Where My Life Is: Part 3

Saturday morning I trekked upstairs, gathered up my Bible, my laptop, a couple of notebooks, some Starbuck’s via, candy and chocolate I had saved back, (essential to living on the couch. Can’t survive without candy or chocolate!) books that I hadn’t read yet, letters that I needed to reply to, and my pillows and blankets. I was moving into the living room.

One week turned into two. I was still living on the couch. I physically couldn’t do things. I went to church, but all I did was sit, that was the extent of my activities. I went to my appointment with a cardiologist on the 22^nd of November. After telling him what was going on and such he said that the list of what it could be was too long. So we would narrow that down with three tests to start with. And if we couldn’t get any good answers from that we would, as he puts it, ‘Do some more investigation.” Love this guy’s vocabulary!
I would have my chest X-Ray, Echo-cardiogram, (heart ultrasound) done on December 2^nd, as well as have my 24 hour EKG halter monitor put on.
So what did I do while waiting? Well November is National Novel Writing Month. I was doing the contest of writing 50,000 words in month, but had gotten set back due to the circumstances. So I pulled my story out and finished that baby. I wrote letters, read the Bible, and since I couldn’t get out that much I spent a lot of time conversing over the Internet. I will admit to you here that my attitude has seen some definite changes. In the beginning I was scared about it all. I mean that’s really understandable considering. I had no idea what was going on! But I also wasn’t completely trusting in the Lord. I was grouchy, still am from time to time. I didn’t want to live on the couch. I hate being confined. I love moving around and doing things. I love being busy! To me, I’m being lazy. That’s my mindset. But….through different conversations with my brother Josh he finally convinced me that I can’t really help it. It’s not my fault if I’m being lazy. It’s still frustrating to me when I see something that needs to be done, but I know that I can’t do it.

Well five days into this thing I found out that I couldn’t laugh anymore. Well, at least without consequences. Laughing makes it a whole lot worse. The first time this happened, I went to lay down to go to sleep and I had to sleep sitting up. Whenever I laid down it was as though there was a heavy vise clamping and compressing my chest. My chest pain and heart rate increased too. I ended up throwing myself into a panic attack the first night. The second night I laughed the same thing happened, except I didn’t have a panic attack. So no laughing. Which is completely foreign to me. I am known for giggling. I handle life with laughter! I love to laugh. I love to make other people laugh. But now I can’t.

Thanksgiving rolled around, and on the way to my older sister’s house I laughed some, and sang. Bad idea. When I tried to get out of the van a sharp pain stabbed me in the chest. I couldn’t hardly breathe it was so bad. I made it in the house, and into a chair. I started shaking violently and I couldn’t get the pain to go away in my chest. After family pictures, I stayed snuggled up with soft blankets, in a most comfortable chair the entire day.
That night I had a bad attack..
After that we determined that I would not sing anymore. I’ve done some a little bit, and I’ve always felt horrible afterwards. 

Where My Life Is Part 1

Where My Life Is Part 2