Heartfelt

Sometimes your day just doesn't go as planned. You get up, go to work with intentions of getting the job done, maybe having a little dinner, doing a little laundry. You're looking forward to a run on Saturday morning, and then...wham! I got whammed yesterday.

It was the kind of wham that happens when the wind has been playing with a door, pulling it back and forth on a breeze - toying with it until it slams it shut, forcing you to pay attention to the shatter of glass as a picture falls off a wall with the force of the blow.

I've been experiencing tiny jabs of chest pain when I run for the last two months. No shortness of breath. Thursday I had pain all day long and continued to work through two surgeries and on through a meeting at 5pm. I told a couple colleagues about it, chewed a couple aspirin and the pain went away. I thought everything was ok, except I was still ignoring the pain when I ran. Yesterday things got worse and I ended up leaving my clinic and checking myself into the emergency room. An overnight admission for observation, a sleepless night and multiple tests later show that I have a perfectly strong heart.

I've experienced the headache that comes from nitroglycerin. I know what it feels like to need to go to the bathroom and not to be able to reach the call light. I've heard a patient in the next stretcher bay suffer from what I knew must certainly be a pulmonary embolism - and I couldn't do a damned thing because I was only a patient, not a provider.

Now the good parts: A colleague dropped everything and got me checked into the ER. When I called a friend and told her where I was, she was at my bedside in 2 minutes. Literally 2 minutes. That's a bonus of being admitted to a hospital where I used to work. My children were quick to allow me to assure them by phone that I was OK and that they shouldn't disrupt their lives for the unknown. Shaking them up would cause me strife and they trusted me to give them the straight skinny on my condition. I appreciate that immensely. My personal physician rounded on me not once, but twice in 24 hours. He knows me and he knows my history. I felt safe in his care. When I called my sweetheart, he got in his car and he arrived at the hospital ASAP/STAT/really-really-fast. He made sure I had what I needed: pillows, blankets, a real salad instead of hospital food and Kleenex when I started to cry because toilet paper apparently isn't good enough for wiping the tears from my eyes.

I was frightened, but I tried to keep it together. I knew that anxiety would only make matters worse. The problem isn't my heart. It's most likely exercise induced asthma and it will be worked up as an outpatient. I couldn't imagine not being able to run. I've been cleared to exercise. Thank goodness and thank God.

After I was given the second dose of nitro (and the second whopping headache) last night, and as I lay facing the wall, trying not to cry - again - I heard these words, softly:

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen."

I have been on my own for a long time. It didn't come easy to turn this over, to allow myself to be cared for, but it wasn't as difficult this time as it might have been 2 years ago. My heart is finally open to feeling - everything.