Listen to your heart

What's going on people? It's been awhile, I know. Wendy Fent, here's your updated post.

This story goes like this...Back in Oct. I applied for the Dept. of Corrections again. Some of you think I'm crazy, perhaps I am. So I've been waiting patiently for the past couple of months to hear back from them. If you haven't heard the state is bankrupt and not hiring hardly anyone at this point. Bad mistake for them to take money from the Dept. of Corrections because people get hurt if they are not well staffed, but that's a gripe for another time.
Well I had my physical in February, I failed. Not because I can't do push-ups or sit-ups, but because I couldn't get my heart rate below 100 beats per minute to continue on with the next portion of testing. I was so frustrated, they left me alone in this room for an hour and it wouldn't go down. They gave me more time than they should have to help me "calm down." The Dr. even came in and asked me if I meditated, I told him no, but if you would like me to think about calming sea sounds and birds chirping, I'd be willing to give that a try. Didn't work. So he ended up telling me that I should probably go have my heart checked out. So I took his advice and went to the Dr. My Dr. did a full blood work-up and even an EKG and everything was absolutely perfect. The only thing that concerned him was when I went from sitting in my chair to getting on the examine table, my heart rate went from 85 to 130. He's like, I think you better wear a Holter monitor (a portable EKG machine) for 24 hours just to make sure there isn't something more serious going on. Well I am thankful for his cautiousness. The machine caught my heart doing all kinds of crazy things throughout that 24 hours. My heart would go from 80 to 160+ in a matter of seconds. This was happening throughout the day and night. So he, referred me to a cardiologist who diagnosed me with supra ventricular tachycardia...fancy word for abnormally rapid heart rate. Fairly normal nothing to be to concerned about. So my Dr. put me on some heart medication that is supposed to slow my heart down. The problem is that it's a medication they use for people with high blood pressure so it makes me very light-headed at times. I went back to the Dr. on Thursday, told him about the side-effects, and he told me every kind of heart medicine that they could give me is going to have these kinds of side-effects. I wasn't happy with that answer. He also told me that it's probably not a good idea for me to be on these medicines for an extended amount of time. Well, I'm 30. So we're looking at another 30 years or so being on medication. (I say this knowing I could die tomorrow, just a side note, didn't want you to think I was getting all cocky on you or something!) He said it would be best to do a heart procedure called catheter ablation. They go in with a catheter through an artery in your groin and basically "zap" the bad heart tissue that's making the heart beat so fast and irregular. He said doing this would permanently fix the problem. So I said lets do it. So that should be happening in the next month or so. Scary but well worth it. It would be nice to be able to run and not be exhausted within a couple of minutes. This makes me feel so much better because now I know that all those years in high school b-ball when I would be exhausted within the first 20 minutes of practice, wasn't my laziness it was a bad heart.
The other thing that I learned which is really the more serious of my heart problems, is that I have a sack of fluid on my heart, I have an enlarged right ventricle, and an enlarged mitral valve. What all this means...I don't really know yet. He couldn't tell me what would be causing these issues from the echo cardiogram, he wants me to come back in 3 months to do another echo cardiogram to see if the sack containing the fluid takes on more fluid or drains. I imagine if it were life threatening he would treat it a little more aggressively. I felt so dumb because he asked me if I had any questions and I said, no, I think I got it. Dumb Jill. I left with so many questions, I think I was just kind of shocked to hear all that news my mind went blank. Oh well, I'll get them answered. So that's my bag of fun to share with you. I do want to add, that I know that God is right here with me, Matt, and Jacob. While I was in shock when I first heard all of this, I know, I know that my God is with me.