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.
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.
Three Strikes and Still Beating
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.
