Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. 

 I would like to share my story with you so you can understand why I am undertaking this challenging cycle ride. 

Whilst at work last April I suffered a sudden cardiac arrest at work. As you may know only 1 in 10 who suffer a sudden cardiac arrest outside of hospital, survive luckily I was that one.  And I’m very grateful for everyday I’ve had since. 

I was physically fit and cycled 20 miles a day during the week to and from work. On April 25th 2017. It was just a normal Tuesday and I arrived at work at lunchtime. 4 hours later I had the cardiac arrest whilst sat at my desk and again luck was on my side as I'm a member of the armed forces all the personnel in my office are first aid trained and trained in CPR. They started CPR immediately along with some medical staff from the building opposite  as another was ringing for an ambulance. The ambulance was taking a break nearby and arrived within minutes. When the ambulance arrived and took over CPR I was shocked by a defibrillator to get my heart started again. I was rushed to hospital and put into an induced coma to protect my heart and me as I may have had a hypoxic brain injury. I remained in that coma for 9 days.

My heart function had gone below 10% which is not good. It took 3 attempts to bring me out from the coma. When I finally woke up I had not suffered any side effects to my brain being starved of oxygen apart from some short term memory problems. As I said earlier I was in a coma for 9 days and spent 3 days in Queen Alexandria Hospital ICU. I also managed to contract pneumonia in my right lung whilst in the coma. Which itself caused further issues for the doctors. When I was well enough I was moved to a cardiac ward.All in all I spent 3 weeks in hospital and when I left my heart function was 20%. I also was fitted with an ICD in my chest prior to my release to protect me in case it happened again. The ICD monitors my heart and if needs to will shock my heart to bring me back or it can slow my heart down of it starts getting too fast. It monitors me 24/7 and will notify if there is an issue with my heart. 

I have had a long time off work recovering with the full support of the Royal Navy I returned to work in November last year on a graduated programme. I finally returned to work fully in March this year. My heart function has increased to nearly 50%, anything above 50% is considered to be ok, so I’m getting better all the time.My ICD has not activated yet🤞so far so good. At my last cardiology appointment everything had gone down to minor so I’m doing well. And I intend to live each day thankful that I’m still here with my family.

I know it’s a long story but Thank you for reading it and I hope you can donate to the BHF because without their research I wouldn’t be here today and nor would the thousands of people who survive heart issues because of the BHF. Please help fund their research into heart disease the biggest killer of people in the UK. Thank you.

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