Quit playing games with my ♥

About a year ago I was diagnosed with a heart condition called Superventricular Tachycardia. Now before you start sending meals, taking dibs on my children and preparing my funeral, you should understand that it isn't life threatening. It's basically small episodes where my heart begins to beat at around 150-180+ bpm. The average (resting) heart rate is 60-80 bpm. I've been told it's fairly common in people who are 20-30 years old and mostly women who are tall or pregnant. I'm tall and a woman, so there you go. I've experienced these episodes a few times here and there but never had a serious case until April of last year, and then again today.

It all started this morning while I was in a spinning class at the gym with my MIL Shirley. Things were going great, we were burnin lots of calories, sweatin up a storm and then 30 min into the class my heart totally wigged out. I immediately knew what was happening, so I stopped and just sat there to let it get back to normal. I finished the class, taking it easy and then went out to check my heart rate on the treadmill. It read 220.

By the time I got home it was still beating really hard and I knew I was going to have to do something. So we googled it on the computer and found a few ways to try and slow down my heart rate and this is what we found:

1. Take a deep breath and then strain like you are having a bowel movement.

2. Cough really hard.

3. Stick your face in a bowl of ice water.

Although these solutions might not seem very appealing, the other option is much much worse. Last year, when I ended up in urgent care after my heart rate wouldn't go down on it's own, they used a drug called Adenosine. First you are given an IV, then they administer the drug through the IV and warn you that it might feel "a little funny". According to wikopedia the side effects are described as "a feeling of death," or "a sense of impending doom." The drug basically stops your heart so that it can restart with a regular heart rhythm. It felt like a car was being crushed into my chest. Ouch.

Naturally I wanted to stay as far away from that drug as possible. So I strained with all my might (after using the restroom mind you) and I coughed like I had the black lung, and I thought about how ice water would feel on my face. None of it worked so we took a break and watched some Lost, hoping the magic of the island would reverse my heart issues. Another hour passed with no change and I decided to have Kevin give me a blessing. Immediately afterwards he told me that I should continue trying because faith without works is dead.

Fast forward another hour and I'm at urgent care getting an EKG. They tell me to cough and "bare down"and put a bag of ice water on my face. Nothing works and I am so devastated. A few minutes later the IV is in, a few tears are shed, and they tell me they will be back in a few minutes with the drug. "Keep trying", the nurse says "I'm not giving up on you yet". So I take a deep breath and strain as hard as I can, not caring what might end up in my pants. I do it again and again, and lo and behold just minutes before they came back, my heart rate went down to 100bpm.

HALLELUJAH!

I was so grateful at that moment. I knew Heavenly Father was looking out for me. He knew I was alone and scared to go through that procedure again, and he answered my prayer. I was grateful for yet another small miracle in my life.