"The Heart Speaks" is mostly geared toward the heart issues I faced last year, the struggles of getting through a traumatic time, healing physically as well as emotionally and where I'm at now. However, I am still a wife, mother, grandmother (lovingly referred to as 'Nanny' or 'Nan'), daughter and friend. My family is amazingly supportive and has remained so throughout all of it. I will be blogging about their greatness from time to time, also.
Why we go through what we go through, only God knows. What I do know and try to remember is a little something a friend once told me that had such impact and meaning I just have to share: "It's not what you go through... it's how you go through it."
It's not what you go through... that tells me that if you're living this life, you will face a challenge or two from time to time.
It's how you go through it... that part tells me we have a choice when faced with such challenges. We can either shrink back and give up or we can fight the good fight and let God carry us through.
To be quite honest, I do hope and pray I have fought the good fight for the most part, but I know, in reality, there have been times I wanted to give up. Having been poked, prodded, stuck and every other unimagineable thing you can imagine, it does have a tendency to make one grow very weary after a while. Never knowing if that chest pain is 'normal' chest pain or something that should get checked out. By the way, the doctors have since told me that I would eventually learn to distinguish between the two. Hopefully, I've accomplished that by now... I guess we'll know if I ever get it wrong.
Then there are the emotions. Oh, those emotions. For the most part, I do well handling 'those' feelings. However, I'm not too proud or pretend to be tough enough to say it doesn't affect me greatly when I hear of someone losing a loved one to something I've gone through. That thing they call 'Survivor's Guilt' is very real. Would someone please enlighten me on the appropriate response to news like that?
This brings me to another point: Implants. No, not those kind of implants and no, I'm not going out on a random limb here. I'm talking about an ICD Implant or as it's otherwise known, Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator, which is what I have implanted into my upper chest at the suggestion of my highly skilled and knowledgable Cardiologist. Why do I need this? According to 'Dr. Wonderful', patients like me (having a 'string' of PVC's) are more prone to sudden death. Lovely.
If news like this isn't enough to make you realize it's time to get out and live, I don't know what will! Hence, the trip to Florida in 28 days! More about that next time...
Of all the procedures having had done, I'm beginning to wonder if the ICD was really worth it. First of all, I knew it was going to be questionable when I woke up during the surgery in which they were installing my new part... not once, but twice! Yes, it is possible to wake up DURING surgery. By the time they were done, they had ended up giving me three times the normal amount of anesthesia as they would give anyone else. I was loopy for days after.
Another reason I'm questioning is because it never fails... whenever someone hears about this little extra part I'm carrying around, they feel the need to tell me all the horrid details of 'someone they know' that had one and then proceed to give me a play by play on how this person's ICD 'went off' and, well... the rest is not pretty. This recently happened to me during an upper GI test when the Radiologist was looking over and pointing out all my innermost, additional parts. His friend had one that 'went off' while he was driving... yadda, yadda, yadda. I kindly thanked him for that encouraging little piece of info and left. Ever heard of 'don't ask, don't tell'?
Some things are better left unsaid. Someone remind me of that if I tend to go too far, will you? Oh wait, that's what my children are for! More on my offspring and their attempts at trying to keep me reigned in next time...
xoxo
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