Our Journey to Heart Health (Part 3)

Posted on February 7, 2016 by Heart of the Matter

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Post-surgery recovery

Seeing my husband in the cardiac ICU unit was a very difficult thing. He looked so vulnerable, a state in which I was not used to seeing him. As we walked in to his cubicle for the first time, I spoke to him gently, telling him everything was going to be ok. He was frantically moving his hand to get it out from under the cover and pointing to his neck area where the breathing tube was still in place. The effects of the anesthesia were still evident. It was hard to watch. We left pretty quickly as the nurse reminded us that it would not be good for him to get too excited. She said patients sometimes try to talk or to pull the breathing tube out.

The next time I saw him in ICU, the tube was out. As I approached his bed, he whispered to me that his chest hurt and his throat was sore. I must say, I felt helpless to comfort him. I was confident however, that he was getting great care in the ICU. He was getting 24 hour one-on-one care, his vitals were being closely monitored and his pain managed. The day after the surgery, they moved him out of ICU and into a regular room on the cardiac floor. At that point, I brought my little suitcase and moved right in.

Even though he was in a regular room now, he still had chest tubes in to drain fluid that had accumulated during surgery. He wouldn’t be allowed to move around or walk until those were removed. Before surgery, my husband had been introduced to the dreaded “spirometer”, a device used to help re-inflate the lungs and prevent pneumonia after surgery. He had to blow into the device and watch the ball rise up the tube that was divided into numerical increments. His lung capacity was measured and marked before surgery and the idea was for him to work his way back up to that point as he recovered. This proved to be a difficult and painful task in those first few days after surgery. The chest tube had not yet been removed and was making it very difficult to suck in air efficiently thus moving the ball up the spirometer. The hospital staff, including nurses, doctors, and respiratory therapists  continually stressed the importance of this therapy. The protocol called for working with it once every hour for 10 repetitions.

In those first few days after surgery, it was a delicate dance of doses and scheduling as the nurses attempted to manage my husband’s pain. He had just had his sternum sawed in two, his chest muscles torn apart, his nerves severed, and his heart manipulated and we knew this would not be an easy task.

My husband says that those first few days after surgery were the toughest days he has ever had to endure, hands down. The nurses encouraged him to sleep in the reclining chair rather than the bed, which he did, but it was still impossible to sleep. When the pain meds wore off it was almost unbearable for him. Eventually the chest tubes were removed which was a very intense and uncomfortable process but, did allow him to progress more quickly with his breathing therapy.

After a day or two my husband began to walk the halls of the cardiac wing, with a lovely pink walker provided by the hospital. (No I could not resist taking a photo!) It was very tiring for him at first, of course, but every day he could go a little further. He blew diligently into the dreaded spirometer and saw it as a challenge to reach his pre-op lung capacity. His competitive nature served him well!

On the 4th day after his surgery, as we were preparing to go home, we found out that my husband’s platelet count was a little low and also that there seemed to be something not quite right on the left side of his lung. That turned out to be a small pneumothorax, or hole in the lung, which we were told would heal spontaneously. Fortunately, by the next day the platelets were back up and we were discharged to go home. We were so happy. (Apparently, the heart-lung machine through which one’s blood passes during open heart surgery tends to chew up the platelets and it takes a while for them to build back up.)

The great thing about being home would be the rest and emotional healing that we knew would take place there. Everything had happened so fast, we needed time to decompress and think about what had transpired. Home would prove to be a wonderful place in which to do that!

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Our Journey to Heart Health (Part 2)

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Heart of the Matter

 

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The Triple By-Pass

After meeting with our surgeon and setting the date for my husband’s triple by-pass, we went home to pray and prepare for his impending surgery. It had all happened so fast. His surgery was set for exactly one week from the day of his heart catheterization. It was surreal. One moment we were moving through life, ostensibly healthy, making plans for the upcoming month, and the the next moment, we were facing a potential life or death situation.

When all of this happened, the Lord immediately brought a particular scripture to my mind. It was Proverbs 16:9 “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” (NKJV) This is so true. As humans we often make plans and plot our course thinking that we ultimately decide what happens next. We lose sight of our own vulnerability and smallness in the shadow of a mighty God. It is he who ultimately determines what happens to us and where our paths will take us, like an expert orchestra conductor, arranging… directing…allowing those notes into our lives that will come together to make a beautiful symphony; notes that will move us, and those around us, to a deeper relationship with him.

Throughout the early days of my husband’s diagnosis, I never found myself crying out in anger, or becoming distraught. Instead, God gave me a deep sense of peace and a confidence that everything would work out just as he wanted it to and that he would be there every step of the way. I am grateful for that.

My husband and I arrived early on the day of his surgery for his pre-op activities, 4:00am to be exact! The hospital was quiet and the lobby and halls were empty except for a few nurses here and there. I could sense my husband’s anxiety, even though he had taken a sedative to calm his nerves. As we arrived on the 3rd floor to begin preparations, there at the nurses station stood a church friend of ours with a smile on his face…at 4 o’clock in the morning! He had come to pray with us before the surgery.

After saying goodbye, we were led to the surgery waiting area to watch the clock and wait for the phone call that would let us know the surgery was over. During the morning, many friends and family appeared in to the waiting area to sit with us or to pray for us. And many others texted or called to check on us. I personally think “texting” is the greatest innovation since sliced bread! It allowed me to quickly update friends and family on my husband’s progress and to send group texts to several people at once without having to take the time to call so many people individually. I can’t tell you what a blessing it was to see the smiling faces of our friends and family coming through the door of that waiting room during those anxious hours to pray and visit with us as we waited.

It was exactly 2 hours later that we got the call that everything had gone as planned with no complications. Shortly after the phone call our surgeon walked into the room and said my husband had done great and that it was a routine, boring surgery. ( a good thing in the world of complicated surgeries!) He said that other than the blockages, my husband’s heart and lungs were strong and healthy and that he anticipated a relatively quick and complete recovery. We all breathed a sigh of relief and thanked God for the outcome.

The next few days of recovery would prove to be the most difficult days of my husband’s life.

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New Year’s resolutions: self-serving or kingdom-focused?

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Heart of the Matter

 

Attractive senior woman receiving gift of bamboo plant at front door

I read an article recently in the  Florida Baptist Witness,  by Hunter Leavine, regarding the self-serving intent of many New Year’s resolutions. It was a great article and really spoke to me. He wrote about how most of our resolutions are geared towards our own improvement rather than towards helping others. For example: I will eat less and lose weight. I will join the gym. I will push hard at work to get a promotion and make more money. I will save for a vacation or a boat. He wrote that, as Christians, our resolutions should impact others in some positive way, encouraging them towards a relationship with Christ or a closer walk with him.

For instance, what if I resolved to spend one Saturday a month serving those who cannot serve themselves by visiting a nursing home or helping at a food pantry? What if I resolved to make friends with our neighbors, creating opportunities to share Christ with them? What if I resolved to tithe or give money to missions so that people around the world can hear the gospel?… or to explore my spiritual gifts and begin to use them in service at my church? What if I, as a husband, resolved to become more of a spiritual leader in my family by initiating prayer and Bible reading in the home? Or what if I resolved to break that long-standing feud and forgive someone against whom I had held a grudge, thereby reflecting the love of Christ to them?

Self-directed New Year’s resolutions are not necessarily all bad. There’s no question that getting fit or working harder can have a positive impact on those around you, but, as Christians, we are called to be others-minded…service oriented…self-sacrificing. We would do well to keep that in mind as each New Year rolls around. As a matter of fact, we should keep this in mind every day of the year.

If we designed our New Year’s resolutions so that our home, workplace or campus would be impacted for Christ, how wonderful that would be! In this new year, we have the opportunity to make New Year’s resolutions that not only change ourselves, but that change others for eternity!

If you have already made your resolutions…it’s not too late to revise them! Consider adding some things that are more beneficial to others and to the kingdom of God than they are to yourself. Pray for strength and resolve to carry them through, and then trust God with the amazing results!

“For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” 1 Timothy 4:8 (NIV)

 

 

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Our Journey to Heart Health (Part 1)

Posted on January 31, 2016 by Heart of the Matter

dreamstime_s_15631907Dear Readers,

In honor of National Heart Month, and in light of my husband’s recent cardiac event, I am adding a new feature to my blog. It will be called “Our Journey to Heart Health” and will appear weekly. My hope is that those who have experienced heart health issues might draw encouragement from our story and also that we may glean information from others who have walked this road before us. I will write about my husband’s diagnosis, our coming to terms with it, his triple by-pass surgery, and our journey to heart health as a family as we initiate a heart-healthy diet and lifestyle plan.

The Journey Begins

A little background:

My husband has always been an athlete. He began swimming on the local swim team at an early age and continued to swim throughout middle school and high school. He played water polo during high school and was named an all-American. He then went on to swim at the college level. As an adult he has continued to indulge his swimming habit at the local YMCA and the city pool. My husband is also a very good bicyclist and a pretty good runner. As a young adult, he began to participate in triathlons and has completed many of them in the 23 years that we have been married, frequently medaling in his age group. In addition to swimming, biking, and running, my husband’s fitness routine has always included weight training. I have never known my husband to go an extended period of time without exercising regularly at a pretty intense level. In addition, my husband has never smoked and has never been overweight.

The symptoms:

My husband has a friend (from the early “swim team” days) who is a cardiologist in our town who he occasionally has lunch with. One day in late November, 2015, while having lunch with this friend, my husband told him that for several years he had been experiencing a sort of “flutter” when he would lie down at night, especially if he had worked out extra hard that day. His cardiologist friend told him that since he was over 50, he should probably get a stress test just to make sure nothing was wrong. He told us that he was pretty confident they wouldn’t find anything of much significance.

Unfortunately, the stress test did show a subtle indication of “abnormal wall motion”. Our cardiologist said it was almost undetectable. With this finding, we were a little concerned, but still hoped for the best, knowing that my husband was extremely fit and that he was relatively young to have heart problems. My husband was quickly scheduled for a CT of the arteries and much to our surprise, it showed that he had a 70 % blockage in his  right coronary artery. We received the news on Christmas Eve, 2 days before we were to leave for a family ski trip to celebrate our son’s 21st birthday. After talking it over as a family, and considering our cardiologist’s advice, we decided to go ahead and go on the trip. My husband took it easy and didn’t ski as much as he normally would, sticking to the easier slopes and taking plenty of time to rest. It was a wonderful bonding time with our kids and we are so glad we went.

The shocking diagnosis:

As soon as we returned from our vacation, my husband was scheduled for a heart catheterization to determine if a stent needed to be placed in the blocked artery. My husband was very nervous about the procedure. It just so happened that he had been a manager over that very catheterization lab several years back when he had worked at this particular hospital before he had made a complete career change. Therefore, having been in the medical field, he knew all of the things that could possibly go wrong. I was a little nervous for the procedure as well, knowing that there were risks involved such as a punctured artery or an allergic reaction to the anesthesia, but I trusted the Lord to bring him through and thought the worst case scenario would be that he would come out with a stent in place.

After the procedure, even before I was taken back to see my husband, I was ushered into a little room where our cardiologist was sitting in front of a computer screen looking at a video of my husband’s heart catheterization. As he asked me to sit down, I knew right away it was not going to be good news. He told me that my husband would need open heart surgery and proceeded to show me where the 4 blockages were in his heart. Three of them were 70% and one was 50% (the left main artery, which I later learned is called “the widow maker”). I immediately thought of how my husband would handle the unexpected and shocking news. Thankfully, our cardiologist friend was going to go in with me to tell him.

Before we had even left the hospital, we were scheduled for an appointment with the heart surgeon. He was the best in the area and we had heard about his skill and godly character for years as other people we knew had gone under the knife for similar procedures. We went home and anxiously awaited our appointment the next day, praying for wisdom and peace to walk through what was to come. Our life had changed in an instant.

 

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Keeping the Faith

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Heart of the Matter

 

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What is it that allows one to walk through difficult, sometimes tragic, trials… and come out on the other side with their faith intact?

As I’ve thought about this question in the last few weeks of walking through a serious and unexpected health event with my husband, I keep coming back to my strong roots in the evangelical Christian faith and the consistency with which I was soaked in the beliefs, values and customs therein.

You see, I was raised to believe that God will never leave me…that he is faithful, unwavering and true. I was taught to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God and that its promises are completely trustworthy and eternal. The fact that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, is ingrained in my being. I learned from an early age that God loves me with an infinite love and has an expansive and specific plan for my life that may contain many twists and turns, but will ultimately bring him glory. I was taught that when I accepted Jesus as my Savior, not only did I begin a personal relationship with him, but the Holy Spirit came to me to forever be a source of power, comfort and strength just when I needed it.

I grew up watching not only my parents, but many other faithful friends within our church family walk out their faith with peace, courage, and confidence–the kind that only the Holy Spirit can give.

And through the twists, turns, trials, and triumphs of my life, God has grown and strengthened my faith in Him. He has opened my eyes to areas of weakness and softened my spirit where I needed softening. He has humbled me and allowed me to see glimpses of why I have walked the path that I have walked. And he has allowed me the opportunity to share what I have learned with others who are slowly making their way through the cracks and crevices of life a few years behind me.

My faith is strong because I was set on a firm foundation and surrounded by many faithful saints who reflected Jesus to me and taught me the Word of God. My faith is strong because of God’s faithfulness, discipline, and grace.

I pray that God will allow you to stand firm through your trials and find the blessing within, trusting in his unwavering love and his infinite wisdom.

And I pray that you will raise your own children on the firm and eternal foundation of Jesus Christ.

 

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