“Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

Psalm 139:16 NIV

My mind was numb as I watched the green rolling hills and pastures of grazing cattle pass by on the highway taking us back toward Montana.  Too much had happened in the last few days.  My brain couldn’t process all of it.  I wished momentarily to be one of those cows, lazily grazing on spring shoots of sweet grass in the warmth of the morning sun.  I suspected the cows were fully in the moment of grazing, not thinking about the past or contemplating the future.  My thoughts vacillated between the blessing that I was alive despite having had a heart attack, and the bewilderment that it happened at all.  So many events and so much life-altering information were packed into the last few days.  To say it was overwhelming is an understatement.  All I could do was try to convince my brain to stay in the present, focus on the scenery out the window, and breathe deeply to release stress.  I tried to nap periodically.  I felt a level of physical and mental exhaustion that I had not experienced before.  Napping helped me to escape it temporarily.   I hoped the sense of exhaustion would pass soon and that I would, as the cardiologist told me, be able to resume the life I knew before.

Marty and I were both silent.  He was focused on driving, perhaps a mental respite for him too.  We decided to spread the drive back to northwestern Montana over two days, rather than one long day.   We agreed the extra mileage was unnecessary and since our previously planned hiking and backpacking treks in Wyoming had been cut short, we had plenty of time to get there.  We were both feeling the impact of our life suddenly overturned, and then almost as quickly, seemingly set aright again.  The juxtaposition of that reality created confusion in my mind.  For the last several weeks, I feared the increasingly uncontrollable burning in my chest might represent a serious health problem, but its situational and inconsistent occurrence made me doubt my experience.  I pushed aside those concerns in my quest to keep doing what I love – hiking, exploring, and drinking in the beauty of the natural world.  I denied the issue to a point that could have caused my death, but it didn’t.  I survived a 99% blockage of the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD), which I have since learned is nicknamed the “widow maker.”  And now, after a quick, relatively painless procedure of stent placements to keep the LAD and smaller vessel open, along with a daily drug regimen, the doctor said I should be fine. 

Perhaps physically I was okay, but I was reeling mentally.  None of it made sense to me.  The blood work from the hospital showed my cholesterol was well within normal limits.  Before this event, I had a low resting heart rate in the mid-50s, indicative of a healthy cardiovascular system, and easily turned out 20-minute miles while hiking without breathing hard, despite carrying some excess body weight.  I perceived myself as being reasonably healthy and fit, and yet this happened.  What had I done so terribly wrong to end up here?

The idea hit me like a freight train.  Somehow, I had unwittingly, unknowingly done this to myself.  I knew the history of heart attacks on both sides of my family, but I had lived my life differently (at least I thought I had), and made different choices that I believed would alter my fate.  Yet here I was, my efforts to take care of myself and to manage stress failed or were insufficient.  What would people think?  Would they assume that I must have indulged in all the vices to get myself to this place?  Would they look at me like I was weak or fragile somehow?  I didn’t want those assumptions or that kind of attention.  I’ve always been a private person.  I certainly would not share what had happened to me widely, but now, fear of judgment, of being treated differently made me want to keep it secret, at least for now.  Perhaps when I’d processed the experience fully then I might share it.  By then it would all be history, and a non-issue for anyone considering hiking with me, or concerned about whether I could safely do something.  Having been on the rescuer side of events in my early career, I knew I was responsible for ensuring I did not put others in a position of needing to rescue me.  I hated the thought of that role reversal.  I had always been the rescuer, not the person needing help.

The kind of help I needed now was not medical, but emotional.  I knew I couldn’t keep all of these thoughts bottled up inside of me, and I could only lean on Marty up to a point without exhausting his coping mechanisms.  He experienced his own trauma in having to watch all of this without being able to do much to make it better for me.  I needed to be willing to take a chance on sharing beyond my comfort zone with someone who would understand what it was like to have an issue with your heart.  My mind immediately went to my friend Lynda.  She spent the last few years suffering from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a disease that affects the effective pumping of the heart, but often has few and inconsistent symptoms, making it difficult to diagnose.  We talked previously about her struggle to find a diagnosis for her abnormal heart rhythms, and how she had seen multiple doctors and been through numerous tests before she was finally diagnosed.  I recalled listening to her describe the feeling of an erratic or racing heartbeat and her frustration with not getting a diagnosis for treatment when she knew something was wrong.  I could be empathetic then, but couldn’t fully appreciate what she was describing.  I didn’t have any similar events in my life to help me relate to her experience. 

My circumstances were different now.  I understood more of what she had been saying, even though our particulars were different.  I felt safe calling Lynda and sharing my story with her, so I pulled out my cell phone and dialed her number.  She calmly listened as I recounted the events, and asked probing, informed questions periodically.  She understood my disbelief and fear in a way that helped normalize it.  She was supportive and not judgmental.  Lynda encouraged me with a faith perspective on my experience.  She felt strongly that God had some particular purpose for keeping me alive when I just as easily could have been dead and part of a large statistical dataset of women who died, prematurely and often with little warning, of a heart attack.  She reminded me of Psalm 139:16 and that God knows all the days of my life and the timing of my end.  Apparently, it was not yet my time to die.   

When we finished the call, I felt relieved and uplifted.  Lynda was another precious friend in my life that I knew I could call and talk to about anything.  She is someone I met by happenstance, who lives in a different state than my own, and yet we made a special connection that persists across space and time.  What an incredible gift it is to have people in your life that care and are compassionate.  As we continued our long drive north, I settled back into my seat, gazing out at the pastures and meadows and mountains in the distance.  God’s hands were all over this.  The timing of each event, the grace that I needed, people to salvage my life, and people to lift me up.  I lined up all of the crucial moments of the last few days in my mind, and how each represented a course change that led to something I needed, even when I didn’t know it.  Once again, I was reminded that as much as I may try to run my life according to my own terms and ideals, I am not in control.  My plans and efforts to orchestrate many aspects of my life are nothing more than a grand illusion I create, in hopes that God will concur with my ideas and they will come to fruition.  Profound gratitude overtook me.  But for God’s grace and protection of my life, my stubbornness could have killed me.  For whatever reason that is as yet unknown, it didn’t.  In the months to come, I would question God’s plans for me, and whether I would continue to survive them.