A man diagnosed with a life-threatening heart condition said finding swimming as a way to manage and cope with the genetic illness has been “brilliant”.
Dan Williams, who has Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM), said it had taken a long time to get over the diagnosis.
He said the condition meant he had had to give up aspects of his life including the forms of exercise he enjoyed, which left him in a “vicious circle”.
The 54-year-old said finding swimming had helped him to get back to living life in a normal way, while still being mindful of his condition and the limitations and dangers it posed.
Williams said he found out about the illness after receiving a phone call from his father in 2011 to tell him the genetic condition had been found in the family and he needed to get his heart checked.
After visiting the doctor, he said he was given an ECG monitor to wear, but was shocked to be met by three doctors when he returned to the hospital after two weeks.
“They told me I had an HCM and I could easily die at any moment if I didn’t get some treatment and get it sorted out,” he recalled.
“It really did shake me up and it just took me a while because ultimately I had to change my exercise, I had to go to an operation, and I had to start taking medication which then affected my heart rhythm.”
The condition causes a thickening of the muscular wall of the heart which can make it harder to pump blood around the body.