From the Heart- Heart Procedures Friday

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Hi everyone!  I'm dedicating today's post to giving you all a medical update.

Remember all the way back to this post where I talked about how I was going to have a couple of procedures related to my heart this summer?  It's crazy to believe, but I'm heading to the hospital on Friday to have those done!

To give you (and myself?!) a refresher, I will be having two heart-related procedures on Friday.  It's kind of nice because my cardiologist and a vascular surgeon will do both of the procedures in one hospital visit.  I'm happy about this because this means that I'll only have to go under anesthesia once which will hopefully spend less time at the hospital🙌!  So one of the procedures involves getting a heart cath.  Let me clarify that I am NOT having an open heart surgery!  A heart cath is essentially a long, flexible tube that is inserted into a blood vessel in the leg and then threaded into the heart.  By my having this procedure, my cardiologist will be able to check if the pressures in my heart are good and that my heart is functioning well.

The other procedure that I will be having is an angiogram of my right leg, which is essentially a picture of the blood vessels in my right leg.  By performing this procedure, the vascular surgeon will be able to see what blood vessels are blocked in my right leg.  I want to say that as far as I know, I do NOT have any blood clots in my leg, but I do have poorer circulation.

As far as I know, the only prep that I have to do for these procedures is fasting (excluding water and other clear liquids).  Although I'm not a huge fan of that, I know that God will help me to do it!  Anyways, sometime this next week, I should get a call from my cardiologist's office regarding a review of how to prep for the procedures and how everything is expected to go!

Thankfully, after these procedures are performed, I should be able to leave the hospital the next day 🙌!  I don't hate hospitals, but I am the kind of person who goes a little stir--crazy if I don't have a change of scenery for a while, so I'm happy that this hospital trip is expected to have a quick turnaround 😜!

My thoughts on all this?  Well, of course, I'm a little nervous.  There's a thought at the back of my mind that wonders if I'll wake up after going under anesthesia.  I'm concerned that I'll feel super icky when I wake up from anesthesia like I did when I had my pacemaker placed.  Lastly, I'm concerned that the doctors will find something really wrong, either with my heart or with my veins.  However, I realize that God is in control and that whatever happens, He will use it for my eternal good.  On the whole, God has given me good health, so I am optimistic that He will mercifully continue to do so.

In the meantime, I'm still going to keep living life, realizing that this is just another step in my heart journey and another punch that I'll just have to roll with 😜!  I'm not going to dwell on my concerns but will do my best to give them to God, realizing that this is by no stretch of the imagination the worst thing that could happen to anyone.  I will be praying that everything goes well, and I would appreciate your prayers for the same thing!  By God's grace, I'll be trying to laugh every day and choose joy! 

To close this post, I want to say that I'm not sharing this so that people will feel bad for me or worry about me.  In fact, quite the opposite!  I'm sharing this information to be honest about my journey with a congenital heart defect and so that people will see how God has and is continuing to keep me and be encouraged by that!

I look forward to posting again on Friday 😃!  (That post will be an automatic post; I'll most likely still be in the hospital when it goes up on the blog.)