Our Stories: Overcoming a congenital heart abnormality (WPW) and Becoming a Firefighter

These stories are shared by firefighters to enable, educate, and encourage other firefighters who have similar experiences, unique characteristics, or may not understand the adversity of their brother and sister firefighters. Many of these stories are submitted/shared anonymously due to the nature of the story and the need for anonymity. Do not assume you know or understand other firefighters battles. The degree of adversity in the stories cannot be judged by others, take them as they are shared and share them with other firefighters if you see fit.  If you have something to share, please email FireCritic@FireCritic.com with the subject “My Story”. Previous “Our Stories” articles may be found here.

Our Stories: Overcoming a congenital heart abnormality (WPW) and Becoming a Firefighter

My name is Kevin Cate. I am a Firefighter/EMT-IV who lives in Knoxville, TN. My story starts before I was born.

My father has been a firefighter for 32 years. At the age of 14 he and a few other of my close friends fathers started in the first ever explorer program for the city we live in. They got in twice the amount of trouble we ever dreamed of being in.

I was born March 30th 1993, almost 2 months before I was due. That set the way for numerous problems along my path. I suffered from asthma got pneumonia once a year, and still have multiple learning disabilities to this day. It wasn’t until later that I found out my most serious problem of them all. At the age of 14 weighing in at 105 pounds and just a little over 5 ft 6 in tall I walked into the Knoxville rescue squad for the first time as something other than just the chiefs son, I was a explorer.  One of the proudest moments of my life. All 105 pounds of me walked proudly through that door, and set in motion what is now my career.  But there wasn’t always hope that this would be my career.  I could barely complete training classes due to all my health problems.  I would pass out at school and no one knew why. Instead of giving me hope, the doctors tried to take my hope away. They told a 14 year old boy that he could never be the one thing he dreamed of since as long as he remembered, a firefighter.   I continued trying.  The next year and a half was spent sitting on the sidelines at training.  Taking water to those who were training. Finally I had one of my episodes in front of my father who is also a Paramedic. He hooked me up to a 12 lead and there was the problem staring us in the face. I had a condition called Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome (WPW). But right then, we knew I had hope. A month later I had a cardiac ablation.  My condition was resolved.  It seemed like I had that surgery and everything in my World changed. I could breath, I could run, I was eating right again! 6 months later I’m cleared to go back as a explorer, and boy did I. I was in 3 separate explorer programs.  By age 17 I graduated high school a semester early, got into EMT school and got my EMT before my high school friends even walked the stage.

I will spare you the details, but due to my personal life I got sidetracked for a little while. Luckily for me, I was able to get things back on track soon after.  I got accepted into a fire academy and I haven’t looked back.

I’m in the gym every day, and running 5K’s next year I’m even going to do a stair climb.

The best news of all is that on August 16^th of this year I began my dream. I started the fire academy at my father’s fire department, and live my dream of fighting fire side by side with my father.

I guess my point in all of this, the real reason I submitted my story is because my whole life I was told I could not do this. I was always told I was too stupid or not healthy enough.  Yea my own school teachers told me I was too stupid.

So no matter what anyone ever tells you that you can’t. Prove them wrong

Thank you for your time.

– Shared by an Kevin Cate

For more information on Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome (WPW) visit this link.

Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome (WPW):

Normally, the heartbeat begins at the sinoatrial (SA) node, located in your right atrium. When the SA node fires, electrical activity spreads through the right and left atria, causing them to contract. The impulses travel to the atrioventricular (AV) node, which is the bridge that allows the impulses to go from the atria to the ventricles. The impulse then travels through the walls of the ventricles, causing them to contract. The heart’s regular pattern of electrical impulses causes the heart to fill with blood and contract in a normal fashion. (source)