When I was six years old, I was diagnosed with Wolf-Parkinson's White Syndrome. If you care to understand exactly what that means you can go here. The shortened version is simply, I had an extra electrical current path in my heart. Most of the time, my heart was on the normal path and would beat perfectly fine. But sometimes, my heart would jump off the normal path and I would have an extremely rapid heart rate... the extra path was like a short cut, and my heart would hurt, I would become short of breath, and the beating could be seen through my little six-year-old tee shirt.
We lived in New York, and the hospitals were huge and scary. I had to stay overnight in the hospital twice in order for the doctors to find a medication that would regulate my heart beat. The first time they sent me home with a medicine that made my symptoms worse... I was six, my parents had four other children at home, and they were not able to stay over night with me. I remember waking up very early and watching an "I Love Lucy" rerun. When it was over, I called home, crying because I was alone and scared. We only had one car, my dad had to work, and my mom cried too. Needless to say, I was not a fan of hospitals.
I went home from my second hospital stay with a heart monitor that I had to wear every day for a week, and a proper prescription. I had to take this tiny pill twice a day, or my heart rate would soar. I hated it. Also, I couldn't have caffeine, chocolate (although I still ate it, plenty), and my favorite drink: mountain dew, was now off limits. This was probably a blessing in disguise! Granted I was six and not drinking soda often, but a couple times a year we were allowed to sip on a small cup of that sweet, strange stuff, and I was extremely sad that I would be banned from that treat!
At the age of seventeen, I was finally old enough to have the ablation therapy to have the extra electrical current path removed from my heart! I would be able to go places without having to remember a stupid bottle of little, white, heart-regulating pills! I was living on campus, running daily, loving life, when my mother called to tell me she was scheduling my surgery. I was scared, but so excited. I started running harder than ever, because I wanted my heart to be super strong for the procedure. I also started praying harder than ever, because I really wanted this surgery to heal my heart. We had been praying since I had been diagnosed that I would be healed completely from this, and I opened my hands, earnestly to God.
I remember, one night, late, I snuck into the chapel of the campus using my father's key. I went down to the altar, grabbed a hymnal, and started singing every hymn I knew at the top of my lungs. The chapel has great acoustics, and I hadn't been doing much singing since I had given up my Broadway dreams. I poured out everything I had that night in praise and prayers to God, to give me strength for the surgery, to heal my heart, to help me through if that wasn't possible... I think I scared the cleaning lady, because at one point I heard a door open and close, but I just kept on singing and crying. The chapel, empty and dark, embraced my emotions and the Holy Spirit filled me with strength.
I went into my ablation with courage. The procedure was as follows:
1. Shave my upper/inner thigh/groin (yep, this job was given to a cute, male intern, but of course my important parts were covered... completely professional..it was just absolutely embarrassing and I still blush all these years later. I was the girl who would wear shorts over my swimming suit when I went swimming...).
2. Next step, insert two thick wires with cameras into the major artery of each leg (located where the shaving took place, of course).
3. Thread the wires through the arteries into the heart, going through the back.
4. Use the cameras to find the extra path while pumping in adrenaline to watch the heart rhythm increase and see where it jumps.
5. Burn out the extra path.
6. Remove wires.
7. Cover and place pressure on the two arteries for 24 hours so that they close up and don't bleed out...
8. No more medicine and off we go.
The procedure went well. Afterwards, the doctor told my parents that he gave me almost no pain medicine or muscle relaxers. He said I was so completely stoic, that he has had grown men, line backer style, screaming on the table as the wires went up their backs... But I just laid there.
What I had was Christ. I remember exactly what I was doing in that moment. I was praying, and I had my eyes closed, in my mind, I saw a lush green mountain. When I see pictures of mountain paths in Papua New Guinea, I know it looked something like that... but I hadn't seen those pictures yet. There was just beauty. There was a path, and there was Jesus. He didn't have exact features, He was a man, but He was bright and beautiful. He took my hand and we walked up to the top of this mountain. I sat at His feet and He spoke to me, but there weren't words I can remember, it was just peace. Honestly it didn't last more than a few minutes. Then I opened my eyes and watched the screen as pictures of my heart began to show up from the cameras.
I felt the adrenaline they pumped into me. I watched my heart beat faster. I watched them move the cameras, looking. I lay on the table for four hours, just watching and waiting.
When I was back in my room, the doctor came in. He told my parents he was baffled. He said they didn't find an extra path. He said all they had found was a little scar tissue, perhaps at the sight where the other path had been? In his mind, my doctors in New York had misdiagnosed me. But my parents and I knew I had been healed. They hadn't done any ablation, just a four hour test, and they simply told me to stop taking medicine.
I was released from the hospital with a strong sensitivity to adrenaline. After taking pills for all those years, my heart was having a time adjusting... I wasn't supposed to do too much exercise and if I did, I was supposed to wear a heart monitor to make sure my heart rate didn't exceed 200 (which it had in the hospital as I got up to pee for the first time).
I didn't like wearing the monitor. When I ran, my heart rate really would get too fast... so I started swimming! Ha! That December/January, I didn't take any classes, and I swam almost every day. I'm sure it didn't help my heart rate stay at a good speed, but I didn't have to wear my monitor in the water.
Slowly but surely, my heart strengthened. I got winded easily, but I pushed myself. I had to wear a monitor in February to make sure everything was still okay, but it was. I was back on campus for the last semester of my high school career, healed, and happy. I got baptized by my dad on the chapel stage in front of the whole campus, I sang in the college choir, I got an A in Calculus, and I went on a missions trip that summer, fulfilling my longing for adventures. Life was organized, fun, and everything made sense. I was even starting to make some friends... summer came and went, and I moved back in to MVNU for my second year of college, not realizing everything was about to change.
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