“This is a programmer that will check to make sure your ICD is working properly. It’ll only take a few minutes and then we’ll look at the results.” She started pushing buttons on the paddle thing. “It’s nothing to be nervous about. It uses radio waves to determine whether it’s functioning the way it’s supposed to. It’s completely painless.”

Yeah, yeah. I knew the drill. I should be used to being poked and prodded by now. This had been my norm since suffering from a heart attack four months ago.

It had been sudden and completely unexpected. I was young, not obese, and almost maniacally healthy. I worked out. I ran five miles every morning before going to work. I ate right and wasn’t a boozehound or a smoker. I had sex in monogamous relationships and didn’t dabble in random hookups with hookers on street corners.

The day that had changed my entire life had started like any other. I had woken up when my alarm went off. I had turned over and kissed my girlfriend, Sierra, before rolling ninja-style out of bed so I wouldn’t wake her up. She was a demon in high heels if she didn’t get enough sleep.

I changed into my running clothes, grabbed a bottle of water, and was out the door.

I remember feeling a little off that morning. Not quite right. But I had brushed it off as not sleeping enough. I had been up late celebrating with Sierra the night before. She had been named assistant manager at the coffee shop where she worked. She was thrilled. I was attempting to be happy because she was thrilled.

Things had been on the track toward good. I was your typical twenty-eight-year-old guy with a decent job as a sales manager for a software design company. Sure, it wasn’t my dream of being a pro athlete or an award-winning photographer, but I couldn’t complain.

I had just moved into a new apartment by the river with my gorgeous girlfriend of nearly two years. She had been hounding me about marriage and kids and white picket fences for almost a year, and I was starting to think maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Then, during my routine morning run through the park by our apartment, I felt a sharp pain in my chest. My left arm went numb. I couldn’t breathe.

I collapsed.

My heart stopped.

I died.

Two women walking their dogs found me. I was told later that while one had administered CPR, her friend called 911. When the paramedics arrived, they were able to get my heart started again.

But I had died.

I had been following the white light. I had been making the final journey. I had been ready for the big sleep.

Then I was brought back.

And my entire life changed in an instant.

While I was laid up in the hospital, the doctors ran a battery of tests trying to figure out why a healthy twenty-eight-year-old man would have a heart attack.

The answer came soon enough and it was one that would impact me forever.

I was diagnosed with a genetic heart defect called arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. What a mouthful, right? In simple terms that the rest of us could understand, I was told that it meant because of a genetic abnormality, which I apparently had my entire life, my heart didn’t function the way it was supposed to. Some of my cardiac muscle was replaced with fatty tissue that resulted in heart arrhythmia, which could lead to heart palpitations and possible death.

Talk about a downer.

The doctors at the hospital explained that with some lifestyle changes and medication I could quite possibly go on to live a long and healthy life.

I then proceeded to freak the hell out.

How could I live with the fucked-up knowledge of impending death hanging over my head every second of every day?

Oh, you want to take a quick jog around the park? Sorry, can’t. I could have a heart attack.

You want me to join in a game of basketball? I’ll have to pass; otherwise I could die before the first layup.

I was most definitely not a happy camper.

The two weeks I was in the hospital had been bleak. Between the intermittent panic attacks and frightening depths of despair, I wasn’t a fun guy to be around.

I had been angry and mean. I had made my mother cry and my little sister, Zoe, refused to come see me. Sierra couldn’t understand why I was lashing out at her when she thought she was being supportive. My buddies Aaron and Bryan had taken one look at all the tubes and monitors and had made some excuse about doing their taxes. I responded by throwing an empty bedpan at their heads.

And the louder I yelled, the less anyone heard me. So I stopped talking altogether. I was a damn mess.

I felt incredibly sorry for myself. Yeah, I became that guy. A big pile of emo douchiness that moaned on and on about how hard my life was and no one understood. In short, I sucked.

What people didn’t get was that I was no longer the Beckett Kingsley I used to be. I couldn’t be the wild guy who threw himself out of airplanes because I felt like it. I couldn’t play a pummel-each-other-until-we-puke game of football with my buddies on a Sunday afternoon. And I most certainly couldn’t go backpacking along the Appalachian Trail with Sierra as we had planned to do in June.

Now I was someone else. Someone who had to constantly worry about taking medications and not to “overexert” myself. I was seriously. Pissed. Off.

I felt like there was nothing left for me. What was the point of living when I had to stop doing so many of the things that I enjoyed? I was doing some serious, hard-core wallowing.

The doctors recommended that I speak to a therapist. Apparently suicide was a concern in heart patients. But I wanted nothing to do with any of that crap. I wanted to feel sorry for myself.

And then one day, pretending to be asleep, I could hear my mom and dad talking quietly. They were whispering so they wouldn’t wake me, but I heard them clear as day.

“I’ve never seen him like this. He’s just given up, Stanley,” my mother wept, her voice muffled. Even though my eyes were shut, I knew that she was crying into her hands. I had seen her do it enough times since I had woken up in the hospital.

“He’s suffered a major trauma, Meryl. We can’t expect him to be smiling and happy. Of course he’s angry,” my dad reasoned.

“It’s more than that and you know it! He’s my baby boy and I know when he’s hurting and when he needs me. But he’s shut us out! He’s cut himself off from everyone! From us, from Zoe, from Sierra. I look at him and I don’t see our Beck. I see a man that’s already died!” Her words gave me chills. Is that what she saw when she looked at me? A dead man?

My mom was still talking and I strained to hear her.

“I won’t be able to survive losing him. I just won’t. He’s breaking my heart, Stan!” My mother’s cries made it hard to catch my father’s response. But soon I could hear my dad’s rough sobs mingling with my mother’s and something twisted inside of me.

I had never heard my father cry before and hearing it then was a much-needed slap in the face. There I was, feeling sorry for myself when I was so damn lucky.

I was alive. I still had a life ahead of me.

It was time to take this heart thing by the balls and deal with it.

And from that moment on I had tried to be as positive as possible. I became physically stronger. Mentally I tried to keep it together. Every morning when I woke up, I said to myself, I’m alive! I played it on repeat over and over again throughout the day.

When I would look around my dismal hospital room, I’d think, My heart’s still ticking. I’ve got this!

When the constant beeping of the monitors drove me crazy, I’d tell myself, At least I can hear them. Because I could be dead instead.

I focused on the fact that at least I still had my health…or what was left of it. I was Mr. Sunshine. I had to be, or I’d lose my fucking mind.