I'm 48 and in perfect health and have found out I can die at any second. My EKG looks like a roller coaster from hell. I went in for my yearly health check here in Japan and they found my arrhythmia. Then after a little research I found my mom's brother died at 38 for no understandable reason. So 3 Dr's here and 6 weeks later I now have a date with the scalpel on the 29th of September for a metronics 2 wire. CT scans and every other test shows me in perfect health except for my heart trying to daily stop working. Seems that all that clean living didn't help much.

You are so lucky to have caught it! In 1973 my 17 year-old brother dropped dead with an enlarged heart--no real explanation as to why, just a few guesses. In 1989 my father died of an apparent heart attack while on a business trip--the coroner didn't do an autopsy because my mother told him of my father's battle with hypertension--but the coroner did say it was the most peaceful death he'd ever seen, no distress, just a heart that had quit beating. Then last year I dropped with no symptoms, no pain--just a dilated heart, with me learning a few new words after the fact: idiopathic ventricular cardiomyopathy.

In my case the clean living resulted in getting a great report from the cath lab but not doing a thing as far as the cardiomyopathy was concerned... but it's left me with a clear conscience, a knowledge that I had NOT brought this condition upon myself through foolishness, but apparently through genetics, and we're NOT responsible for that.

Gambate, ne!