Hi, my name is Warrick Bishop and welcome to my podcast and videocast station. Really appreciate you tuning in. Today I've got part two with Jim Cavaney. If you missed part one, shame on you, go back and listen to it. Jim is a lived experienced atrial fibrillation individual. who at 38 odd years of age was identified with atrial fibrillation, went through a number of processes with medications, ablations, repeat ablations, complication with Tachybradie syndrome, pacemaker implanted. He's now 50 years of old and in sinus rhythm. But what he's done is he's taken his experience and wants to share it and make a difference for other people through unlimited health for companies forming. He's also written a book. called unlimited heart how to transform your pain into purpose welcome back jim thank you dr work appreciate it no i really appreciate you finding the time to share just for those listening we are jim and i are on different time zones um i love it when we're able to connect across the world it's just it it's wonderful isn't it technology so we talked about your journey last time jim and Most of that was the medical journey, but I'd really like to drill down on the emotional journey. You were 38 years of age, you were married. You didn't mention if you had children or not. Was that the case? Yeah, two little boys. So I'm a parent. Anyone who's a parent knows that number one in your world are your kids. And I can't help but think that for a 38-year-old who's going through a medical process, one of the... top concerns in your mind would have been about who's going to look after the kids and what's going to happen. Do you want to share some of your own, not the medical journey, but really that emotional journey that you travel, Jim? Sure. We'd love to share that. And it was further complicated in the sense that when I was diagnosed, I also was starting my first business. And so my wife had just, we decided to, she decided to stay home with the kids. I was going to start the business. So there's like, you know, there's the no income coming in. We're using savings to drive this business. And then things start to grow. And so there was the there was, I guess, the added pressures of saying, well, no, my wife's not working. She's taking care of the kids. I've got to drive some income. So so having the pressure of trying to build the business, but also take care of myself from from an emotional and a mental perspective, as well as. take care of my heart, you know, so that the heart both metaphorically and physically would be able to sustain itself so I could take care of my kids. And so that was the driving purpose of me to try to do as well as I could in business so that we could, if I were to drop over and not come back, then they would be in good stead. So for those listening, just a quick reminder, stress of its own. can trigger atrial fibrillation. So it's almost a slippery pole. The very presence of the condition drives the stress that may continue to drive the condition. So a conundrum, really. But great that you've moved through that. You've written a book called Unlimited Heart, how to transform your pain into purpose. I'm guessing that's really sharing the raw experiences that you had through this journey. So it is the raw experiences of definitely the cardiac aspect of it on the back end of the book, but it also, it's a memoir-y business book. So it, in essence, captures, it's the battle between the heart and mind, you know, for me, like when I was a kid, dealing with anxiety issues. And then trying to strengthen my mind so that I could do things that I could overcome my own anxiety. And then strengthen myself as I made myself through, as I grew up through college, university and everything else. And then ultimately to the diagnosis. And it's interesting, you know, when I look at what I went through, and this was the purpose of the book. When I looked at what I went through as a kid, through college and everything else, it's that actually which strengthened me. to be able to handle the diagnosis of AFib at 38 and also drive the business. So the emphasis around the unlimited heart side of it is like when the heart and the mind can come together, how powerful of a force that can be for any individual who's trying to overcome the challenges that they're facing. So quite a generic book in many ways, not necessarily AF related. Jim, it sounds actually like a great read. So where would I get a copy of that? So it's available globally at Amazon. So it's all the bookstores online. You can order it as well as globally through Amazon. Is it on Audible? It is soon to be on Audible. So we'll be releasing our audio book in the next, I think, two weeks or so. So we'll have a big announcement around that. Okay, that's great. I think audio, Audible is a great way to access. And it is on Kindle as well. So if folks have Kindle, then it's available for that too. Terrific. All right. Well, I'll let the listeners track that down. What I'd like to now cover is some of your own experience. When we set this up, your publicity... agent sent me a list of questions that might be relevant to ask you. And one of them was three questions to ask your cardiology team today. So what would you be recommending that people are asking their cardiologist or team, Jim? Yes. Yeah, no, and I think it's a great, it's a great question, right? And so right now there's, and you being a cardiologist, right, is you understand the importance of lifestyle management for all things related, not just AFib, but all things. And I think, you know. So some people, as you know, I think it's about 30 to 40 percent. You can correct me if I'm wrong. 30 to 40 percent of patients are asymptomatic with their AFib. So they may or may not know they actually have it until they go in for something else. And then lo and behold, you get the blood pressure taken and something's weird. And so I think that when I think about this, like even if you're not feeling anything, just get checked just for the right reasons. And I would say the three things to ask for is if I do have AFib, what is the cause? Is this something that, you know, physical in nature that my heart is causing for me? Is the cause because I had a procedure done just prior? Is it my lifestyle? Am I obese? Do I have diabetes? Am I hypertensive? Right. So those are obviously the risk factors that add to the unfortunate AFib diagnosis. And then, you know, the second question would be like, all right, if it is lifestyle driven, what changes can I make? in order to potentially reverse it or even prevent it from happening? And then lastly, what are the treatment options? Because as you and I were talking before this podcast, the evolution of all of these new treatments and devices and things like that to fix the AFib is really astounding on the direction in which we're going. There is certainly a lot happening in that space of progress for the ablative type. technologies and some of it's even outside the body. So able to target very directed extra corporation, they call it as far as I can remember, but ways to damage cells from outside the body within the heart in an incredibly precise way. So there's lots and lots of stuff happening there. There are also on that list of suitable questions was five warning signs of atrial fibrillation. Do you want to speak to those, Jim? Yeah, I think, and this is where, you know, I know there's huge movements on a public service announcement, like, and I remember this, and this was me, by the way, so I'm speaking to myself as, you know, passing out is not normal, right? So if you have that, if that's happening, that's just not something that should be happening. Go get checked out. I think also any type of dysrhythmia that's happening. So if you have an elevated heart rate for just some randomness, you're sitting there, you're idle, and all of a sudden your heart goes through the roof. That also happened to me. So those are the two of the things that I think are really important to address. But just if anything that's really impacting you and you just feel generally different, then go and see somebody. It's an appointment. It doesn't take very long for somebody to quickly address. And then the other aspect of it is the availability of devices. I mean, I'm wearing a watch right now. Also, there's other devices that are a little bit more accurate than the watches. But just wearing simple devices can also help to raise awareness of whether or not you are in AFib or not. So I think those are some of the other things that you can do to make yourself aware of. whether or not it's something that you have to be concerned with. Look, I think we're going to see more and more of these wearable devices and clever phones and so forth come into our day-to-day existence, really. It makes perfect sense. You spoke about the number of people who aren't aware that they're even in atrial fibrillation, and that's true. A lot of people just don't even know. The opportunity to have a device that may be monitoring you and give at least a signal that the pulse is irregular will be incredibly important. We haven't really figured out how that looks yet. We haven't got the right answer there, but we're getting there. The Apple AF study, which was massive, looked at thousands of people. really showed a very low rate of event, but that was because most of the people who were using Apple Watches at the time were young folk and not the sort of cohort who we'd normally expect. But that doesn't mean that those young folk won't become older folk and then those watches and what they're monitoring becomes more and more relevant. So I think it's a really interesting space. And that incidental opportunity for checking is also a great idea. In Australia, our guidelines for atrial fibrillation would suggest that incidental checking or opportunistic checking for atrial fibrillation should occur at every medical encounter for individuals 65 years of age or over. And that incidental checking is just really making sure the pulse is strong and regular and not erratic, thready, irregularly irregular like atrial fibrillation might be. Jim, your company that you formed, Unlimited Health, this has come out of your lived experience. Potentially, I'm guessing it's also evolved out of you writing your book, Unlimited Heart. Tell us a bit about your current business that you're getting up and running. Yeah, so this is my transforming my pain into purpose initiative. Even though I grew up in life sciences and I built a company that created learning materials and all scientific modules for physicians and sales professionals, I still was very ignorant about my disease and the management of my disease. So I would say I was a pretty educated individual, but very ignorant. And so I thought to myself, if that's how I am, how are everybody else who's not exposed to medical information on a regular basis, how are they dealing with this? And one of the things that I looked at, and you and I were chatting about this, there's great organizations globally. In the US, we have obviously American Heart Association. We have stopafib.org, which is a patient advocacy group. Very wonderful amounts of information. But the challenges, and I've said this to them directly, the challenges with this is when you talk about lifestyle modification or some things that you can do to help to control and manage your AFib, is they say you should change your lifestyle. But if you're not really providing the system to do that, then people aren't going to do it. I mean, I can speak affectionately about the people in the United States. We're kind of lazy in the United States. And so if we give them a proper system to say, hey, this is how you become a better person. And if you can become a better person, you might become a better patient. And so Unlimited Heart Health and Wellness is here to really address. diet, exercise, cognitive behavioral therapy, as well as a robust center for education that is specific to their diagnosis. So that's our whole goal. And also to build a community. of accountability partners. Because as you probably know this, you know, as we're talking about caregivers in general, sometimes the caregivers are equally as bad shape as the patients themselves. So we want to have those accountability so they can make themselves each better. And then we have hopefully a healthier environment for everybody. Yeah, I think that's true. Look, I've spent a lot of time speaking with patients over the years around lifestyle. diet, weight loss, et cetera. And without at the risk of telling you how to suck eggs, I've broken it down to five main points that need to be addressed. And it sounds like you've covered them in Unlimited Health. But for those listening, no one will change unless... First of all, they agree they have to. So number one is a willingness to change. Then I think you need to give people information. That's super important. But information by itself is not a solution. Information is what I had when I finished final year medicine, but hadn't touched a patient properly. That information needs to be converted to knowledge, which is what I've got now. I've forgotten a bit of the information, but I've got much more knowledge, if that makes sense. some sort of accountability. So we'll see you in a couple of weeks and see how you're going. And you need support, which is really a coach who, when you've failed, you get picked up, dusted down, reminded that everything's okay. Let's reset and go. Or if you've succeeded, you've got someone cheering for you. So they're the sort of five things I try and bring to my own. Patient intervention sounds exactly what you're looking to structure to help people. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. So those are great, very good five good points. And that is what our basis is. And the interesting thing, though, is it's common sense, right? So you don't need a lot of technology to do these things. So it's not overly... you know, innovative from that perspective. But we can bring in technology to make this a little bit more streamlined for the patients and the caregivers. But generally, if you just watch what you eat and you're willing to change, you can make big things, but make sure you do it a small steps at a time. Don't try two larger goals out of the gate. Yeah, I think that's true, isn't it? Small steps are wise. the easiest to take and lots of small steps can have a profound impact. So can people in Australia find unlimited health or is that something? So there's two websites. So for the book, you can go to unlimitedheartbook.com and you'll find my bio also access to where to purchase the book and then unlimited heart. health and wellness, you can find that at unlimitedheart.co.com. Okay. Well, look, it's been a pleasure speaking with you, Jim. As a reminder for those listening, I'm speaking to Jim Cavaney. He's a lived experience atrial fibrillation patient who at 38 years of age was diagnosed. The story is Amazing, but everybody's story is different and everyone's has subtle nuances. Jim is turning his pain into purpose by trying to help others through unlimited health. And I think that's fantastic. And he's written a book called Unlimited Heart. So do check those out. Jim, I really do appreciate you taking the time to share. Thank you. Thank you very much. Enjoy your day. Thank you. So for those listening. I'm sure you've enjoyed this as much as I have. If you've got any queries or questions, drop us a note. It's at info at drWarrickbishop.online. As always, I really am grateful that you've listened in. And till next time, I hope you live as well as possible for as long as possible. Take care and bye for now.
