So it has been quite some time since I have written. Just when I was getting into the swing of
writing, I allowed life to get in the way.
I wrote a draft for a post on April 20, but never took the time to
finish it and put it up on the web, so here is what I wrote back in April. In February my family took in a house quest
that threw off my mojo for quite some time.
Not that that should be any kind of excuse to not work on my goal, but
it was what it was. Then at the end of
March I started having some medical issues that consumed my mental time. Then
last week (April) we got the news that I have a congenital heart defect. Bad news, right? Yeah, not the greatest, but it has actually
been rather relieving for me.
My defect is called Patent Ductus Arteriosis (PDA). Go look it up…ok if you insist I will explain
it: when we were all in utero we get our
oxygen from our mothers, this is possible because of a duct that connects the
pulmonary artery (the one that takes unoxygenated blood from the heart to the
lungs for oxygenation) to the aorta (the heart valve that takes the oxygenated
blood to our cells in the body). When we
are born this duct (ductus arteriosis) conveniently closes so our heart does
the oxygenation on our own. Well my duct
didn’t close like it was supposed to.
What this means is that when my heart pumps some of the oxygenated blood
going through my aorta passes back through my PDA into the pulmonary artery and
into my heart as well, thus mixing oxygenated blood with the unoxygenated
blood. To my mind this means my body
doesn’t get all the oxygen it should and adds unnecessary blood volume to the
left side of my heart, pulmonary artery and lungs. This can cause shortness of breath,
tachycardia (fast heart rate), heart murmurs, bounding pulse, etc., etc. If untreated
it can lead to congestive heart failure (which usually wouldn’t happen
until I was in my 50’s or 60’s).
Oh no! Scary Kae! … My cardiologist didn’t feel like it was
anything to be overly concerned about right now. He says we will do a procedure to “fix it”
after I have healed up from having baby.
He told me the echocardiogram showed a very normal healthy heart other
than the PDA. The only bad is that I
need to listen to my body more during the pregnancy and rest more than I would
and not push myself too hard. But is
that bad? I like to feel like I can do
everything by myself and only ask for help if I can’t push hard enough. Lately I have noticed that I have way
less energy, so I have backed off and not pushed like normal. I have felt guilty to a fault sometimes and I
guess what this does is allow myself to rest.
My family has stepped up spectacularly to help fill in the gaps.
So how can this news be a relief? I mean I will have to get it fixed
right? Yes, but my relief comes from
looking back at my life and speculating that some of my issues in life can
possibly be explained by this condition.
I have moaned in this blog before how I have struggled with exercise and
being physically fit and felt fat for most of my life. I remember in elementary how frustrated I was
every year when we had to participate in the presidential fitness test to
receive that “award.” I loved to run,
but I was so slow that I hated the 50-yard dash. Sit ups were a joke because I would run out
of breath if I tried to do them too fast, etc., etc. My scores were always VERY low and I was
embarrassed every year. I loved to play
soccer, but I always ended up playing goalie cause I couldn’t get to the ball
fast enough. Hiking was another activity
that I adore, but I felt bad for those forced to hike with me cause I was one
of the slowest. There were so many times
that I felt like my legs were capable of so much more, but I just couldn’t
tackle it with all the struggles to breathe.
When I was a teenager I remember feeling like I couldn’t
“keep up” with my friends. Not really
being able to quite put my finger on the exact problem we called it
exhaustion. I went through tests for
mono and thyroid problems, nope, no mono and a perfectly healthy thyroid. Then one doctor tried to tell me I had
exercise-induced asthma. This never made
sense to me. I had siblings with asthma;
I knew what it looked like. I never
believed I had asthma. (PDA causes shortness of breath. Imagine that!) This same doctor also tried to tell me I had
depression and needed to take Prozac.
When he said that my mom grabbed me, we got up and walked out of the
office. This bad experience effectively
ended the search to discover why I was “exhausted.” I have just dealt with it like I always had,
but it was always a frustrating feeling, like I couldn’t perform like everyone
else could. I never really told anyone
that though.
Then about 6-7 years ago I started noticing weird
heartbeats. I had moments, random
moments not tied to any particular activity I was doing, when I could FEEL my
heart beating super strong and irregular.
Sometimes they would last so long that it kind of started to hurt a
little. After I had two or three of
these “episodes” that lasted longer than a half hour Brad took me to the ER
while one was happening. Of course when
I was hooked up to the EKG (for like 10 seconds) I wasn’t actually having a
palpitation so the ER doctors treated me like I was faking it all. By the time we were able to convince the
doctors to monitor me the episode was ending.
They did catch some irregular heartbeats, but not as much or as strong
as they would have had they hooked me up right away. They said the irregular beats were on the
“abnormal side of normal,” nothing to be concerned about. I mean what is that supposed to mean
anyway? I figure the words abnormal and
heart together isn’t really a good thing, but they blew me off and I had no
desire to go see a cardiologist and have them blow me off as well. Over the next few years I learned to deal
with the episodes and sometimes I could go months between irregular
palpitations. I pushed it aside like the
exhaustion issue and let it stay at the back of my mind. It wasn’t until this pregnancy and having
palpitations a whole lot more than normal that I decided to go see a
cardiologist about it.
Now I speculate that all these things in life are being
explained by this condition, I haven’t had the doctor tell me that this is the
case. I am just speculating. But this speculation has been such a relief
to me. It has allowed me to accept the
fact that I have not been able to push myself as hard as I have wanted to in
the past and it has also allowed me to accept the much weaker me that I have
been with this pregnancy. Another thing
that this discovery has allowed me to do is accept help from others where
before I would have been super stubborn to ask for help.
I am hopeful that after I get my heart “fixed” this fall I
will be able to have more stamina and push myself to that point in exercise
where I feel like my body is truly at it’s limits. I really have never felt that way, I always
felt like because I was “so fat” and “out of shape” that was why I couldn’t go
as fast or far as I felt my body should be able to go. I guess I hope that the reality is that my
body wasn’t getting the needed oxygen to go past that point so that is why I was
always so slow. So if my heart stops
pumping oxygenated blood into areas that can’t use it and my body gets it all I
should be able to function like a normal person right? I know that because of my “down time” during
this pregnancy and the obvious need for recovery after having the baby I will
truly be out of shape so it will take some time to get up to a good standard,
but at least I will know why I am where I am, instead of feeling like I am
inadequate because I am fat or lazy.
Like I said at the beginning, bad news, but it has and will do me so
good.
