Kathleen's Story: The Mystery Inside Her Heart

On this week's episode, we welcome Kathleen; a razor-sharp narrator of her own medical mystery, whose postpartum idyll was shattered when she went into sudden cardiac arrest on the morning of her 27th birthday. Kathleen's story takes us from therapeutic hypothermia to an implanted defibrillator and after years of unexplained arrhythmias, shocks, hardware failures, and a grueling ablation, her breadcrumb trail finally leads to an answer. Along the way we unpack why women’s “atypical” cardiac symptoms get missed, the life-saving basics of CPR and early defibrillation, and how genetics can clarify—and complicate—the search for truth. It’s part birthday toast, part masterclass, and part love letter to persistence: a story for anyone who’s ever been told “we don’t know” and kept pushing anyway.