Heart Failure; the latest addition to my long and boring list of ailments. Added, in name at least, only today. My “regular” appointment with my new Cardiology Nurse turned out to be anything but and two and a half hours after she asked me if I understood why my new Cardiologist had arranged for me to see her, I was sat in the car park with a new label to contemplate; Failure. My heart was in failure; 50% failed, level three failure out of four levels.
Ten days ago, after two years and two months on a cocktail of heart meds to keep me alive started to cause depression and suicidal thoughts, I stopped taking my Beta-blocker nd within 48 hours I started to feel “me” returning. I was finally leaving behind my feelings of guilt at surviving my series of heart attacks and open heart surgery, I was beginning to experience joy at being in our new home.
it never stops amazing me how often we are preparing for something without knowing it; I know that if I had heard the news today whilst in the state of mind I had been in, just a couple of weeks before, it would have felt overwhelming, it might well have been the last straw.
Today, however, the woman who heard the news that she was going to face yet another challenge, that despite everything she’d been through, there was going to be another test, was the woman who was told she would never be a mother, never make it to thirty, never walk again after her car accident, and wouldn’t live after 19 hours and a failed quintuple heart bypass. Today, Dinah had returned and I wasn’t going to accept that my heart was a Failure.
my heart, my rather over-damaged, over-stressed and over-worked heart, is a remarkable thing; the engine that’s kept running despite being way past empty and kept running on fumes. My heart, which has beat despite every attempt to stop it. Failure? I think not!
Labels have no place in our lives, other than on beautiful gifts or drawers of boring documents. They don’t belong on people and they don’t belong on our hearts. My heart a failure? I’d love to see the successful version!
dinah
Dear dear Dinah. How a heart that has inspired, lifted and supported so many others could ever, ever be deemed a failure is beyond ludicrous. And I love the little stickman with the big heart on a stick. How massively appropriate… as hearts simply do not come bigger than yours. Jnh xxx
Dear Jonathan, thank you so much, what a lovely thing to say. You’ve made my day. Sending love xx