D. Litt
Independent Scholar, New Zealand
Publications
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Review Article
15 October 2021: Living with the Consequences of a Cardiac Event-A Musical Patient Perspective on Autonomic Vulnerability, Ambiguity, and Partnership
Author(s): Bruce H. Knox* and D. Litt
This preprint presents a first-person medical narrative communicated through original musical composition. It recounts the long- term consequences of a catastrophic complication during premature ventricular contraction (PVC) ablation, resulting in left ventricular rupture, acute cardiac tamponade, and emergency open-heart surgery. While the intervention was life-saving, subsequent years were marked by persistent autonomic dysregulation, multisystem instability, and sustained changes in functional capacity. Rather than conventional prose narrative, the medical testimony is embedded within the musical structure itself — rhythm, harmony, motif, and lyrical development reflecting dysautonomia, ambiguity, and recalibration. Drawing on narrative medicine and illness phenomenology [1,2–6], and chronic illness theory, the work proposes musical composition as a .. Read More»