If I ever wanted to be the posterchild for something it sure as hell wasn't going to be Heart Disease. Nope not me. Non-smoker, mild drinker, runner, cyclist, triathlete, marathoner, two Nalgene a dayer, 5:30am gym goer. Not this chick. I want to be the posterchild of badass-ness. Sure, my box jumps aren't cross-fit certified. I may not have trained for the last 106 mile bike ride. Perhaps I did suffer from mild frostbite a couple marathons ago, but I finished. I wake up every goddamn morning at 5am to workout before I begin my day. Not because I WANT to every morning, but because I need to. Because it makes me feel human. I crave the physical limits of a six mile run at a sub seven minute mile pace before the sun is awake. I choose to make my my muscles burn before work. The long run every week helps define who I am to myself. It may come at 4:30 am on a Wednesday or 4pm on a Friday, but it makes me a better mom, wife, teacher, leader.
My natural ability to drive forward and my stubbornness nearly cost me my life over the last month. January 20th, 2014, I quit the second thing I've ever started in my entire life. (Unless you count Jr. High basketball, and that is another story.) I listened to my heart. Around mile 20 of a marathon I found myself experiencing chest pain and shortness of breath. For nearly two weeks I berated myself for quitting. Perhaps I could have pushed through. Gosh Joy, you were so close to that BQ time, you could taste it. Why did you quit?? I continued to struggle through workouts and runs, barely able to keep a pace without feeling like an elephant was on my chest. I kept pushing the limit, over and over again, six or seven days a week, until I was at work at my left arm went numb.
Turns out the pneumonia I thought I was battling is something much bigger. Much bigger than me. After thousands of dollars of tests, I finally have an answer. My left atrium has herniated outside of the pericardium. Turns out that elephant on my chest and shortness of breath isn't something that a 5:30am workout is going to fix, let alone tolerate.
So I sit. I thank God I had enough sense to stop and listen to my own heart. I am lucky to be alive. I should relish in that. But in the last two weeks I feel like I have lost a part of myself. I'm not leaving the house for the gym, I'm not pounding out the sub seven minute mile pace on the treadmill. I'm not me. It's the same heart, the same mind, the same body. I'm alive. First and foremost I will always be a wife and mom, but I don't want to lose who I am.
The future holds further tests. Maybe surgery. A lot of possible changes to the person I've become in the last 29 years. I'm not ready to accept those yet. Although my running is not elite status, it's hard to let go of all of the work I have put into myself. There's nothing like the "pat on the back" that a good runs gives to you, to yourself.
Shot through the heart, and you're to blame. Listening to my heart, it's time for a break. But we'll be back again, running and I. Maybe a little slower, maybe a little shorter, but this love affair of the heart isn't over yet.
Your life does change when you are faced with your own mortality. I have found that I don't worry about little things any more and I think I have become much more tolerant of others who maybe would have pissed me off in the past. Sure you may have to adapt your life to accomodate for your heart but I am sure you will find a substitute for running that will be just as satisfying. Thank God that your condition was diagnosed without you actually suffering a heart attack. Let me know if you ever need anything or ever need help with the boys.
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