Heart Problems

Oh! My heart! Sometimes it's just too much.


Be still my heart....just too cute!

My heart is too big. It feels too much. It loves too much. But that's not really the issue. My heart just has problems, period. Really. Medical problems. It beats too fast, too slow, randomly, rhythmically, skippingly...you name it. I have Inappropriate Sinus Tachycardia-which basically means my heart can beat any way it pleases at any time it pleases. So when I'm on the treadmill, working my guts out, sometimes my heart will beat 60 beats per minute. But then I lay down, and it goes up to 110. Or it beats to the rhythm of whatever song is on, whichever jackhammer is pounding, whatever florescent light bulb hum is happening at the moment. It's ridiculous.

I am grateful, though. It used to be worse. I had Rapid Onset Tachycardia (or Supraventricular Tachycardia-SVT) up until 6 years ago. My heart could be at 90 beats a minute and suddenly go up to 250-like flipping a switch. This could last from 3 seconds to3 minutes to 3 hours to 3 days. It was exhausting! By the time I was 40 I had a heart that ran like an 85 year old. I was worried it would be used up early, and I begged my doctors for years to fix it.  No one would agree.

Now, I'm a believer in miracles. I notice them. I have seen them. I have experienced them. I beg God for them. I believe they range in size from the tiniest miracle in a little ladybug's flight to the biggest ones of having a tumor vanish. Miracles are all around us, everywhere we look. So I want them. For years I begged God to take my SVT away. I knew He could do it. The doctors wouldn't operate because they couldn't isolate it in my heart. So I asked God to "operate". I begged for my miracle. It took years of heart monitors and fainting and hospital bills and doctors visits and praying and pleading....and then I got my miracle. It wasn't an instant miracle. My heart problem didn't just vanish. It took a series of events and people and tests, and prayers...many, many things lined up so that I could find the surgeon that would risk my surgery and take care of that SVT. As he wheeled me into the operating room he apologized, telling me that he was sorry I would be coming out exactly the way I was going in, but he would try anyway. Well, he found it within the first half hour of surgery. My heart still tries to go into SVT to this day. But it never lasts more than 15 seconds. And yes, I'm still considered inappropriate...concerning my heart anyway. Through it all I learned that a miracle can entail much more than a vanishing problem. Many times it involves people, events, and angels lined up at the right place at the right time for the miracle to take place. I got my miracle. Just not the way I expected.

 That being said, I'm still a sucker for the instant miracle. I have learned that though many of those come straight from the hand of God, many others come from PEOPLE being  the hands of God. The angels on earth who listen to the whisperings of the angels from heaven-and act on it. Providing miracles. Making me grateful. Thanks to my miracle makers. Thanks for being His hands. I am grateful.


Surprise beautiful flowers and a sunny balloon
from wonderful neighbors that I love so very much!

The miracle of finding-by chance-this photo of my angel dad and me on
a Christmas Eve past.

After heart surgery, my mantra was "It will be okay."
Because it will.
But I found a new mantra, and the miracle is
that I found a shirt with my new mantra,
"Hope is Stronger than Fear."