title: One Beat at a Time - Living with Sudden Cardiac Death
author: Matthew D. Noble
description: "I'll wake up in heaven, right mom?" That's just one of the questions a monther never wants to answer to her five-year-old. However, after barely escaping sudden cardiac death on numerous occasions, the question is bound to come up. Matt escaped that death five times before the age of eighteen. This is his story. The story of a young man who spent his formative years wondering if his next heartbeat would literally be his last. Now at age twenty-eight, after coming to terms with his fears, he shares his story and his life with the world.
zlib_text: ![](Images/image00086.jpeg)
  
  First Published by Ink Monster, LLC in 2015
  
  Ink Monster, LLC
  
  34 Chandler Place Newton, MA 02464
  
  [www.inkmonster.net](http://www.inkmonster.net)
  
  ISBN 9780990635246
  
  Copyright © 2015 by Ink Monster LLC
  
  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or
  used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the
  publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
  
   **For Kim Stern**
  
   **Contents**
  
  Chapter One
  
  Chapter Two
  
  Chapter Three
  
  Chapter Four
  
  Chapter Five
  
  Chapter Six
  
  Chapter Seven
  
  Chapter Eight
  
  Chapter Nine
  
  Chapter Ten
  
  Chapter Eleven
  
  Chapter Twelve
  
  Chapter Thirteen
  
  Chapter Fourteen
  
  Chapter Fifteen
  
  Chapter Sixteen
  
  Chapter Seventeen
  
  Chapter Eighteen
  
  Chapter Nineteen
  
  Chapter Twenty
  
  Chapter Twenty-One
  
  About the Author
  
  Acknowledgements
  
   **Chapter One**
  
   _I am so late._
  
  My heart beats at double speed while I rush down a marble staircase in the
  Ryder Mansion. If I were a do