Peter's Story

Around the time of my 50th birthday, I was working as the Production Manager at a gypsum mine. Alongside the fairly physical demands of my job, I enjoyed cycling, walking the fells, and I was in generally in good shape.

One day, while at home engaged in some DIY, I realized I couldn’t work for more than 10 minutes without needing to sit down and catch my breath. Diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation (an abnormal heart rhythm), over the next couple of years, I underwent several cardioversions before my cardiologist decided that I needed an ablation.

The summer of 2014 was determined by thoughts of returning to normality. Although the procedure did improve things, it fell short of the complete success I had hoped for. For the next five summers, this cycle repeated itself until, following the sixth ablation, the Cardiologist informed me that there was nothing left to ablate, and the next course of action would be a pacemaker. It was installed in May 2022.

Now when I sleep, my heart rate doesn’t drop to 40 beats a minute. I don’t wake up feeling nauseous, sluggish, and unwilling to muster the energy needed to get out of bed and start the day. Gone are the daily texts to loved ones, reassuring them that I made it through another night. I can cycle, walk, and even run.

If you were to ask me about the importance of research into heart diseases, I would say that if I had been born 15 years earlier and fate had handed me the same present for my 50th birthday, I don’t think I would have seen my 60th. Things have progressed so much in just 10 years, and that progress is only possible because of research.