The beginning

Back in April, 2011 I was playing badminton regularly with the club and one evening I came in to do my warm-ups and found myself breathing very hard after only a few minutes of drills.  I chalked it up to having just gotten over the flu and so I tried to just push through for the rest of the evening.  Several times I had to stop playing and finally I gave in and quit – just for that evening, I thought.  I allowed a weekend to pass and went back to badminton the following Monday night only to find that I still could not play through an entire game without having to stop and sometimes even hold on to the net post to steady myself while I caught my breath.  I also still had a bad cough so I made an appointment with the doctor.  My regular doctor was on holidays so I was seen by one of his partners.  After listening to my chest for a little while he said, “Has anyone ever told you that you have a heart murmur?”  This was news to me and so when my regular GP was back he sent me in for an electrocardiogram, a chest x-ray and an echo-cardiogram.