Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY)

This year’s event will take place on July 6st!

(CRY) Cardiac Risk in the Young

Every year I travel to London to join the CRY WALK charity event. The CRY foundation provides Pre-screening for children and adults alike throughout the UK. The pre-screening is necessary to detect hidden heart condition (undetected heart diseases). I know for sure that many of you read about it in the newspapers, I know I do! The most known example of a person who died from an undetected heart condition was the handsome singer from the popular boy/man band ‘Boyzone’.  Stephen Gately was on a much needed holiday with his husband, on the island of Mallorca when he went to sleep, to never wake up again. Stephen died at the tender age of only 33. It turned out he too had an undetected heart condition called Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS). By pre-screening especially young children, the CRY foundation saved already many, many lives.

People never wake up again, soccer players who collapse on the field in full cardiac arrest. They never were sick before and they lived healthy. When a person suffers from an undetected heart condition, he or she doesn't know that they are in danger of dying.

Only pre-screening can tell if some is affected by an undetected heart condition that eventually will lead to an early but unnecessary death, if it stays undetected! Every year I have mixed feelings. I made a lot of friends and once a year I meet them and together we walk the CRY heart of London Bridges Walk. Tears and sadness also walk with me, every single year. Why? Because I hear the sad and heart wrenching stories people tell me.

Two years ago, I stood in line at Starbucks, for my much needed morning coffee, and in front of me was a couple they too were there for the CRY heart of London Bridges Walk. How I knew this? Well simple really, they wore the CRY t-shirts, with a picture of a young male adult on their back. When I asked them about it, they told me the heart wrenching story of their son who went to bed one evening and the boy (of only 17 years) never woke up again. Together we shed some tears; they were such a lovely couple.

This is just one heartbreaking story, unfortunately one of many. Hearing these stories always makes me so sad. My heart breaks when I see the pain in the eyes of all those who walk in memory of a family member, friend or loved one.

Reading about this is completely different than when you actually walk with more than 1000 others, who all lost a family member to an undetected heart condition. The face of all these people (who died too young) on the t-shirts make it all so real. By seeing the faces of those who died, everyone single one of them tell his or her story through their families and friends who walk in memory of the souls who had to depart much too early from this earth.

CRY