Upcoming Heart Appointment

Tomorrow is a day that Dan and I often look upon with anticipation, but also with much confidence that God has our lives in His hands.

Tomorrow I go in for my YEARLY heart checkup. I say “yearly” in all caps because for the past couple of years, I have been having to go in multiple times a year, but after my last appointment last May, they said I could wait a year. That was a quite a feat in our books.

It may seem like a simple appointment, and though it really is circumstantially (lab work, an ECHO, and then meeting with the heart specialist), but this yearly appointment has proven itself to bring much change in our life.

Not that I am nervous, but just eager to hear. You see, the heart is one of those organs of the body (much like every organ I suppose), that you aren’t always real sure how it’s doing, unless you have a test done. Or unless your quality of life decreases. Little did I know that for 17 years of my life, I was carrying around what should have been a deadly congenital heart disease. My body had adjusted accordingly those 17 years and even more so, God laid His protective hand over my heart. But it’s at these type of appointments that we find out the “true colors” of what is going on inside.

It was at a routine heart appointment that we found out having children was potentially a deadly risk to take in 2010. A risk we were not willing to take. It was in 2014 that we found out my mitral valve went from moderately/severely leaking to mildly leaking. It was also at this appointment that we were given the green light to have children.

Just a year later, after giving birth to our daughter, I was diagnosed with heart failure. A term that I dreaded a hear. Those two words I knew, brought a diagnosis that sometimes one does not recover from, and can eventually take one’s life (though God is the ultimate determiner of that). It was a scary and uncertain time, but then not a year later, at yet another appointment, we learned my heart returned back to normal, only by the grace of God.

So where do we sit right now? At my last appointment, I had a MRI done and it was determined that the function of my heart was good (normal), though there was some proof of a mild heart attack at one point in my life. When that occurred, we do not know. Though, even though that part of the heart was a bit weaker than the rest, my heart was still functioning as it should. I still have some leaking in my mitral valve, and only time will tell if I ever need an open heart surgery to replace it. And if that day comes, I have full confidence that that is what is best. We will get through it, I have no doubt about it.

All I know is that despite the ups and downs of my ticker, God has shown Himself so powerfully through my heart situation. It brings me to tears to type that despite a diagnosis of no kids 7 years ago, we now hold our 2 year old daughter tightly on our laps. Every child is a miracle and I never understood how miraculous each child was, until I held my own. We feel incredibly undeserving to have Mazy Grace. And we want to live out that grace every day.

And so tomorrow, no matter what the conclusions are, God is faithful, good, and His sovereignty is more than comforting! I feel like things are going okay, but we’ve been surprised in the past, so we will take tomorrow as it comes!

Not to mention, tomorrow we celebrate 11 years of marriage! My appointment often falls on or around our anniversary, and so what a great way to celebrate – in a doctor’s office! Really though, my health has been a marriage strengthener in good ways (and sometimes hard ways too), because we have stuck it out through sickness and in health. It’s so cliche to say that I couldn’t imagine spending my life with anyone else, and that cliche could not be more true 11 years later!

May 12, 2006