Hello All.

The last time I wrote was from the hospital in the midst of having my 6th Heart Attack. The venous bypass graft that fed the whole backside of my heart, was 99% occluded. Another stent was placed, #13. We all hope that this holds for a little bit of time, as we  try to figure out our next steps.

Truth be told, there isn’t a whole lot to update on because cardiology cannot agree on how to move forward. Should we start Apheresis? Should they reopen the native vessels with a Chronic Total Occlusion (CTO) Cath or to re-do my bypass with Arterial grafts? Literally, multiple cardiologists were involved with my case during the last admission and each time one was at the bedside, they all had a different opinion.

The really frustrating part is that the cardiologists are not helping to find someone to do a CTO Cath or re-do bypass. While inpatient, they stressed that I needed apheresis as soon as possible, but I had to spend the week during my recovery, doing the searching to find a location and doctor willing to review my case. Even more frustrating is that I’ve reached out to various cardiologists at both big academic centers and smaller local hospitals to get them to agree to take on my case, but they are refusing to take it on.

In reality, the last Cath bought us some time before the next occlusion (the docs expect at max 3 months) to find someone to take on my case to come up with a solution. Since the beginning of 2020, I have been begging doctors to come up with a plan that would prevent me from having to keep going back to the Cath Lab every 3 months to fix the same problem. So this last procedure, while it had to be done, really just reset the same clock and repeated the same pattern we have been on. Thus, I am frustrated that my symptoms were ignored for 5 months which ultimately led to another heart attack and we just did the same thing we have been doing.

In regards to my recovery, we did a heart ultrasound last week that indicated that I lost about 5% function of my heart. While it could recover over time, doctors are not super hopeful. We have also been dealing with a lot of fluid retention issues that started about two weeks before the last heart attack and has continued. We haven’t quite figured out the cause yet, besides my heart, so thats the current challenge. I also sprained my big toe, which has been another fun thing to deal with. While I would love to say I handled that with grace, profanity escaped my lips.

How am I doing? Right now, I am experiencing a lot of frustration, anger, grief and in a sense burn-out. Burnt out on continuously having to argue with doctors, undergo procedures, deal with the physical and mental trauma of another heart attack and the constant management of chronic illness. While I am well prepared (thanks to a lot of hard work with my therapist), to walk through this setback again and the fact that I have almost perfected how to handle having a heart attack, it does not mean that this season is easy. Its like the 5 stages of grief and sometimes within a day, I walk through all 5 while other days, none.

Add on top of that, my daily wrestling match with God, screaming where the _____ are you? and its a challenging season. I want to believe that God is there and a partner in this battle. Knowing myself and how I work to get there I know in my heart I have to continue to wrestle my way through this with Him.

With that in mind, I have decided to take a hiatus from social media. Any updates will come through the blog or me personally. Why a hiatus? Seeing everyone’s highlight reel, people doing things that I don’t agree with during this pandemic, the arguments about social distancing, face masks (wear one!), school, etc, just is not helpful to my mental health. So I chose to silence the noise. The time and apps that I spent wasting time and scrolling through have been replaced with prayer and scripture apps. Art supplies came back out from the closet to give myself a creative outlet. Instead of starting my morning with a scroll through social media, I meet God in the scriptures, get outside with the pups and settle into a new rhythm.

Listen, healing may not come in the full restoration of my heart as I once hoped and prayed for and in reality I don’t know what healing means from here on out. One thing, I do know, is healing will continue to come through fighting each battle one day at a time. Right now, my prayer is to find peace in this season of unknown and to trust that God is perfecting the right next step.