A Post About My Heart
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Published November 5, 2025
It was the Fifth of November. Guy Fawkes.
Five years ago today I left hospital after what would be the last in a series of episodes of horrible and extreme tachycardia.
One of them was or likely caused a heart attack. One EKG showed a QT interval so wild it should have put me into cardiac arrest. When a later ambulance crew saw it, they were shocked, genuinely impressed.
During that time in 2020, a period of nine months, one of the outcomes on the table was a young death.
I was 29 through most of this.
Everything was pointing toward a changed life of horror; of constant attacks.
That last one came after some light had appeared.
I had been on propranolol for several months, and the medicine had been working for the most part. The beginnings of escape were found. A new heist of life in motion.
A few days before that final attack, a pharmacist had changed my prescription from propranolol to bisoprolol. It was interference for the sake of interference.
There was some logic behind it but not much. I decided to test it out since my one propranolol a day had failed once before. Two a day seemed to be what was needed, but this new drug had some promise to work for a full 24 hours. I wasn't fully convinced, but I decided to test it.
In the bath I felt the familiar build-up to hell. And then, It Goes. My heart went pounding, the pace of fucking for hours, a hundred metre sprint, a snorted finish line of SUPER cocaine. Away my heart went.
. . .
Some memories from that time stand out.
My cat Bluey, standing in front of me in the kitchen, looking up at me with wide eyes, fear and worry, so scared to lose me. I'll never forget that look. She knew exactly how serious it was, she could tell I was dying, and that look of so much love and worry, I'll never forget it.
The similar horror, real emotion in the reaction of my parents when I told them about the heart attack.
Vaping in the hospital toilet. Vaping in the hospital parking lot.
The hot young English nurse flirting with me, while my heart was still exploding.
The mentally ill 'doctor' crying and screaming and yelling on the phone as soon as the conversation began FOR NO REASON AT ALL. And getting every fact of my case hilariously wrong.
There was also kindness and professionalism.
Competence, but it was mixed in with laziness, ineptitude, ignorance, unearnt arrogance and incredible stupidity. That's the National Health Service. The NHS. Both a crown jewell of the country, a beautiful idea. And a deeply rotten shit-filled joke.
The problem for extremely intelligent people like myself is that often we have to deal with people who know far less than us, people who are simply inferior in every single way. ...But these people play the roles that we need to interact with, the writing of the prescriptions, the button pressing, the use of the machines needed for medical tests. They have degrees and letters about their names, they have passed the social tests. The system can't tell if they're twat-brained rote monkeys or actually smart, thinking individuals. It's a 50/50.
I saved my own life.
After the attack on November 5th 2020, I demanded the exact prescription I knew would most likely work. 40mg propranolol twice a day, every twelve hours.
I haven't had an attack since.
One aspect of AI I don't feel any worry or alarm over is AI in medicine. Less doctors, less ego, less incompetence, less mistakes, faster results, correct procedure. It will be a great change.
The ectopics themselves have stopped. I work out every day, sometimes and often for multiple hours. I've visited another 44 countries, and returned again to many old ones. I've had great sex and romances and now once again drink caffeine daily.
All in-part made possible by that magic red pill, taken every 12 hours. I thank the Scottish pharmacologist Sir James Black for inventing the thing.
Biology is both magic and flawed, flawed magic it is. Our job is to fix it. The most complex machine of nature
perhaps the human brain, fixing nature.
My heart is strong.