MY SWEET HEART.
Title aside, this isn’t a story about a girl. Or a boy for that matter (Always keep em guessing, yeah?).
No, it’s just a simple story about an organ that beats in our chests every moment of our lives.
It sounds so blase, doesn’t it? Just an organ that beats and beats. Birth to death. Whatever. So very easy to take for granted. But our hearts are so much more than that. I’ve been learning that lesson the hard way.
I’ve written previously of my recent struggles with heart disease, and though it may seem like I write about it to complain, I really write about it to share for awareness’s sake. And actually maybe a little complaint but I am pointing that at myself for being ignorant.
And then there’s another reason. Perhaps the real one.
I think and dream of letters to my own heart. Love letters, I suppose. You see, for cro-mag-level stubborn people like me, it takes disastrous circumstances to recognize what actually matters. And there really isnt anything much more disastrous — and totally world-changing, than going into cardiac arrest and being diagnosed in the ICU with (in my case) atrial fibrillation, or Afib, as it is more commonly called.
I’ll spare you the details, but I’ll be on very expensive medicine for a very long time. My insurance company found a reason, after four months of investigating everything in my life history, to revoke my coverage and drop every single bill squarely on my lap.
Meanwhile, they actually killed me for 90 seconds and kick started my heart you guys. Cardioversion. That was nuts. Can you imagine the cost of that without insurance? Try not to. May you never have to.
Anyway, back to the point. My sweet heart. It’s not just legend that our beating hearts truly define who we are as human beings. As I mentioned, in my case, it took a disaster for me to realize that. Our hearts are our best friends. With us always, miraculously keeping us alive and well. Nowadays, I cannot sleep without one of my hands over my heart.
Whether you are regularly conscious of it or not, you have a spiritual relationship with your heart the likes of which no other relationship outside of, perhaps your personal one with The Universe or other higher power, comes close to.
The upside of what I have been through is realizing that. I speak to my heart now. I thank it, I encourage it to be strong, and, through medicines and diet, I do my best to look after it. And I hope you will too.
A concluding aside. Oddly enough, almost exactly when I had my initial disaster/diagnosis, my beloved cat, Choupette, was diagnosed with the same condition, except a kitty one. So every morning and evening we take our medicine together and we say a little prayer for heart health. It’s become one of the sweetest rituals I have ever experienced. It makes me really not care about the insurance problems or what have you. It makes me care about living.
The moral: love your sweet hearts, my friends. be aware of them, appreciate them, look after them, as they look after you.
There you go.
