Having Faith That God Can Heal Again!

It has been an emotional past few days. The ups and downs, the twists and turns, have us laughing one moment and tearing up the next.

Yesterday was one of those days. I had an appointment with my family doctor and as she told me more about the results of my ECHO, I realized how serious of a situation it was. Saturday I was almost hospitalized because of the severity of my symptoms. The doctor told me that their goal right now is to keep me out of the hospital and we can do that as long as my fluid levels continue to go down. The way to measure that is to make sure that I am losing weight almost everyday. If this says anything, I have lost 15 lbs. in the past 3 days – pure fluids. I now know why I felt the way I did, why I had a hard time breathing, felt sluggish, weak, loss of appetite, exhaustion, etc. I imagine carrying 15 lbs. of extra weight and I get tired just thinking about it! So not only is my mitral valve toast, but the left side of my heart is enlarged. It is not effecting the function of the heart (which is actually really good), but it is enlarged. A sense of urgency set in; especially when I was told that 2 doctors were really worried about me over the weekend.

My family doctor was able to speak to my heart doctor personally, which was such a blessing! I had spent the day trying to schedule an appointment with my heart doctor, but kept getting answering machines. After they talked for awhile, they came to the conclusion that we need to wait it out a bit. Yes, there is a part of my heart that is not functioning – but my heart doctor wants to see what losing all of this excess fluid will do. My mom thought that might be the case as well. I have an appointment next week Thursday to determine what the next steps are. My heart doctor feels that my valve declined too fast to all of a sudden stop functioning, without an “outside source” effecting it, like the fluid. Yes, it was weakened with pregnancy, no doubt about it, but to the point of not functioning, that is what is in question.

So we ask for prayers that God would yet again, heal this mitral valve! We know that He can and we are going to believe that He will do it again! I prayed yesterday, with tears streaming down my face, that we would have a faith that can move mountains – a faith that believes that God’s good and perfect will for our lives, is being revealed. We just have to trust and let our faith take us through each day. I must say I feel like a different person, so I know that getting rid of the fluids is helping, but we just pray that it will also effect me internally as well. I am on a strong diuretic, which unfortunately has effected breastfeeding, so little Mazy has been a champ and as patient as she can be, when this mama is trying to figure out if she got enough milk at a feeding and if not, how much to supplement. It’s been a bit of a challenge, but like the doctor said, our goal right now is to get mom healthy and when I am healthy, I can take better care of Mazy then too. They are right. If I do not take the meds or pass the fluids, then I will end up in the hospital and I will miss out on way more of Mazy’s life, than being able to do some of the simple things at home. It is such a blessing to be able to be at home with her!

So this week is spent trying to get back to “normal” fluid levels, while watching how I feel and how this all is effecting me. I have to call in on Friday with an update, with a possible follow up on Monday if needed. Other than that, I just need to take care of myself and care for little Mazy – one of the best things I have ever done! If Mazy Grace only knew how much she means to us – though we tell her 100 times a day!