Heart Condition Part VIII
Before I dive into this segment of my heart attack I want to see if you are recognizing a pattern that I followed while this process was occurring inside of my chest. My heart was not telling me or showing me the normal symptoms that a heart should demonstrate when something is about to happen. My symptoms were unique and were not following these established normal pains. I continued to ignore them and did my own way and believed that they would go away.
How many times have we heard God calling to our hearts and us ignoring the words that He is saying? God calls us to return to Him in His own unique way that is very specific to our lives. We have heard many stories of people coming back to God and how elaborate they are but not all stories are like this some are simple and quiet. Listen to God and return to Him before He has to takes a further step in order to get your attention. This is the purpose of this message and a part of my life that I am sharing so that others might get the hint from God before something drastic happens in their lives. Now, on with the story J
As the afternoon drug into the evening, dinnertime approached as I continued to sit on the couch not doing much of anything. Bonnie peeked around the corner of the kitchen and asked if I was ok and I could honestly say that I was since all of the uneasiness had left. My mind jumped on this box and began to run with the idea that it was the office chair and that the position it was putting in was just not right for whatever was going on inside my chest. Well…duh, but since I was no longer in pain and I was sitting on the soft couch I was sticking to my theory until something else occurred.
I looked at my watch and noticed that it was approaching the time that a football game was to be on, a SEC football game on Saturday evening would hit the spot. Watching sports on a Saturday evening became a ritual at our house, so much of one that sometimes we even ate dinner in front of the television depending upon who was playing. Dinner was of the norm, which we disposed of quite methodically. I do not believe that I can ever remember of a bad meal that Bonnie cooked so even though I do not remember much about the meal I definitely know it was good.
After dinner was completed Bonnie and I sat in front of the television and began to watch the game and while I was watching this game all pain within my chest seemed to disappear, or at least I did not think about the pain or my state of health but I sat there and enjoyed the action. At one point Bonnie asked me if I was feeling ok and I had to stop and think about it for a second. I stood up and stood there in that one spot for a moment and then took a quick evaluation of bodily pain and I had none. I relayed this information to Bonnie and then went into the bathroom for a bit. When I came out the game was back on and I sat down once again and continued to watch the game.
After the game was over I thought about watching another PAC 10 game but decided to go into the office instead for some more computer time. I got back on the net and began surfing the football scores of the day. Some of my favorite teams won and some of them lost which was the story for most of the past years of being involved in football. It was approaching nine o’clock and Bonnie came into the office and gave me a look over and said that she believed I looked better at that moment and I told her that I felt good with no pain.
I then suggested that if I woke up the next morning feeling well that we should go take a drive in the mountains and see if there were any fall colors remaining on the trees. We had not made it up on the mountain tops for the past couple of years so I believed it would be a fun day trip for the girls and us too. Bonnie said that she was going to bed and I told her that it would be a bit before I would be heading that way and that I might just stay up and watch another game before coming to bed. I ended up just keeping track of the score of the game that was on the television via the net; remember the net was still in its young stage at this time and was not apt to have live video of games at this time.
It was now late in the evening and I was not seeing a friendly score on the screen so I decided to get to bed. I began the slow process of turning off the computer when I had a slight pain run through my chest, nothing severe but it did once again get my attention. But this time there was something different, after the pain left I actually felt better. It is very hard to explain but it was like I was able to take a deep breath after I had lung goobers for a while. It was like a relaxation about my chest, a breath of fresh air, and any other metaphor that a person could use about feeling better. A sat there in my chair waiting for the computer to finish its thing and I continued to sit there and try to examine my insides and see if this feeling would go away. As the moments passed I realized that this “good” feeling was not going to leave so I turned off the computer and the office light and headed down the hall to the bedroom.
I made a quick visit to the restroom as I was heading towards the bedroom. Nothing exciting occurred during this time and everything came out mighty fine. After I completed my task, I continued to make my way towards the bed without making too much noise. The room was dark and coming immediately from two lighted rooms my eyes were not adjusted to the dark conditions so my footsteps were slow and very close to each other. I had made this trek many times before but I always had to factor in the kid scenario which meant the possibility of toys or some other objects present on the floor for me to step on. The little girls loved to play in our bedroom, which we adored and wanted them to feel free in this activity, but their cleaning up process lacked in thoroughness sometimes.
As I approached the bed I said a scenically quick prayer of thankfulness for my safe passage through the bedroom to the bed all the while ridding myself of my house clothes and then locating the top comforter and slowly pulling it back. As I did this I saw movement in the middle of the bed which I immediately knew was Bear who had decided to sleep in the bed with us that night instead of underneath the bed like normal. He was not much of a bed hog to me, but he always kept close to Bonnie which proved to be an interesting scene some nights. I pulled back the sheet and got into the bed and pulled the covers back over me and took a deep breath. My mind once again did a complete inside evaluation of my chest and found that I was still feeling great. I heard no noises coming from Bonnie and I did not try and let her know of the situation, it would wait till morning. I turned on my stomach as always and went right to sleep and had a restful night’s sleep.
As I look back upon this time I realize how blind I was towards what the signs and symptoms were in my life. May warning signs occurred those two days and I ignored each and every one of them. Yes, I knew that there could be something wrong but I continued to rationalize things in my mind and telling myself that it was nothing to be concerned with and the things that I knew to be true about heart attacks was not happening in my chest. Even though my best friend knew that something was wrong and even the family pet could sense that things were not right, I continually over rid their concerns to concentrate on my own denial.
Now, how many times do we do this with God? We know all of the circumstances and scenes about God and His beckoning on our lives but we continually over ride His voice and make our own decisions about our life. His voice is constantly trying to get our attention of our surroundings and the things that we are going to face if we do not change our ways. But we adamantly ignore His warnings and press forward on our paths of denial which leads us further away from His voice and protection. God will continue His plea for our lives but He will not stop time and continue to deny our will. Sometimes we humans have to just pee on that electric fence even though we have been warned not to do it.
DLB
Part IX to follow….
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