At 64 years old my annual physical revealed a heart condition called bundle branch blockage. Followed up with a cardiologist, who said that it’s an electrical problem, kinda like a short circuit that results in an insufficient heart muscle contraction … “otherwise, you’re healthy as a horse - keep doing what you’re doing, but there MIGHT be a pacemaker in your future”.
Two years later, on the evening before my 66th birthday, I did an overly fast, aggressive shoveling of snow off the driveway, kicked my boots off after coming in from the garage, took one step and blacked right out, crumpling like a rag doll on the laundry room floor.
I aroused very shortly after, and my wife drove me to emergency. All that night, my heart rate hovered around 26 to 30 bpm. A day later I got that pacemaker, just as the cardiologist had predicted two years earlier.
As a preliminary check, they did an angiogram on me as well - I did NOT like that; found it very uncomfortable.
