Was I lucky to survive three brushes with death — or unlucky to still be here, sorting through the wreckage? A heart attack. A cardiac arrest. A heart valve replacement. I survived all three — and now I’m figuring out what survival actually looks like.
Three Strikes and Still Beating is my twenty-two-episode documentary memoir — a limited series that follows my journey from the morning of my first heart attack, to the near-death experience of cardiac arrest, to the slow walk into my home after open-heart surgery — a story that unfolds over seven years. It’s about hospitals, doctors, uncertainty, and fear, yes, but also about marriage, fatherhood, work and career, faith, and what it means to keep rebuilding a life when it gets torpedoed. This isn’t a podcast about advice, inspiration, or being strong. It’s raw. It’s honest. Sometimes dark. Sometimes funny. Just me, processing the absurdity of what happened — physically, emotionally, spiritually — and saying the things I couldn’t say in the moment.
Through humor, vulnerability, and a few haunting saxophone motifs, I try to make sense of what it means to keep going after life stops your heart three times.
I’m A.K. Thiagaraj, a San Francisco Bay Area software professional whose creative life was catalyzed by those three cardiac events. What started as an attempt to process trauma and disbelief turned into a story worth sharing — one that might make a few people laugh, others cry, and maybe help someone feel a little less alone in their own private battles.
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Was I lucky to survive three brushes with death — or unlucky to still be here, sorting through the wreckage? A heart attack. A cardiac arrest. A heart valve replacement. I survived all three — and now I’m figuring out what survival actually looks like.
Three Strikes and Still Beating is my twenty-two-episode documentary memoir — a limited series that follows my journey from the morning of my first heart attack, to the near-death experience of cardiac arrest, to the slow walk into my home after open-heart surgery — a story that unfolds over seven years. It’s about hospitals, doctors, uncertainty, and fear, yes, but also about marriage, fatherhood, work and career, faith, and what it means to keep rebuilding a life when it gets torpedoed. This isn’t a podcast about advice, inspiration, or being strong. It’s raw. It’s honest. Sometimes dark. Sometimes funny. Just me, processing the absurdity of what happened — physically, emotionally, spiritually — and saying the things I couldn’t say in the moment.
Through humor, vulnerability, and a few haunting saxophone motifs, I try to make sense of what it means to keep going after life stops your heart three times.
I’m A.K. Thiagaraj, a San Francisco Bay Area software professional whose creative life was catalyzed by those three cardiac events. What started as an attempt to process trauma and disbelief turned into a story worth sharing — one that might make a few people laugh, others cry, and maybe help someone feel a little less alone in their own private battles.
Before you hit play — quick note.This is a serialized podcast. The story starts at Episode 1 and goes all the way to 22. In order. Don’t jump around — you won’t follow the story. You’ll be confused, and then you’ll blame me. Some platforms like to show the newest episode first. So if the episodes aren’t sorted Episode 1 through 22, go into your show settings and change the sort order to oldest to newest. Start at Episode 1. Work your way forward. That’s it.Happy listening.
Series Finale. The final strike. The valve that was supposed to last ten years ran out of time. Open-heart surgery, new scars, and old fears — all over again.I survived once more… but survival isn’t the same as living.
The meds were working, the shocks stopped, and life finally felt steady— until fatigue set in, my golden retriever got sick, and my heart broke for an entirely different reason.
After experimenting with meds, my heart was finally tamed — but the process was exhausting. Between Costco phone calls, side effects, and a doctor vacationing in Hawaii, life somehow stayed absurd. Even calm came with conditions.
I thought I’d made it through the worst—until life gave me another jolt right before a big work presentation. Turns out, just when you think your heart’s under control, it decides otherwise.
The world shut down—but for me, the fear hit different. I’d already survived death once. Now, every cough felt personal. From toilet paper panic to Zoom therapy, backyard wine nights to a Facebook fundraiser in Chennai, this episode captures the strange, heavy, sometimes absurd reality of living through 2020 as a high-risk cardiac patient. Survival wasn’t heroic. It was just… muscle memory.
Fresh out of cardiac arrest and still reeking of antiseptic, I told my boss I only needed two weeks off. Why? Because fear, money, and ego make a hell of a combo. In this episode, I talk about rushing back to work, learning to breathe again (literally), descending eight flights of stairs in a Seattle fire drill with an ICD in my chest, and picking up the saxophone like it was going to save my life. Then—just as things were stabilizing—2020 showed up. The pandemic didn’t just pause the world. It collided with my fragile recovery.If you’ve ever survived something—and had to pretend you were fine—this one’s for you.
Fresh out of surgery, I walk into my electrophysiologist’s office — the same guy who just wired my heart to a machine. What follows is part science lesson, part tech demo, and part existential crisis. From “plumbing vs. wiring” to watching my heart get remotely controlled by a wand, this episode dives into the absurd, miraculous world of cardiac engineering — and what it means to live with a literal power source in your chest.
Back home after cardiac arrest—with CPR bruises, pneumonia, and a $50K shock device in my chest. My dog barely noticed. My family tried to keep things normal. I felt anything but. This episode covers the first painful, disorienting, and darkly funny week of recovery—when survival didn’t feel like victory.
Fresh out of cardiac arrest, I wake up to meet a new kind of heart specialist—the electrician. What follows is part absurd, part profound: a blur of drugs, Easter timing, and my family scrambling to choose which implantable defibrillator will literally keep me alive. Between morphine buttons, misplaced humor, and quiet faith, I find myself upgraded—part man, part machine. A story about survival, surrender, and the strange comfort of wearing my own spark plug.
In the middle of a speech contest, my heart decided to drop the mic — literally. This episode picks up from that collapse: the ambulance ride I don’t remember, my wife’s panic, the déjà vu of returning to the same hospital, and the surreal moment I learned the difference between a heart attack and cardiac arrest. Equal parts chaos, dark humor, and gratitude, Strike Two is a story about dying (again), surviving (again), and ruining a doctor’s pizza night in the process.
One minute I was delivering a speech about Alabama football.The next, I was on the floor — blue, pulseless, and unconscious.In this episode, my voice fades and others take over: my wife, my friends, and the strangers who tried to bring me back.Five shocks. Thirty minutes without an ambulance.A church with no defibrillator.And somehow, I’m still here to tell it.It’s the night Toastmasters turned into a trauma ward — and survival became my most unexpected performance yet.
New job. National sales kickoff. Toastmasters win.Everything was finally starting to feel normal again—until it wasn’t.In this episode, I navigate the highs and hidden struggles of post-heart-attack life: imposter syndrome, medication fog, jury duty guilt, and the return to public speaking.Then, on the night of a big speech competition, just as the words “Roll Tide Roll” leave my mouth… my body shuts down.Because sometimes, life lets you rebuild—just long enough to knock you over again.
Cardiac rehab was done. A new job had started. And I turned fifty.This episode covers the messy in-between: adjusting to meds, proving myself at work, battling new-job anxiety, and trying to feel normal again over the holidays. I talk about my 50th birthday party (complete with a dad compliment and a friend roast), my lifelong obsession with Alabama football, and the bucket-list championship game that didn’t go as planned.It’s an episode about expectations, disappointments, second chances… and remembering that just being alive to watch your team lose is still a kind of win.
I try to reassemble the pieces of my life after my heart attack — one cardiac rehab session, one improv class, one job interview at a time. This episode is about recovery in motion: not the clean, triumphant kind, but the messy, reluctant, often absurd version where you’re icing your chest while refreshing LinkedIn. Beaten by life. Still beating.
After the heart attack, life didn’t just go back to normal—it limped, laughed, and stumbled toward something almost like it. In this episode, I take you through my first post-heart-attack vacation (yes, we still went), returning to work (awkward), and starting cardiac rehab (with a side of senior citizens and sarcasm). I talk about rebuilding strength—physically, emotionally, and yes, socially. There’s wine, awkward coworkers, and a disloyal dog. It’s messy, it’s real… and it’s recovery, with some bumps.
Coming home after a heart attack isn’t the end—it’s the beginning of something strange. In this episode, I talk about that first week back: being greeted (or not) by my dog, peeling off hospital stickers like trauma souvenirs, trying to parent through fear, and realizing that “normal” might never feel normal again.There’s some humor, some heartbreak, and a lot of moments in between. I share what it felt like to see my family trying to help without knowing how, the quiet grief underneath the jokes, and why even a trip to the cardiologist felt like a family field trip.This isn’t a how-to. It’s just me, figuring it out—one sticker at a time.
After surviving a heart attack, I figured the worst was behind me. Then a doctor walks in and tells me I have a leaky heart valve—from birth. Congenital, he says. Casual, like he’s pointing out a flat tire. Suddenly I’ve leveled up from cardiologist to cardiothoracic surgeon.This episode walks through the post-op fog, the morphine haze, the surreal hallway “exercise,” and the moment you realize your body isn’t just hurting—it’s permanently changed. Also featuring: Tamil in a hospital hallway, a dignified hospital discharge (in a wheelchair), and a return home that felt anything but normal.Oh, and somewhere in there—I remembered to ask if we canceled the Airbnb.
The Cath Lab. Sedation. A stent in my heart. This was supposed to be the fix—but it left behind more questions than answers. This episode dives into that strange in-between: the moment after the heart attack, when you’re alive, but everything feels… off. There’s sarcasm (still intact), paperwork I probably didn’t read, and the first time I hear the words “permanent heart damage.” Also: what it means when your wife asks for help while you’re still pretending you don’t need it. Not just about survival—but about the unraveling that follows.
You’re having a heart attack,” the doctor says.Then he mentions groin access.And just like that, my remaining dignity packs its bags. This episode covers the next wave: the groin panic, the stack of consent forms, the casual phone call to my manager (yes, during a heart attack), and the real tragedy—having to cancel our Airbnb. Because when life falls apart, your brain still clings to spreadsheets, travel plans, and corporate calendars.Sometimes, denial isn’t loud. It’s just absurd.
Was I lucky to survive three brushes with death — or unlucky to still be here, sorting through the wreckage? A heart attack. A cardiac arrest. A heart valve replacement. I survived all three — and now I’m figuring out what survival actually looks like.
Three Strikes and Still Beating is my twenty-two-episode documentary memoir — a limited series that follows my journey from the morning of my first heart attack, to the near-death experience of cardiac arrest, to the slow walk into my home after open-heart surgery — a story that unfolds over seven years. It’s about hospitals, doctors, uncertainty, and fear, yes, but also about marriage, fatherhood, work and career, faith, and what it means to keep rebuilding a life when it gets torpedoed. This isn’t a podcast about advice, inspiration, or being strong. It’s raw. It’s honest. Sometimes dark. Sometimes funny. Just me, processing the absurdity of what happened — physically, emotionally, spiritually — and saying the things I couldn’t say in the moment.
Through humor, vulnerability, and a few haunting saxophone motifs, I try to make sense of what it means to keep going after life stops your heart three times.
I’m A.K. Thiagaraj, a San Francisco Bay Area software professional whose creative life was catalyzed by those three cardiac events. What started as an attempt to process trauma and disbelief turned into a story worth sharing — one that might make a few people laugh, others cry, and maybe help someone feel a little less alone in their own private battles.
