Just over a month ago I had a heart complication while anchored off a deserted island. Long story short, I made it to a hospital on a populated island, was then sent by plane to a larger populated island. After five days spent in a Caribbean hospital and I was told to fly up to London to see a cardiologist. The ordeal is now completely over as we’ve made it back to the Caribbean. Watch the video for the full update and then carry on reading below…
Britican Update – Kim Lives!
After all the palaver, I was diagnosed with Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). This condition affects loads of people and is not life-threatening. All that happens is the electrical singles in the heart get a bit mixed up and cause the heart to go into hyperdrive.
Eventually, the heart will sort itself out on its own but it’s very uncomfortable living through it.
And when you don’t know what’s happening it’s very scary – especially for those around you that are trying to help out!
While in London I had an EKG and a Heart Ecogram in addition to seeing a heart specialist. All the tests came back with top scores. My heart is perfectly fine. Another episode of SVT may or may not happen. No one knows why it happens so it’s uncertain as to how to prevent it.
I’ve been sent home with a months supply of beta blockers and some tricks on how to shock my heart back into breathing correctly – I’ve demonstrated the techniques (not my idea!) in the video.
We just made it back to Grenada yesterday.
We’ve brought Simon’s dad down with us so he can enjoy some winter sun. Originally, Keith, my father-in-law was supposed to fly out for Christmas. Plans obviously changed and we spent the holidays together but in the UK.
So, what’s next? We’ll keep progressing our plans to get Britican coded so to take paying guests on the Britican Experience. We’ll soon be offering week-long liveaboard experiences for people that want to try the lifestyle before they buy into it.
I’ll also get the videos going again although I probably won’t do a video every week. We’ll see how that goes.
So…here’s to another season on sailing Britican!