HEART PROBLEMS FOR A GYM RAT

I have always been a gym rat and played sports. At sixty-three I prided myself in being fit and trim. I ate close to a Mediterranean diet, slept adequately, and did not smoke or party. I was smug enough to believe I would never have any serious health issues because I cared for my health so well. There is an old saying that pride comes before the fall, and fall I did.

It started two years ago at an annual check-up when the doctor heard a slight heart murmur. My poor man's insurance would not pay for an echocardiogram. So I went on with life. The last four months leading up to July 1st I had been gaining weight and losing breath ever so gradually. My energy level was slowly going.

I got a strange virus that made me sicker than a dog for three days with a fever. I went to bed and felt like I was drowning so I coughed and choked and fought for breath. I then decided I was getting older and maybe I developed asthma so I headed to a clinic. The nurse practitioner said I did not have asthma but a really bad heart murmur. She said I should go to the hospital via ambulance but I said no.

Roma drove me to the hospital and the emergency room I was wheeled into became like a show in Grey's Anatomy and by the time they were done hooking me up I looked like the Borg from Star Trek!

This was a real slap in the face of my mortality. How could this be happening to me? I was in Afib and they started running every test known to man on me. Finally, after a day and a half in the hospital, they found I had two bad heart valves that needed replacing. I asked them how this could be because I took care of myself. They said that I must have been born with misformed heart valves. If I had not taken care of myself I would have been in ten years earlier and the virus must have stirred up my heart.

Oh, don't spoil me! So here I am weak and waiting for a heart operation. I have never had surgery before so this does scare me. But also I am getting so tired so easily that I just want fixed so I can get my energy back and feel healthy and strong again. I miss going and playing pickleball, lifting weights, and walking on the treadmill.

I think of the Tinman in The Wizard of Oz, "If I only had a heart!" In my case, I would sing, "If only my heart was fixed!"

Psalm 73:26 NKJV

My flesh and my heart fail;

But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

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