So I know when you read the title of this blog, you were probably thinking that this post is going to teach you how to have a healthy spiritual heart. But that's actually not it.
This is about what my life has been like, and what it is like now, having a LITERAL healthy heart.
My "About Me" page, goes into a little bit of detail about this issue that I had, but I'm here to tell you the story. Why? Because yesterday, I celebrated four years with a healthy heart, and I don't believe it's something I'm supposed to stay quiet about.
I'm four years old, right? So, I'm heading to the doctor to get my ear-tubes taken out (or something like that.) When the doctor was doing the surgical procedure, they had put me on a heart reader, like they would with any other patient. But while they were working on my ears, they noticed by watching the heart reader, that my heart beat very, very odd. This had them really worried. So they sent me to Children's Mercy to get it checked out. So at age four, I was diagnosed with:
AV Node Re-Entry Tachycardia
otherwise known as, "my heart beats weird."
I was put on pills to regulate my heartbeat until I turned 8 years old. Then April 4, 2007, I went in to have my first surgery (which was supposed to be my only surgery). I was hysteric. Because I pretty much thought that surgery meant death. When I got out of surgery, I was covered in iodine, my throat was sore (from the breathing tube), and I had some weird scar bumps on my very upper thighs. And all I wanted was a watermelon slushie, which didn't come up so well later.
When I was released to go home later that day, my whole family was there to be with me. Then that day, or the day after, my parents told me to sit on the fireplace because they had something to tell me. I was really thinking it was going to be good news. But instead, they told me that my surgery did not work, because my heart was too small to do the operation on. Of course, I broke out into tears.
I continued my medicine and check ups until February of 2011, when my cardiologist decided my heart was most likely full grown and ready to be operated on. So on February 11, I went into my second surgery. I don't remember this one as well as the others. Though, I do remember that afterward, I got in the car to go home. I distinctly remember my mom saying, "You won't have to have another heart surgery again."
I said, "Promise?"
And she said, "Promise."
The day after my surgery, I was sitting at the kitchen table eating grapefruit. Why is that so significant? Because the pills I had taken all my life had disabled me from eating grapefruit because it would contradict the medicine's work. and it was my favorite fruit. As I was sitting there eating, my heart did a dance. And not a good one. And it kept going.
When it stopped, I told my mom that my heart was beating weird, and she assured me that it was just because the surgery was still doing its work. But it continued for a few more weeks, until we decided to go back to the cardiologist, where he informed me that I would have to have a third surgery.
We decided on April 4, 2011. I remember on the way home, I was upset because my mom had promised me that I would never have to have another surgery, and here I was.
This surgery is the one I remember the most. My whole family came. My grandma had bought me a metal angel, which she gave to me in the waiting room at like 4am before the surgery. I loved it so much, I wanted to take it into surgery with me, but I could not, because I couldn't have anything on me but the gown. I remember I was totally freaking out. I had asked my mom if she could come to the bathroom with me, so she followed me there. I told her that I did not want to die, and that I was scared I was going to die, and I loved her so much and I wanted to be able to see everyone again.
The anesthesiologist gave me lots of calming medicine before taking me back into surgery. I distinctly remember going out into the hallway, and lying down on the all while hospital bed. I remember them rolling me down the long hallway, as my family surrounded me. They were all crying. Even my grandpa, and my great uncle, both of whom I had never seen even the least bit emotional. I made sure every single one of them came to my bedside so I could tell them that I loved them.
Then they took me into the operating room, where they sat me up and had me slide over onto the surgery table. The anesthesiologist asked me if I would like to hold the mask to my own face, or have her do it. She handed me the mask, and I put it over my mouth, and like both surgeries before, I prayed. I prayed so hard. Then I had a panic attack and I lifted the mask off of my face, but the nurse took her arm and slammed it on. I tried to hit her a few times, but I was so weak. And so for the 8 seconds or so that it took me to black out, I prayed for every single second, because I had never been so scared.
If you've never had surgery, it feels super weird. It feels like this:
1. You black out
2. You immediately wake up after blacking out
It feels like there's no time in between.
When I woke up in a little room with a curtain, a TV in the top left corner, and my family around me, I knew I was alive and that everything was okay. There was 13 year old boy in the room next to mine. In his lifetime, he had gone through 36 surgeries, many of them being open heart. I remember being thankful.
They eventually unhooked me from all of the IV's and tubes and such so I could leave.
I went back to the cardiologist a year later, and he cleared me until I turn 18-21 years old. And here I am, still healthy and living, and my heart beating normally. Because God can do more than we could ever imagine.
Dad and I doing our famous "thumbs up" post that we did after every one of my surgeries.
A little bit about av nodal reentrant tachycardia:
*
is a type of tachycardia (fast rhythm) of the heart
*mostly contain palpitations (
Palpitations are a perceived abnormality of the heartbeat characterized by awareness of heart muscle contractions in the chest: hard beats, fast beats, irregular beats, and/or pauses)
*Can be fixed with cardiac ablation
-Ablation usually uses long, flexible tubes inserted through a vein in your groin (causing scars on the upper thigh) and threaded to your heart to correct structural problems in your heart that cause an arrhythmia.
-Works by scarring or destroying tissue in your heart that triggers an abnormal heart rhythm
Sources: Wikipedia and Mayo Clinic
