I am here & wonderfully alive

My appointment with my cardiologist yesterday was unfortunately uneventful. Meaning he cannot fix me - beyond waiting for the Cardiazem to kick in and keep my heartrate under control. I was instructed to stay in bed for the next three days while I wait. So I am trying to do that as much as possible.

The nightlight is back in the bathroom (so I can tell if my vision is darkening during the night - the sign that I am about to faint). I sit at the edge of the bed for 5 minutes before getting up to the bathroom. All so I do not break another toilet with my head. 

A few pictures of joy (making pies with my children a few short days ago) - because that is what is in me as I lie in bed. Fear swells as my heart races, and Christ calms the fear with a whisper...for every heart beat, however fast, means I have been given the gift of another hour here. I am so grateful. When my heart slows again, the fear returns, for your heart feels silent and still when it beats normally after so many quivering, flipping beats so much more thunderous to your sensation. So I close my eyes, and breathe in and out, a kind of "pinch me so I know this is real" motion that I do for myself. Yes, I am still breathing. The world is still spinning. And I am still conscious, on it, aware, wonderfully, blissfully alive another day.

Plans, plans

But every heartache will create space that I alone can fill. And I will. You will learn to wait in Hope. 'My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD...Blessed are those...who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, seasons of weeping, they make it a place of springs.' (Psalm 84:2, 5-6) ~ from 66 Love Letters by Lawrence Crabb (see sidebar to purchase book)

The verdict is in.  My oncologist plans further testing based on my tumor marker, which will be back on Thursday - probably a PET scan and a radioactive iodine scan on the same day to try to detect whatever small tumors must exist in my body, creating this thyroid storm.  And tomorrow I am scheduled to get a pacemaker.  I have fought the pacemaker idea since 1994, and feel happy that I have bought 16 years of freedom from it with faith in God's hand.  I have never had peace with the idea before.  Today I do.  Having the pacemaker implanted will allow the doctor to attempt to treat my potentially life-threatening high heart rates with a medication instead of a surgical procedure.  This is so much more preferable to me.  I had a horrible experience with my last surgical procedure for the same problem (electrophysiology study and cardiac ablation), I will forever cringe at the idea of undergoing it again.  The pacemaker seems like the most conservative route to treatment of this heart problem that has plagued me for so long.  I have high hopes that it will provide great relief, as it did for my Grandpa and several other family members with similar symptoms.

Once I find out the time for the pacemaker implantation, I will post it in hopes that you will offer up prayer for my safety and witness during that procedure.  Thanks to all of you who read here for holding hands with me on this hard, exhausting and beautiful journey.

I was reminded once again today during my devotions that it is not the doctors in whom I am putting my trust. I trust God to give them wisdom and skill and to provide for me in whatever manner He sees fit.  "Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.  When his breath departs he returns to the earth: on that very day his plans perish.  Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever." (Psalm 146:3-6)

Results are in!

Give to the wind thy fears
hope and be undismayed
God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears,
Leave to His sovereign sway
To choose and to command;
Then shalt thou, wandering, own His way,
Far, far above thy thought,
His counsel shall appear
When fully He the work hath wrought
Through waves and clouds and storms,
He gently clears the way;
Wait thou His time; so shall this night
Soon end in joyous day.
~He Will Lift Up Your Head, Paul Gerhardt, mid 1600s

The long-awaited report from Mayo arrived over the weekend. I pored over it at 10 p.m. last night, when we arrived home from a Sunday evening wedding. What I found was mostly old news, with a few confusing details thrown in. I was diagnosed with orthostatic intolerance related to a hyperadrenergic state. Which basically means that my blood pressure drops when I change position, because my nervous system is sending inappropriate stress signals to my brain. It's probably the same problem that plagued me through high school and college, now back to haunt me as an adult as well. My sweat test also showed abnormalities consistent with a malfunctioning nervous system.

In other parts of the report, more information came to light: my neck ultrasound showed a stable nodule in the left thyroid bed suspicious for neoplasm; a stable nodule in a lymph node high in the left upper lateral internal jugular chain suspicious for neoplasm; and a normal-appearing enlarged submental lymph node (underneath my tongue). See numbers 1, 4, and 6 on the following image for the location of the areas in question.


Treatment of the internal jugular lymph node will present the greatest challenge when or if it becomes necessary to remove it. It is attached to the jugular vein and the incidence of complications is higher than with the initial thyroidectomy. Which is why they are remaining in the "watch and see" mode for so long. It is also less than half a centimeter in diameter, which is not very big in the grand scope of thyroid cancer. Removing it would involve a neck dissection, where the skin and overlying tissues are removed from the left side of my neck to expose the entire chain of lymph nodes. I covet prayers that I not be required to undergo such an invasive and painful surgery.

Other item of note: my brain MRI showed a congenital defect called diaphragma sella incompetence, a structure in the front of the brain near the pituitary and hypothalamus. I also have enlargement of the sella secondary to this congenital defect. This benign brain deformity causes obesity in 30-50 year old women. And headaches. But its no big deal. At least now I can blame my weight on my brain abnormality!

I also have multiple (no number given) retentions cysts in the maxillary antra. After some reading, I discovered this just means that I have chronic sinusitis, and cysts have developed over the years because of this. No big shocker there.

I hope to write tomorrow about the spiritual and emotional consequences of receiving such a report at 10 p.m. on a Sunday when you are tired. And researching it the next day while running between washing machine and puking children. But today I must tend to the puking children and the laundry instead!