Chronic Overcomer

As I lay on the operating room table, crying out in pain and bleeding out of my chest tube, I could hear the heart surgeon telling the staff that this was an emergency. They needed to move fast if they were going to stop the bleeding in time. I realized that I was going to die and only had a few seconds to think about the end of my life. It was relieving, though, that I would be in Heaven with Jesus with no more pain. Then, everything went black. Little did I know that facing death would be a recurring reality for years to come. In Karate class at age thirteen, I experienced my heart racing for the first time. The strangest thing was that I was just sitting, waiting for my turn to spar. My rapid heart rate was accompanied by my other usual symptoms, shortness of breath and chest pain, but unlike previous times, the chest pain was radiating down my left arm. It was a new, weird sensation. I sat and waited, thinking the uncomfortable feelings would go away like every other time. However, they didn’t. The new painful feelings in my heart just weren't going away. My mom took me to the Emergency Room. This time, I didn’t fight my mom about going to the ER, because I was scared. The ER doctor ran an EKG and said that everything looked fine. All the tests were normal. My mom was so relieved. My diagnosis was anxiety. I knew deep down inside that I wasn’t anxious or nervous about anything when the symptoms came on in Karate class. However, my mom was happy to receive the doctor’s diagnosis, and there was nothing else but to believe the doctor. I meekly accepted what the doctor said and moved on with life. It was unbeknownst to me that this was the beginning of a 27-year cardiac saga. The episodes only kept getting worse as time progressed. They were becoming more frequent, at least twice a week. One Sunday, when I was 19 years old, I was hanging out at my aunt’s house, and my fast heart episode came on. I called my mom and told her that I was having an anxiety attack. She said I should come home. When I got home, I tried everything I could to stop my heart episode, including taking a shower, trying pain medications, and even drinking milk. Nothing helped. I was frustrated and drained from all my efforts, so I decided to just try going to bed. As I walked up the stairs to my room, everything went black. I couldn't see nor hear, and my body drooped onto my knees. My mom was startled and called the Emergency Room. She frantically asked for suggestions for my unusually major anxiety attack. The ER staff said the symptoms could be indicative of something serious and advised my mom to bring me for examination. I seriously debated whether I should go, because I knew that they would say it was from my anxiety and not do anything for me, like every other time. I didn’t want to put myself and my parents through this again. However, I felt so terrible and my heart was not calming down, so I resolved to have my dad take me to the ER. Maybe the doctors could at least stop my intense anxiety symptoms for the time being, because I was so uncomfortable. At the ER, I was taken immediately to triage and had my vitals taken. My heart rate was 190bpm, extremely high. The nurse inquired if I had SVT. “No. I don’t even know what that is.” I was constantly at the cardiologist’s office trying to find a solution for my heart symptoms. My doctor prescribed me every heart arrhythmia medication, but nothing worked. I tried to learn to live with my symptoms. Medical bills were racking up, because I was in and out of the Emergency Room every other week. The CT angiogram revealed that I have a myocardial bridge. I had never heard of this condition. I dutifully looked it up on the internet and learned that a myocardial bridge was a congenital heart defect in which one of the coronary arteries tunneled through the heart muscle rather than lying on top. Every time the heart would beat, the artery would be squeezed causing reduction of blood flow to the heart. The symptoms of the reduced blood flow were dizziness, fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain and arrhythmias. I had every one of these symptoms. As I researched further, every time I read something on myocardial bridge it seemed that I was reading stories specifically about me. I asked the insurance to make an exception since none of my in-network doctors treated myocardial bridges. The insurance stated that since Stanford was out of network, I would need to contact every in-network doctor and see if they could perform the surgery. A daunting task. I girded up and called every in-network doctor. Not one of them did the unroofing surgery. In fact, the majority of doctor’s offices asked me to spell “myocardial bridge.” One pivotal piece of information I unearthed during my research was that medical insurance must approve necessary medical services. If no in-network doctors could perform the necessary treatment, the insurance must approve an out-of-network provider. However, the patient had to fight for it. I had to file a complaint to my state’s department of health, California DMHC, stating that the insurance refused to provide necessary care. Every state and every insurance had a different path to file complaints regarding health insurance negligence. I learned many invaluable lessons in the last few decades. The most significant was that throughout my seemingly endless trials and tribulations, God had a purpose for me. He knew exactly what He was doing at all times though it was difficult for me to see it while overcoming my chronic trials.