking, so is this the beginning of that, is this now the beginning of that steady decline that's unstoppable, or is it lifestyle?

Will changing my lifestyle be enough to get me back to where I was previously? You know, and as it turned out it was. And by changing myself I was able to get an improvement. And again.

But a new drug had come along and it was interesting because that moment also was the trigger for them to say, why don't you, why don't we start you on this drug? We've seen really good outcomes with this one. So. So they switched me to that.

So I think the changing of the drug at that point and then, you know, sorting out the kind of, the food, the junk food, the sleep, all that sort of stuff and I could then within six months see it recovered by 5 or 10%. You know, then you kind of go, okay, yeah, so it's not the beginning of the end kind of thing.

So that, that cheered me up and then, and then, you know, I was fine then until, you know, the next time. The next time.

So, so how. I'm. I'm curious to understand and, and if you can try and go back to that point.

How, how does it like, obviously, you know, it happens the first time and you're like, oh shit, you know, this has happened and it makes you reevaluate and you, you know, you, you reprioritize, then it happens again. Do you go through that process again? Do you then start going, I need to reprioritize again? Or, or do you kind of go, is it just more of the same?

Not to the same some, but not to the same extent.

Because I suppose the first time after that I sort of made a lot of life changes, you know, in fact, I'm living in Swansea and have a new wife and all that, you know, so. So a lot of changes had happened, I suppose, in my life and I was sort of happy with what, what I want, where I was, what I was doing. So.

So this time it was much more just about lifestyle.

Just, yeah, you know, I need to stop eating, so I might stop drinking so much coffee and yeah, get more sleep and just, you know, try and be a bit more regulated in, in how I look after myself. So rather than I need to change my life.

And maybe there was a point as well there where I thought, you know, yeah, maybe I need to not worry about work too much again. Maybe I delayed myself to start working too hard or worrying about work or putting myself under too much pressure.

And I think that was a moment probably. I thought actually work is definitely cannot be the priority over my health, you know, so I need to.

That needs to come first and then work, you know, so.

And did you have better support at home after this?

It's always been constant, you know, and that's, you know, I know that when I'm struggling, I've got a problem, you know, she gets it completely, you know, she fully.

One of the things that, you know, Emily had gone through her own sort of turmoils and problems and, you know, around the same time I was having heart failure.

And one of the things that really sort of brought us together was that we, we sort of had this sort of shared experience of, you know, life changing moments, should we say?

Yeah, so she sort of trauma bonded,

but from different incidents, she completely gets it. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And then, so lifestyle changes again. You're sort of getting back to normal. Everything's getting a little bit more comfortable again.

Yeah.

And then you end up what, late last year?

Yeah, yeah. This was really self inflicted.

So what happened this time?

Well, again like time passes and you get confident, right. You start to think, do this, I can do that. I don't know. In that time, in between, right. I'd done some really silly things in hindsight.

I did a 10K across, you know, the Gar and Langenith, right. Which, which made me feel really unwell and dizzy and really quite funny that. Yeah, funny that. Yeah, yeah. But you know, at some point along

the way, did you say maybe I shouldn't be doing this?

I kind of knew, always knew.

But like, I don't know, there's, there's something, I mean I was a competitive swimmer growing up so I suppose there's just this sort of natural competitiveness within me somewhere. But, but actually, you know, I, I, the last instant has killed that.

I, I understand now that like, so, so in the case of the last incident, I, I decided probably about two months before that it would be a good idea to join a gym, you know, and, and I said, but I told myself, you know, it'll be fine because I'm just gonna go there and I'm just gonna just do some walking and stuff on the machines and you know, I'll do some very lightweights and I'll go and float about in the pool and you know, it'll be very low key, you know, I'm not going to do anything that's going to, but of course over the weeks as I was going, you know, just run a little bit and just, I'd just been building up basically a little bit heavier on the weights, you know, just competing with myself. But I mean, compared to what anyone else would be doing at a gym, right. It's nothing, right? What I'm talking about.

It's a, for most people, most gym guys, this would be considered, you know, like a warm up or a very light workout. But for me it was way, way beyond what I should have been doing, right.

And, and I'd just obviously been pushing myself too hard in that sense to a point at which, yeah, my heart wasn't having it. So on this particular morning it was quite early.

I went up, it's really about half past seven, six o' clock again, probably not a good time to, to exercise when you've got a heart condition very early because your heart's, your whole body's still trying Straight out of bed, trying to wake up. Yeah. With no food and, you know. Yeah.

And I put myself on the running machine, you know, and the telly's on above the running machine, and I'm chugging along to something. You know, this is great going great guns. And then I jump on the weights and. And I thought, you know, I'll just go up an extra level this time.

You know, I'll go from 30 to 40 kilos and I'm going to do an extra set. And, you know. And about halfway through the weights, I started to feel really sick. Like I was going to throw up, like, but really nauseous.

And I thought, well, that's. That's weird. Like, that's. That's. That's. That's not right. That's not right. I need to get out of here.

So I didn't want to be sick in the gym, you know, over the equipment and stuff. So I sort of got up and walked back into the change rooms very early morning, so, you know, there's no one around. And I go into.

Into the change room and it's really just me in there. And I sort of sat down on the bench for a bit, and I was half thinking, should I just go and float in the pool maybe? I'll feel better in a minute.

I know. I really feel like I'm going to vomit in a minute, so I'm gonna have to. I can't go near a pool, you know, that would be horrendous.

So I sat there and literally just in. In, in, you know, my pants and, you know, a T shirt. And I started feeling quite sweaty and hot, so I took the T shirt off, trying to cool down.

And then it was a bit like, just the lights were dimming and the walls were just closing in. I mean, like, tunnel vision was happening, you know, And I thought, Jesus is not good, you know, And I sort of.

I think I tried to lie down on the bench and that's it. I can't. After that, it's like. I don't know. So the next thing I know is I'm waking up on the floor and the.

The gym owner, thankfully, he's walked in at some point and found me on the floor and, you know, sort of obviously panicked a bit, presumably, and, you know. Yeah, you know, sort of got.

Anyway, but at that point, I'm sort of starting to, you know, come around a little bit, and he's like, you know, trying to talk to me, and I'm like, you know, do you know where you are? I'm like. Like gym, I think, or something. And he's trying to get a pulse and there's no, you know, he can't get a pulse.

And it's just like, you know, we'll do your blood pressure. And it's nothing. And it's just kind of like my blood pressure was terrible. The thing couldn't even pick it up. So. So at that point. So I'm.

I'm sort of sitting there and of course, his reaction at that point is, you know, do we need to call an ambulance? And I said, well, I. I know what's happening.

And the fact that I'm talking to you means we're possibly okay, because I do understand what's happening, because if it was going to just go, go, it would have gone, you know, the fact that I'm now having a conversation with you. So he. So I sat with him for about an hour, probably. Meanwhile, I've messaged Emily, you know, and I thought, I'm going to get to a hospital quicker.

She just picks me up and we drive straight out there. Then waiting for an ambulance to. Yeah, so. So he. She's arrived and then he's helped me out into the kind of.

Obviously at that point, Emily's got me up to. Up to the hospital, you know, then the hospital sort of takes over. But.

But the main thing I remember thinking as I went down was like, you know, thank God I've got my pants on. Really?

Remember you saying that? Yeah, I just remember you saying that. And I was like, you know, what a random thing. But again, that was quite interesting for me because it's.

Because now this is like the third time. And at some point you must have in your brain gone, oh, I know what's happening. And. And that's your thought.

It's like, yeah, you've just kind of got to the point where you're like, well, this is the third time. This is.

I honestly thought this time was it, I have to say, of the three events. Right. So the first time, you know, you don't know what's happening, but you know something serious, but you don't know. So you don't know.

Yeah.

Second time, it feels like a sort of slow car crash, you know, but actually I. I know even though I'm going into this car crash, things are probably going to be okay. This time was just kind of like I was really annoyed with myself as I sat there.

As the thing started to black out, I sat there, I was furious with myself. I was just like, you're an Idiot. Like, why, why? You know, you've put yourself in this position. It's your fault. And this is how it's going to end.

You're going to be sat like a sad man in your pants in a gym on your own. And that's. That's, that's. This is how it ends. Like, and I was just, like, actually just livid with myself.

Just like, this cannot be how it ends, surely. But genuinely, that time I did think that this is, you know, this.

Because the others as well, in a way, hadn't been as dramatic in terms of just everything shutting down. And it was almost like someone was turning the lights out, you know, And I thought, like, oh, God, yeah, this, this is like.

Did you have, like the. Did you see anything or did it literally just go black?

I just felt like I was going into a tunnel. And there was a moment, though, where I thought about. It's a lot since. Actually, there's a moment where I've obviously just.

I've drifted off mentally somewhere else and I'm in some kind of happy place, right. I'm not in the gym anymore. I'm not in the change room and I don't know where I am. It's like a dream or something.

I'm just somewhere and I'm thinking about something completely unrelated. Nothing to do with the situation that I'm in, you know?

Yeah.

And then, then. And then. And then I'm waking up, you know, and so it's sort of. So I've drifted somewhere completely.

But did that happen the first time or did, you know.

No, that's the interesting thing. This. This was the time that for some reason it was like.

And it was almost like my brain wanted to think about something other than what the current situation was. It was like. It was trying to sort of. My brain kind of went, right, don't think about what's happening, because that's awful.

Yeah.

And we're not going to think about something, you know, jolly and silly and whatever. But I can't tell you what that was. But, But I know. I remember that feeling of, you know, and then. It's just. Yeah. I thought.

I genuinely thought, to be honest, that that was curtains.

That was it.

I really did. I thought. And I was just so sad and so annoyed with myself, but.

But just desperately sad, you know, just sitting there thinking, you know, Albert here and the girls and Emily and just being like, that's can't be the way, surely. But mainly as well, because I knew that it was my own stupidity that had got me into that. Yeah.

You know, overestimating my physical capability had put me in that position basically. And it's not a mistake I would make now. Again, I think that did, did teach me something actually interesting.

Yeah, it's, I mean, frankly, it scares the out of me because I've had very similar symptoms myself and I've even been to hospital a couple of times from it happening and they basically just don't pay any attention to me either.

I mean, they'll, they'll, you know, I went home and did a 24 hour thing and whatever once and they, of course it's not doing it then and so there's nothing happening. And so they're just like, yeah, but you're fine. And I'm like, yeah, but I wasn't when I came in. And I know, you know, there's something

going on like you, I'd had before the first time, the 24 hour things, the ECGs, none of it ever showed.

I would say to anyone, you know, and as you said earlier to the Campbell, we're not medical people, but I would say to anyone, if you're concerned, demand an echo.

Yeah.

Tell them they physically need to look at your heart. Not, it's not enough just to, you know, monitor some electrical signals coming off it. They physically.

Because the moment they looked at mine, they kind of went, well, that's twice the size it should be, you know, and that's.

And was that in the hospital or was that at a doctor's office?

That was the first time in the hospital.

In hospital.

And it's kind of like. And, and they did say to me in the hospital, you know, well, where have you been? Like? And I said, well, I've been to the doctors many times.

And in fact, when I went back to the doctor after the first time and sort of rocked her back at the surgery, it has to sort of follow up about a month afterwards, you know, and he sort of was looking at my records obviously before he came in. And as I walked in he went, well, this is a turn up, isn't it? And I just kind of went, is it? Because it doesn't feel like it to me.

You know, I feel like we knew about this, but, you know, yeah, I

might have been in a few times. Somebody, I think it was on social media, so you can take it for what you will.

But somebody said when they go to their doctor and every time their doctor says, oh no, we're not going to do any tests, they say, I want you to specifically write in the notes, I chose not to do any tests because then all of a sudden they say, actually, maybe we will do. Because they don't want to write that they made the conscious choice not to do any tests.

So don't know if it works or not, but I'm going to try it the next time I go in.

I mean, I'm, you know, I don't want to get to knocking the doctors because they do a very tough job, but, you know, I would just say to anyone that, you know, fight your own corner and, you know, if, if you feel that there's a problem, you know, an echo isn't an expensive procedure, particularly so it can be done and they can, they can learn a lot from it.

So, so what was your, what was your learning from the last, the last time? Is there a. Yeah, I mean, other than being annoyed with yourself and actually going, okay, I've brought this on myself.

Is there, is there any additional wisdom that you take from this every time it happens or.

Yeah, I think it's know my limits.

And interestingly, you know, about two months before that happened, I played squash one evening with a friend of mine, Eugene, who's hyper competitive about things generally and squash particularly.

And we went with my nephew who was living with us at the time, and we played squash and I watched them both play and the nephew's very fit and strong and they had a really good game.

And then I just went, oh, I'll have another guy with you, and of course got carried away and within sort of 15 minutes had to sit down on the side of the court and felt genuinely unwell the next day. Not to the extent that I did on that occasion, but, you know, was clearly not good the next day.

And, you know, and what it's taught me is that this time is just know your limits, like. And I've drawn that line mentally now. It's. Yeah, yeah. You know, walks are fine. Going on a bike with it's electric, you know, on flat is fine.

Yeah.

So I did, I did a cycle ride actually recently with some friends and it was along a canal tow path because we knew it would be flat and it was on an electric bike, you know.

Okay. Yeah.

So, you know, it's just, it's rearrange things still. I don't want to stop living and doing stuff.

Yeah.

And you know, and sitting in front of computer and working is fine. That's not messing with my heart. Yeah. But putting physical strain onto it.

Do you still surf? Can you?

No, because, because the, the ability to sort of paddle out praying with your arms is. That's hard work.

What I will do when the weather's nice on a good day and the waves aren't too big is I go out on a stand up paddle board because actually with a paddle you can kind of get out with not too much effort. Yeah. And then catching the wave is a few quick paddles and then the waves doing the work. So actually I can still do that fairly well.

But I wouldn't go out and prone surf. Now that's proper surfing shame. But it is what it is. But again, I can still scratch the itch by going on a paddleboard. So. Yeah, okay.

Brilliant. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're still here.

Well, and you know. Yeah, exactly. And we can do fun things like my podcasts and you know, we can do.

Yeah, yeah, brilliant. Well, any wisdom for anyone else other than your advice that you've had so far?

I think that the great takeaways for me are, you know, realize that, you know, there's a time limit, I think, on everything and you never know. Right. And that for me is quite a big wake up call that you haven't. Nothing is forever and things will change at some point.

And it's this, this idea, this central idea that, you know, it's the things that hit you from the side that you don't see coming, that you, you know, that are going to kind of knock you out and then you have to work out how you go forward from those. The things that you can always see in front of you that you can plan for or you know, what, six months time, this is going to be really busy.

We're going to have this problem, we're going to have this to do. Those are things you can sort of always manage and they don't in the end, they're never as bad as you think they're going to be.

But the things that just hit you from the side. So it's just learning to deal with, be resilient to those and kind of go accept it. Oh, it's happened. You know, that happened is out of my control.

But now we're just going to kind of see where we go from here. And I saw probably the thing I learned was that you can't always decide when the chapter ends, but you can write the next chapter.

You know what I mean? And that might be a very different book or a very different story, but you do get to choose that as well.

The things that came out of it for me, you know, when I think back in those early days was you know, I really. I'd always been really interested in music and listen to music, you know, had a huge collection of albums and things and.

But I'd never really produced or made music. And when I found myself almost unable to walk up the stairs, I could sit with my laptop and make music. Right.

And so I started making music and I've produced three albums since then. You know, I've.

I've written books since there's things that I probably never would have done or thought of doing that I started to do because of the change of situational circumstances.

Right.

You know, my interest in subjects, AI and other things got much deeper because, well, I can't spend my days mountain biking and surfing, so I'm going to do more reading and learning about this or that.

So just to just embrace the new world when these things do hate you from the side and just go with it, you know, because it was kind of, that's your journey. And, you know, I think it's a weird thing to say, but the heart failure in its totality has not been a negative thing in my life. Right. Really.

Because it's given me the life that I've had and I wouldn't change any of it. You know, I wouldn't be here with Emily and Albert without heart failure, probably. So, you know, that's a good positive note.

Let's leave it there.

Yeah.

Alan, thanks very much.

Pleasure. Nice to be here.

Cheers.