Heart Condition Part I
5/18/12
Knowing one’s past family history helps people to figure out certain patterns when something goes wrong. The same holds true for the inner man and the condition of the heart; not the physical heart but the spiritual heart which defines our existence as a human being. The physical heart does provide a similar function as the spiritual heart and modern medicine can take care of most physical conditions but the spiritual heart needs to be restored on a spiritual level which requires an unseen battle that is just as violent as the physical and a physician who knows every detail of that spiritual heart well enough to restore it back to the connection it needs.
I bring into play a story in the Bible of when Daniel was praying and it took a while for an answer to arrive. The angel said to Daniel that he immediately left with his answer but had to face the enemy in some strong opposition settings which even required the help of another archangel. This is strictly a spiritual battle between two kingdoms and even though this is a widely recognized story in the Bible, it pertains to our lives on the same level that it played out in Daniel’s life. Our enemy believes that we have the same potential as any person spoken about in the Bible and it is imperative that we understand this principle and apply it to our spiritual lives.
The concept of heart issues really never entered into my thinking until I had already enveloped my life in the studies of the human body. I had heard many people say that some of their relatives died from a heart attack and had some of my friends’ parents and grandparents die of this condition, but it really never struck a chord within my life. Even though I really did not know my physical medical history I continued to place these thoughts in to the back of my thinking. Plus, being a kid and a teenager I was invincible and nothing could touch me for I had my whole life ahead of me. All of us have heard that statement before and while most of us fulfill that statement there are those that do not have that opportunity.
Now that I have addressed both the spiritual and the physical sides of the block it is time to reveal my story of how God changed my heart on both sides of that block. The road took many twists and turns but I am here today ready to state to you that God is still twisting and turning that road with one minor detail added, I am actually allowing Him to do this and there is no fight within me, which is proving to be an easier road to bear. The message begins with a short introduction from my teenage years and then will progress to the present day. Some of this message will be funny so laugh when you come across these things, but this entire message plays into the restoration of the spiritual heart and the process of realization, repentance, which begin the restoration of said spiritual and physical heart.
Now we had known for a long time that my cholesterol and triglycerides were high but back in the early 80s there was not much that we could do to lower them except for diet and exercise. I dieted, kind of and exercised as much as I could which really did nothing to lower my levels, so at that time my other options were to continue the plan and see what happens, which was nothing I felt fine and my levels remained high. No heart catheter procedures were invented yet and no cholesterol lowering drugs had been thought about yet so my options were limited. Genetics are a wonderful thing and they are a great source of death explanations once the person’s history has been told; up until about twenty years ago there were really no options to combat the pre-existing genetic status. Not much was done for my condition while I was growing up since not much was known about things at that time in medical history. Most people who had heart issues were placed on home rest for the remaining portions of their lives and open heart surgeries were just beginning to become commonly performed but other than that not much else was available. It was not anyone’s fault and I do not blame anyone or anything for any ignored situation, procedure, etc because there was no established procedure then, so everything was cool in my book and I continued my life as normal.
Future and military physicals always showed a high cholesterol and triglyceride levels and diet and exercise was stressed again and quarterly monitoring was necessary for the military side of things. The military doctors, and myself, were not too terribly concerned with my health since I did not show any signs or symptoms of major conditions that warranted any further tests so once again I was let loose on my own accord to do as I pleased. Looking back at this time I have to admit that God could have taken my life at any given moment during this time period. I feel blessed to have the opportunity to have gone through many of the things I have witnessed, heard and spoken about and would not trade them for anything and I thank God every day that He has allowed me to live long enough that when I did need the immediate care it was readily available.
Football season means a great deal in my life. I watched it all while I was growing up and played it in high school and basically have enjoyed every aspect of the game up until this moment in my life. The area in which I grew up in football was God and many people that live in these areas would be the first ones to admit that they even live their lives vicariously through their local team. This is a common theme in the south and I was right in the heart of it. What does this have to do with my heart attack? Plenty and it was the continuation of my denial process which my pride overtook my reasoning and almost caused me to die.
Everyone who has been associated with high school football knows that once a year the football team has a homecoming game. All the hoopla, parades, dresses, mums, etc glitter the school for an entire week that all leads up to the big game on Friday night or Saturday afternoon. Well, this was the setting for my brush with digger as we made our way up to Grand Junction to watch a local team’s homecoming game. As we began to approach the city limits it began to rain, now the end of September and early October in Colorado usually sees its share of rain so it was not too exciting to experience, but this rain was heavy and it continued to pour for some time which slowed our travel down to the stadium.
The closer we got to the city the more my family and myself began to reconsider the idea of sitting in a heavy rain storm watching a game, so we all did he smart thing and decided to go eat at a restaurant and go to the book store instead of attending the game. As we were being seated, Bonnie looked at me and asked if I was feeling ok and my quick response was ok, which was a lie since I had not felt that great for a couple of days now. My achiness had began after we had moved my oldest daughter from the upstairs room to the downstairs room in which I had convinced myself that I had pulled a muscle in my chest; my denial part one. If you cannot carry out the garbage without having to change hands every five or six steps because of the pulling in your chest that is an example of denial.
I had no idea that I looked as bad as I felt but I tried my best to hide it as much as possible. I even went to the bathroom in the restaurant and looked in the mirror and convinced myself that I looked fine and that Bonnie was just looking at me from a weird angle, but I still had a nagging voice in my head to do something about the situation. So, I did I had a great dinner and even better time with my girls while at the restaurant. We continued to watch the rain come down as we ate and made the final decision to skip the game and head over to the bookstore for a nice cup of coffee and to read a while. The girls were excited because this meant that they would get to buy a few more books to read at home.
As we were leaving the restaurant I felt a sudden and sharp pain in the center of my chest, this was a different type of pain it felt deep and not surface like he previous day. It caught me by surprise and by the time I realized what was going on it was gone and I returned back to my normal stride, but I quickly found out that Bonnie had noticed me slumped over for that brief moment and immediately started grilling me with questions. So, I did the normal guy thing, ignored the question and played the pain down. After a few moments of griping at me Bonnie eased her verbiage and got into the van. As I raised my leg up to get into the van another sharp pain ran through the center of my chest but immediately left as I brought the rest of my body into the van. I continued my pre-van start up procedures while not looking at the pair of eyes staring at me from the front passenger seat. I felt better and proceeded to start the van and leave the restaurant parking lot.
The drive from the restaurant to the bookstore only took a few minutes. The girls were bouncing up and down, not literally but inside their bodies, with the knowledge that soon they would be at one of their favorite places. I do not believe that Bonnie took her eyes off of me during that entire drive to the bookstore and I continued to watch the road and not look to the right, which played into my hands since all of the turns I had to make going to the bookstore, were to the left. I parked the van in an appropriate spot and off came the seatbelts from the back of the van and the side door flung open. I sat in my seat for a second and wondered if I would begin to hurt again as I moved to get out. Bonnie asked the inevitable question of “was I hurting” and I could honestly say to her that I was not at that moment. But that would soon change as I got out of the van.
As soon as my feet hit the ground I felt a sharp grab from the center of my chest which I have to admit the pain almost made me sick. But I shook it off and began to walk towards the bookstore, totally ignoring the question that Bonnie had just asked me. I did not say much while walking into the building for this time the pain really did not let up like in the past. My mind was trying to find any excuse to not recognize my pain and doing everything to justify the pain as related to moving furniture a couple of days before. None of the classic symptoms of a heart attack was playing out including no pain in my neck, jaw or arms so once again I ignored the issue.
I have to admit that the bookstore is probably my favorite store to be in and I could probably spend an entire day in one just soaking up the atmosphere of the place. When I enter into a bookstore my radar usually homes in on the History section of the store which is my favorite section. But this visit was a tad different in the fact that I never made it past the open chair at the front of the store in which when I saw this chair I plopped down into it just as another sharp pain entered my center section. I sat down and just stared into space, not really doing anything much, still trying to think some denial parts through. After making sure the girls were in the children’s section of the store Bonnie came over to me and said that I looked terrible and said that we should leave and go to the hospital which I immediately said no to that idea but believed that going home would be a good idea. This is when another pain hit me and I realized that I was beginning to sweat a bit, which I found sickening since it was in October in Colorado and this did not happen to me at this time of the year.
I agreed to go to the house but remained in the chair until Bonnie returned with two upset girls wondering why we had to leave so soon after we had arrived. I slowly got up from the chair and began to walk out of the store but by now the pain had eased and I was feeling ok. The rush of the cold and wet air with the opening of the doors sent a small pain through my chest when I took that first breath and another thought occurred to me, I had some type of chest cold that was making me ill. The walk to the van was pretty much uneventful with the exception of the girls still questioning our departure. It began to rain a bit as we got into the van but nothing like it was doing while we were driving up to Junction and in the restaurant.
Part II to follow….
DLB
No comments:
Post a Comment