Home Once Again!

Even when things don’t go as planned, I am still reminded of the faithfulness and order of God’s perfect plan. This is not how I expected to spend Easter and the last few days, but this was exactly how God had intended.

I was admitted, once again, to the BMT floor, but not for cancer, but for heart issues. My heart was consistently beating around 140 all morning on Easter Sunday and knew by noon, it was time to go in. My mom graciously took me in after cooking an Easter meal, and we spent the afternoon in the ER together. I have an atrial flutter, which is hard to treat with medication. So, yesterday I had a TEE where they put a camera down your throat to take an intricate look at the heart, and for their specific reason, to see if I had any clots. I did not, so they were able to do a cardioverter, where they shocked my heart using the ICD I have in my back/side. By doing this, they were hoping to bring my heart rate back to normal. And it was a success! They only had to shock it once, and it went back into rhythm.

With this atrial flutter, once I hit the ER, it was suspected that the top part of my heart was beating at 260 beats a minutes, and the bottom 2 chambers, at 130 beats per minute. It was no wonder why I was tired, short of breath, and sweating at times. I was running and running for hours, without running. I had to stay one more night for monitoring, and was able to be discharged this afternoon.

So where did this come from? I tested positive for the common cold coronavirus and they were maybe first thinking it was that, but they believe that now to not be the case, but is the result of my mitral valve disease. I have a prosthetic valve, which is functioning okay, but having that, it can cause an atrial flutter. So they are now overloading me with my anti-arrhythmia drug amiodarone for a week, and then bringing me back down to a slightly higher dose than I’m on currently, in hopes of keeping this at bay. I’m also having PVCs and PACs, so I’m hoping this will help that as well.

Today it hit me that fighting for my health has become the new normal for me and I am getting weary. I desire to not just endure life, but to enjoy it. And right now it feels like a lot of enduring and it is taking all I’ve got. I don’t just want to survive, but thrive. I want to forget that I have heart failure while dealing with recovering from cancer, but God has had a different idea.

But I have to remember that joy isn’t found in our circumstances. Joy is found in Him and Him alone. I’ve had a lot of conversations with God about this one and let him know how frustrated I was that now the heart stuff is back on the table. I even told Satan to get out of my hospital room and you know what? I felt an incredible amount of peace after doing so. All of life isn’t just a physical battle, but a spiritual one as well. And Christ has the power to do whatever He wants, whenever He wants, in the way He wants. And I just have to continue to trust that plan. I’ve shed some tears, but with God, I know I don’t just need to endure. I have Him guiding my every step, as was evident this past hospital stay. It didn’t always make sense, and still doesn’t, but I see His hand in it. And He’s been more than faithful through it all!