Heart Journey Update

Just wanted to give a quick appointment update. I know no one is expecting me to give these updates, nor are many this open about their life, but I can’t help but share God’s story and glory. Even if it isn’t an easy journey.

I knew it wouldn’t be a very eventful appointment with the heart failure doctor since I am having a procedure/surgery next month, called ablations. I had a very high number of extra beats in my heart, which means there could be a lot of areas they will have to burn where those extra beats are occurring. At one point, my heart was beating 289 beats/minutes. Yikes.

We are trying an experiment – I’m going completely off my diuretic, to see if my blood pressures improve. They are just too low and of course low blood pressures do not make me feel great. Heart meds can cause low BP, but really I need to be on some higher doses of some of my meds, so we are trying to see if we can get the BP up, by me going off my diuretic. So we will see what happens in the next week.

We are also hoping that the ablations really help with my electrical issues because if they don’t, I will most likely be put on the transplant list. My doctor really is trying to prolong what may be the inevitable someday. If I can make it to 50 without needing a transplant, then hopefully I will only need 1 in my lifetime. If I have one now, I may need 2. I’m still on the verge, but not on the list yet.

Also, since I stopped taking the medication that acted as a band-aid for those extra beats, I am getting them back. I was secretly hoping that God had healed my heart and didn’t bring the extra beats back, but God has a different plan, and I know it’s perfect – it’s not always easy though. I was explaining to my doctor that I’m getting a lot more tired, so she listened to my heart for awhile and she was just quiet. Which made me a bit nervous! She asked if I could feel extra beats and I said sometimes. Well, I am definitely getting them back. So again, Kristin is not just getting old, but the extra beats are what’s causing the fatigue. Thankfully Mazy is great about it. If I need to sleep for 5 minutes, she just lays next to me and we snuggle together!

I have really been working on getting rid of any fear I have in my life. It’s hard to not think about the future and what it may hold with regards to my heart, but as two Christian songs say, which BOTH came on, on the way home…”I am no longer a slave to fear” and “Fear is a liar.” So much truth. GOD holds my future and so there is no need to fear! All I want is just for HIS glory to be made known through all of this. Through the tears and through the triumphs.

And through it all, through the tears and triumphs, I honestly have so many ideas for books to write someday too. Now if I can just find the time TO write…maybe another one will come out someday!

It has been a long road and I know I will forever battle this heart disease until God calls me home. I struggle accepting that sometimes, but it’s been a road paved with God’s faithfulness and goodness, time and time again.