Heart Journey Update

First of all, thank you for all of the prayers, text messages, and love shown once again! They truly keep me going during a time that didn’t go quite like we had hoped. Though we know God sees, God knows, and God continues to hear!

I was able to come home on Thursday, for which I was very thankful. I was starting to get a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to go home because of what my heart was showing. I remember praying for God to open the eyes of the doctors to what was going on with my heart, and I guess when praying that, I didn’t necessary mean for more issues to show up. But God answered and I’m thankful that all what happened did, to help us all get a clearer picture.

I am on the new med and the doctors and myself as well, aren’t sure I will be able to stay on it. The thing with heart failure and one of the reasons that there isn’t a cure is that medications can only do so much and like with many meds, there are many side effects. If I could take 3x the dose of many of my meds, my heart might improve, but my body just can’t tolerate the increases. We were unsure how I would do on the new med called Sotalol (feel free to Google machine it), and unfortunately my body hasn’t proven that it likes it yet. Between the fatigue, GI issues, and low blood pressure, we all aren’t sure I can do this long-term. There are 2 other meds I can try. One doesn’t require a hospital stay (though I believe it’s not as strong of a med), and the other I would have to go back for another 4 days, but could have the same results. So, we are going to give this one a whirl for a bit until I can take it no longer.

While at the hospital, I had 3 incidents where my heart went into crazy rhythms (set off the alarms), I became very symptomatic, and though I’m thankful they happened there so I could get the medical attention I needed, it’s a bit nerve-wracking being at home, not knowing what’s going to happen. These episodes are not related to the new med, but are just what my heart is showing. Right before I left, I was having PVCs every 3 beats, which is very frequent and makes one not feel great. BUT…I have an ICD, so that gives me immense comfort and it never went off when I was there, so I’m encouraged!

Honestly, I feel I left worse off than when I arrived at the hospital, but it’s what God wanted us to see and the “new” journey we are to walk down. The next step is to see if I can keep going on this med and in 2 months, have a holter monitor to see if the PVCs have decreased. As of now, it doesn’t prove that they have decreased much. It could be a long 2 months at this point, but like I told the doctor, I’m willing to give it all I got in hopes that things improve!

This is heart failure, and I still wrestle accepting it’s repercussions. I like to stay optimistic in life, but this round, it has been hard. It’s hard to understand, since I went into this past week extremely optimistic that I would come home feeling so much better, but am experiencing the opposite. And Mazy has really wrestled with this stay as well, so we are trying to find ways to help her cope, which I’m eager to share more about. God connected me to an amazing woman who I just learned her real name yesterday, on an online forum for women with heart failure. She’s a retired child development therapist (I think that was her title) and she had the most AMAZING suggestions, understood our struggle, and reached deep down into this mama’s heart to encourage and reassure that we are doing what we can. Don’t you just love it when God connects us to JUST the right people, when we need it?

I don’t like writing these types of posts because I so often just want to share all the good, but like I said in my last post, many of the blessings in life don’t come easily and I know that God is teaching me so much through all of this. It has been so hard to see Mazy struggle and wrestle with all of this, but we know God sees it all and will equip when needed.

Thank you for walking this journey with us, as we continue down this road!