Transformed by my troubles…

Four years ago I suddenly developed a serious cardiac disorder. With only minimal heart function, I needed an immediate Heart Transplant. Due to changes that came with the Affordable Care Act, I was not eligible for Transplant. My husband was told to “Take her home. Get Her Affairs in order. Make her comfortable.”
The doctors had no answers.
We were literally out of options.
Usually optimistic I was discouraged.
Though I had many around me, I felt totally alone.
The only light at the end of the tunnel seemed to be the train headed right at me.
Like many Christians, when there seemed no other way out, I did what I should do with my life every day; I put it in the hands of God.
He answered quickly. An experimental complex cardiac device was implanted in my heart. Very quickly it took over and, once again, my heart began to pump oxygenated blood through my body.
The troubles did not end there. There were many complications. Many hospital admissions. I went into kidney failure twice from adverse reactions to diuretics. Then many admissions in critical dehydration, again from diuretics. Gallons of Potassium, which burns terribly, was pumped into my veins. I spent most of two years in the hospital.
While we thought the low point in the situation was the day of my diagnosis; it was not. That came more than a year later. Nine months after the experimental complex cardiac device was implanted and miraculously got my heart pumping again.
It came one morning my husband found me unresponsive.
Unlike our usual routine, when he’d put me in the car and drive me the five miles to the Emergency Room — he called the Paramedics. On the way to the hospital, I went into Sudden Cardiac Arrest. I was resuscitated multiple times that day before I was finally stable enough to be moved to South Bay Hospital’s ICU.
Ten days later I was finally stable enough to be moved from our local hospital to the ICU at Tampa General Hospital so my Cardio-Electrophysiologist could find a way to correct the current issue.
While the arrhythmias that had sent me into cardiac arrest had calmed down. My heart had settled into a rhythm the doctors called, “Incompatible with life.”
Finally, after ten days in Tampa General’s ICU I was stable enough for a Science Fiction like process called a Cardiac Ablation.
While I was under general anesthesia the nerve pathways in my heart were mapped out and tested. Then the ones causing the trouble, that had sent me into cardiac arrest, were burned so the mixed-up signals could no longer go through them.
The next morning I went home. Again, declared a miracle, I wondered how long this would last.
Between hospital stays our house was a hub of nurses, therapists and other healthcare professionals.
At one point, each of my organs had its own specialist. Each body system had its own treatment team. The basic list involved 19 physicians — all of them skilled specialists.
My team was put together by God through my Primary Care Physician who served as the Leader of my Treatment Team aka “The Ringmaster.” The time, dedication, commitment these people had to keeping me alive was nothing short of a miracle.
I didn’t have an easy life.
Who does?
I’d always been able to handle stuff; to handle pain. To hold onto my faith that everything happens for a reason. To stay optimistic.
If I saw a purpose in it. If I saw God’s hands in it. No matter how many times I was knocked down, I got up, dusted myself off and kept going.
Pain changes you.
Being chronically critically ill changes you even more than I could have imagined.
It doesn’t leave us where we started.
It picked me up and took me places I would never have gone willingly.
It showed me levels of fear, of trust, of faith I never imagined could exist.
Regardless of any physical healing, I was fundamentally changed. You either become better or you become bitter. But you will never again be the same person you were before you got sick.
For the first time in my life, though grateful to have been given more time, I saw no purpose in the battle.
I saw no purpose in my life.
I saw no reason to keep getting up.
I lost my optimism. I almost lost my Faith.
With an immune system battered by illness and the treatments, most of my time was spent in what I referred to as “Modified House Arrest.”
Twenty-four hours is a long day when you are chronically ill and have to remain housebound.
You can only watch so much television and read so many books. I decided to begin an intensive online Bible Study.
Along with reading the Scripture and discussing it with people of faith from throughout the world, I spent many hours talking to God.
Telling Him how I felt.
Questioning Him.
Arguing with Him.
Yelling at Him.
Crying out to Him.
And finally… Surrendering to Him.
Growing up my parents had a saying that stuck with me… When you can no longer think of a reason to go on…You need to come up with a reason to Start Over.
While I had no idea why, I knew it was time to Start Over.
One morning, while editing some photographs, I listened to a Sermon entitled “Let your troubles transform you.”
Considering my medical situation the message was quite relevant : Don’t waste your pain. Don’t hide your pain. Let God heal it. Let God recycle it. Let God use it to Bless other people.
The Preacher clearly believed that If we let Him, God uses our pain to help others.
In Bible Study, on television, in the music I listened to, and online sermons I used as “background noise,” the messages I was hearing began to echo those of the Sermon — Use your Troubles to Transform your life.
“Each of us is designed by God for a Specific Mission.”
Not me. Not anymore.
There had been a time where my life was centered around helping others escape the traps life can set for us. These days I barely left the house other than to go to a doctor’s office or back into the Hospital.
“You have a Mission that no one else can accomplish.”
Between spinal injuries I’d suffered years before, and the Cardiac Issues I was facing, I could barely walk.
What did I have to give?
“God has a Plan for you.”
I couldn’t even cook dinner for my husband.
What use could I be to God?
“Everything in life has Spiritual Significance.”
Even pain? Even suffering?
That would mean that God had a hand in my current condition.
Some loving God He was.
My physical battles and pain were about the only things I had in excess.
There were times I was so overwhelmed, so weakened from the physical battles that never seemed to end, that I found it difficult to even get out of bed.
Throughout the Scriptures we are reminded that there is pain, pressure, difficulty in everyone’s life.
- Everyone goes through tough times.
- Everyone has failures.
- Everyone experiences pain.
- Everyone faces tragedy.
- No one goes through life without facing problems.
- No one goes through unbroken.
- There is pain, pressure, and difficulty in everyone’s life
Yet God assures us that resistance, resilience, determination; the ability to bounce back no matter how bad things get is about perspective. It’s all in the way we look at things.
The Apostles looked at life not from a worldly view, but from a Godly view.
Not from a contemporary view, but from an eternal view.
The Disciples of Jesus believed that everything that happened to them on earth was meant to prepare them for what would come next. That no matter how tough the problems (and they faced some pretty rough ones) they are temporary and were nothing compared to the troubles that faced Jesus when He walked the earth.
I began to think that maybe there was some way I could be of use again.
I was still breathing.
My heart was still beating.
Maybe there was a way I could serve.
Maybe I would try to start living again.
Slowly and quietly (at first) I began to reach out online to others dealing with issues related to serious illness — to patients as well as their family and friends.
Soon I found myself fielding questions from Cardiac patients around the world.
They wrote that my story brought them hope.
Their stories touched my life more than I could have imagined possible.
God brought each of them into my life at just the right time.
They brought me Healing.
They brought me Gratitude.
God began to use my writing to transform me.
I began to see His fingerprints all over my struggle.
- God used them to bring me closer to Him.
- God used them to help me begin to grow more like Jesus.
- God used them to bring His message of comfort to others going through similar struggles.
- God used it to deepen my fellowship with other believers.
- God used it to provide a platform for my testimony as to His Grace.
God used the struggles and the hope of so many to show me my purpose.
I began to listen. And in those He sent my way, I began to understand the Mission He had for me.
Rather than focusing on my pain, on my feelings, on how sick I was, God had me focusing on helping others.
On helping them find answers.
On showing them that there is always Hope.
On bringing them His comfort.
I began to volunteer with the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.
- I, and many others touched by Cardiac Disease and Disorder, help Moderate the Online Community Support Networks- providing information, resources, support and comfort to others suffering from complex cardiac disease and/or disorders, as well as their family and friends.
- I write and my writings are published by the AHA/ASA as well as several other Websites. I write to better understand my journey. I write to help others believe that there is reason to keep fighting when all they want to do is give up. I write to address, in a more formal manner, the issues related to living with serious Chronic Illness.
- I speak with researchers and journalists. I answer their questions, helping to educate them about the importance of the work of their work.. I share with them the miracle of my survival and the blessings I have received from so many others who take the time to share their struggles with me. I share what it’s like to be part of an international experiment. Explaining what life is like for people who live with a complex cardiac disease and other cardiovascular disorders. To never know what tomorrow will bring. What life is like for the parents, siblings, family and friends fighting alongside of us..
My writing is published on various websites. The interviews are published both online and in newspapers all over the world.
God is quite adept at getting his message out. I am humbled to be a small part of his witness.
I believe that I can handle anything if I see a purpose. If I see God’s hands in the mix.
Life, especially for a Christian, is not about luck or fate. God is pulling the strings. He has a plan for everything. His plan was decided for each one of us long before we reached the earth.
God’s plan for my life involves all that has happened, including my heart failing.
Once again He is helping me grow through adversity.
God helped me become better rather than bitter.
He uses my story to witness to the world His ongoing presence.
The relevancy of His miracles.
God uses my deepest pain to bring hope to others.
He comforts me so I can be of comfort to others.
God has used this struggle to make me more compassionate, more passionate, more sensitive, more loving, more patient, more gentle, more responsible; more human.
God is using this struggle to transform my life.
As usual, God is making good out of bad.
