My New Year's Eve Party--Another Exciting Trip to Urgent Care

My New Year's Eve event? Another exciting trip to urgent care! (Insert sarcasm) I have been having this weird tripping feeling in my heart, where it glitches, then pounds, which naturally makes me rather nervous. I figured it was because of my asthma because I get the heart pounding thing when I use my inhaler and sometimes before I use it. But it's been happening more often, so I just wanted to check to make sure.

It's taken awhile to get to that point. I waited longer than I should, not wanting to spend the money, not wanting to go just to be reassured that it's not a big deal.

Turns out, it is a big deal, but with 5 different conditions, multiple prescriptions, and daily symptoms that I'm regularly assessing and reacting to, sometimes it's hard to differentiate what is a big deal and what is everyday normal for me. Then I get to the doctor and she says, no, that's not asthma.

"Your heart tripping like that could be due to caffeine. It usually pounds for only a few minutes and then goes back to normal."

I haven't had caffeine in over a year. And it doesn't stop after a few minutes.

She scowled a little. "Then you're in trouble."

Happy New Year to me. She saw the look on my face and started reassuring me. Maybe it was some strange food I'm reacting to. No, I eat kind of the same thing regularly, being on a hypoglycemic diet.

She kept talking and then bingo, the little light bulb went on when she mentioned potassium. Duh. I had even thought of that the other night when my heart was glitching. I've had critically low potassium before. I take prescription strength potassium supplements because all my electrolytes are chronically low. But when I take extra steroids, it depletes potassium even more than usual. And I've been on extra steroids for over a month (nearly 6 months excluding the few weeks I suffered through tapering before I got sick again).

Thinking about it that way, I should have gone to the doctor weeks and week ago when I noticed it happening more often. Then again, I have an entire calendar just to mark symptoms and weird things like this, so it's not like one or two start glowing before my eyes saying they should be taken more seriously than others, you know?

So today after 3 sticks with the needle to try to get blood from my very unwilling veins, several hours away from home when I already felt sick, and a raging headache because I was late for one of my every-3-hour meals, I finally got home to celebrate New Year's Eve by putting on my most unflattering flannel pjs, taking a handful of pills, and trying not to freak out every time my heart did its glitchy thing, wondering if my delay is going to run me straight toward a heart attack.

I'd love to say that 2013 is going to be better. That I'll get stable and do better. That I'll always know the right thing to do. However, instead I think I'll hope that, no matter what happens with my body, that my heart will cling more to God, that my soul will choose peace despite my understanding, and that I will live with joy because this life and this body and my lousy momentary feelings are just temporary. What lasts is God and faith and hope and love, and none of those have anything to do with my cells or muscles or tissues or test results.

Someday I'm going to get a new body, and that's the one I'll get to keep for eternity. I think those of us who are betrayed by our bodies down here will appreciate those new ones more than most!

A whole new year is beginning. I'll spend a lot of it trying to make here and now better, but I hope I don't forget to focus on more than that, on the bigger and better and more abundant that God intends for His children.

My heart is pounding right now. I don't like it, but I can't do anything about it yet. It may be several days before I get the test results, and if there's one thing I'm not good at, it's waiting. Maybe that's the point. Maybe when I didn't know, I could forget about it, but now that I know, I have to decide if I will give in to fear (which is totally what I want to do right now) or choose to trust the One who knows the number of my days. My number didn't change because I learned what might be wrong. God has known all along, after all.

So as I go to bed this night, and start a brand new year tomorrow, I officially choose to reject my fear and trust my God. Not just with my physical heart, but my emotional and spiritual one as well. In His hands, all is well.

May God bless your year with joy and hope and peace.