In celebration of the living and in loving memory of my Mum.

At 21 years of age, I started the CSIRO well being diet. That night, I woke up feeling faint and I thought my heart was racing. I just put it down to not enough carbs. I went to the pantry, ate a piece of bread and went back to bed. 

At 5.45am I woke up to prepare for my 7am shift on the IT Service Desk. I was still feeling faint and a bit out of breath, but just put it down to maybe coming down with the flu as 2 years earlier I had fainted in the shower when I had the flu. 

I got into the shower, but immediately felt horrible and even more faint. I got out of the shower, sat on the bath mat. A few minutes later, I managed to make it out to the couch, and called out to Ryan, who was still asleep. He didn't like the way I looked and wanted to call an ambulance. He was right, an ambulance should have been called, but I said no don't worry about it I just need to rest. 

I sat on the couch for about 10 to 15 minutes and the faintness and shortness of breath wasn't going away. Ryan wanted to ring an ambulance, I just told him to drive me to the hospital, I didn't need an ambulance. So he did.

He dropped me at the front door of Geelong hospital Emergency Department while he found a park, and little did I know, my life was about to change forever. 

After a mishap at triage, I waited for 50 mins on a seat in the waiting room, struggling to even sit up. the nurse came out to get me. He had one look at me, rushed me to the closest vacant bed and put the heart monitors on me. He also screamed some expletive words at the triage staff. 

I was hardly with it at this time, I remember being rushed to resus and doctors and nurses rushing over to me. Some more mishaps, and finally the consultant came over, explained I was experiencing SVT (super ventricular tachycardia) and they needed to give me the "drug of doom" to reset my heart. At this stage my resting heart rate was 210, and the staff were very surprised I was still conscious. 

The third time the drug was administered, it worked. As a patient you know it worked because you feel like you're dying. It's an out of body experience, and very difficult to describe. The nickname "Drug of Doom" is very appropriate. After lots of assumptions by the medical staff asking what drugs I had taken, and how many jager bombs I had drunk, I was referred to the cardiology outpatient clinic, where I was booked in for an echo in January (I had taken no drugs or jager bombs). 

Although I felt a bit better, I was starting to struggle with everyday life. Walking upstairs was a challenge. I hated washing my hair. I was constantly tired. Each day I would get up, go to work, come home, sleep and repeat. 

At the echo appointment, the sonographer asked if I had ever scuba dived. I answered no. She told me not to. That's all she could say. So I restrained from booking a scuba dive (not that I had any energy to do so), and waited for the cardiologist appointment 4 weeks later.

On the day of the cardiologist appointment, he was undertaking an emergency procedure and the waiting room was packed. I was the youngest waiting by many years. After waiting over an hour, the receptionist came out and said every patient was to go home and they would be notified of another appointment time. But then asked for Kat to stay. She told me to come back after 4pm as the cardiologist wanted to see me then. 

It was pretty obvious something was wrong, but I had no idea what. At the appointment, the cardiologist informed me I had a hole in my heart that I was born with. In the next 2 weeks I was booked in for more tests, and told the hole was 0.5cm diameter and it could be closed by key hole surgery. The catch - the only cardiologist in the state of Victoria that performed this procedure on adults was the head of cardiology of a major hospital in Melbourne. It was going to be many months until I could be seen by her. 

During this time it got to the stage where my energy levels were non existent. I hid it from everyone, but I was utterly exhausted and struggling to keep up. I had a couple more hospital visits (called the ambulance this time) with more bouts of SVT. I was put on a beta blocker that unfortunately gave me nightmares, so I couldn't even have a restful night sleep. 

Once I had my appointment with the cardiologist in Melbourne, she wanted to run her own tests. So I had another echocardiogram and TOE (camera stuck down throat to see another angle of your heart) and unfortunately she was the bearer of bad news. I had 22 holes in my heart. 2x 0.5cm.diameter holes and 20x pin prick size. I needed open heart surgery to close the holes. 

The holes were atrial septal defect holes, or ASDs. For my entire life, I had these holes in the upper chamber of my heart. It meant oxygen rich blood was leaking back into the oxygen poor section and being repumped. At the time of surgery the right side of my heart was 2.5x bigger than the left side as since birth it was working extra hard by pumping blood through twice. 

Two weeks later at the appointment with the surgeon, I was very glad my mum had blackmailed me into keeping my private health insurance (she wouldn't loan me money for my first car unless I kept my private health insurance). It could take up to 90 days in the public system for my heart to be fixed, or I could be booked in for 2 weeks time in the private system. I was feeling like crap. I booked in for 2 weeks time. 

The surgery was quite uneventful as I was asleep 😂.  Probably had the best sleep since I was diagnosed. The surgeon performed what is called minimally invasive open heart surgery. He cut under the ribs on my right side to gain access to the heart. By doing this, my left lung could stay inflated, so I only needed to be placed on heart bypass during the surgery. He cut the 22 holes into 1 hole, and then cut into my thigh to grab some tissue to patch the hole in my heart up with that. 

After surgery I was meant to spend 48 hours in CCU, but my recovery was amazing and I was up on the normal cardio ward in less than 24 hours. Although waking up with a tube down your throat isn't the most comfortable feeling. There is nothing like open heart surgery to realise you and pain meds don't go well together. Vomiting, nausea, hallucinations - they tried me on everything. I ended up on a panadol drip and an anti inflammatory for pain control 🤷‍♀️

I still remember washing my hair 3 days after surgery. I wasn't short of breath. I was born with the holes, my normal wasn't actually normal! I was feeling so good, that when I saw an advertisement in the local newsletter looking for basketball coaches, I put my hand up and was coaching my first game 4.5 weeks after the surgery! 

My 3 month post op appointment with my Cardiologist was when it finally hit home how lucky I was. As the right side of my heart was 2.5x bigger than my left, she was very worried I was in heart failure. This could have dire consequences. However, 3 months post surgery the right side of my heart was only a little bigger than my left. The cardiologist was amazed how my body just adapted to whatever was thrown at it, and continues to do so. I am on strict orders to never attempt to run a marathon, triathlon or anything that requires a superhuman effort. Damn, my life long dream of running an Ironwoman is never going to happen 🤣

But this is why I've decided to participate in my 3rd My Marathon to raise money for the Heart Foundation. It is my own version of walking/riding/running a marathon in my own time. My SVT plays up now and again, and is triggered by caffeine and alcohol, so I restrict my caffeine intake and I favour a non alcoholic wine. I can't exercise when I'm unwell as I feel faint and it will take me a lot longer to recover from my illness if I do. I had to skip participating in My Marathon last year as I was recovering from COVID.

In 2021, I raised over $2,000! This year my goal is $1000, but I would really love to reach $2200 and beat my 2021 record. For those that know me, they also know how injury prone I am, which is why I'm not promising to only run or walk the marathon as I'm getting old. So not only will I walk and run, I will also get on the stationary bike for some low impact exercise. I've also doubled the amount I am aiming to walk/run/ride to 84kms!

I've decided to launch my campaign this year on a special day. Today, my Mum would have turned 73. Unfortunately, my mum passed away 5 years ago from heart failure, so I not only run/walk/ride for the miracle of me here to tell my story, but also in memory of Mum. Happy birthday Mum ❤️

Another family member also had a heart attack recently, and she is in her 30s. Heart disease can occur in anyone, it doesn't discriminate. No matter your gender, age, nationality, weight or fitness levels, heart disease could just be around the corner. 

So please donate. It doesn't matter how small or big, every dollar counts. Around 50 people die from heart disease every day in Australia, let's try and lower that number by raising money for research.