I had chest pains in the morning of 28th October 2013, a couple of days after quite a tough run. I then carried on as normal through the day with no other pain. That night I was woken up with worsening pains in my chest. I tried to adjust my position so that I could go back to sleep, but the pain increased until I was on the floor. My wife took me to A&E where the Troponin test showed I had had a heart attack.

I was 40 years old at the time and was fairly fit, although I had some form of Post Viral Fatigue since the March of 2013 (underactive thyroid due to the flu getting into it - or something like that).

They kept me in hospital because my chest was still so painful, and did an angiogram, from which they diagnosed the SCAD. I then had pericarditis and ongoing chest pain, but an MRI later showed my heart was fine now.

Although I went through cardiac rehab, my recovery was quite slow. At first I could hardly walk down the road, but I kept at the exercises, and more than 2 years on I can swim 2km and run a fair distance. However the chest pain meant I found it painful to talk, sometimes simply unable because of the pain. Now that is a lot better, and only if I have to really project my voice does it hurt. However some upper body exercises still hurt, and wearing a seatbelt is irritating. Various attempts have been made through speech therapy and the pain clinic, but I am now left to live with it and slowly recover.