Some of you that listened to my podcast already know a little about my story but I wanted to do a blog post to hopefully help others achieve the same health, peace and freedom in the way that I have. I was so busy with life and giving everything of me to my family that I didn't really spend any time on my own health. This is something that is common in women that are all about their homes and family but it is very wrong! If you aren't at your best health, then HOW can you truly be what your family needs?
I'm going to start from the crucial part of my story and what spurred everything on really, what could have been my end, became my beginning.
I got hit with the sickness of my life in February 2019. My fever went past 104.5 but I was so delirious that I honestly didn't care if I lived or died. I didn't want my family to worry and I don't think I told them about my fever - both my husband and children were also very violently ill and none of us could really help the other. This actually happened to us a week before my husband was due to preach in front a large congregation for the first time since he had preached in Alaska over a decade before. Let me just say that Satan was doing everything he could to prevent that!
I finally started coming out of the sickness but noticed when I got up to even go to the bathroom, I could hardly breathe and had horrible chest pain. I still managed to make it to the church service and felt like I was dying but I wasn't letting anything stop me from being there with my husband. (God really did something in that service with people receiving what they had needed and telling us so afterwards.)
My chest pain and shortness of breath didn't get better. The ER kept me for observation because I had high PVC's and troponin in my blood. The ER doc said I was too young for heart problems and released me. I still didn't get better but actually got worse and was sent to a cardiologist. The cardiologist said I had myocarditis and told my husband and I that it would take a miracle for me to make it or a heart transplant if I made it to the hospital in time when my heart failed completely. We thought maybe he was joking because he said it so nonchalantly but then he turned and pulled down his glasses and looked at us and said he wasn't joking. I asked if losing weight or exercising and changing my diet would help and he said absolutely not, this has nothing to do with that. I had to come to the ER whenever I had the heart attack feeling. This proved to be a common occurrence.
Having my death sentence drove me to start hiking. I decided I was going to die trying to live! My husband and children were so supportive and that first hike was only a 10-minute trail but I struggled immensely and I think it took 40 minutes. That night, I had extreme pain in my heart and this went on for months - me trying to save myself by hiking, then being rushed to the ER, then hospitalized - repeat. Finally, I was put in the cardiac unit and the days I was in there, the new cardiologist found my Mitral Valve Prolapse during an echocardiogram - of which, he believes I've had since birth (along with dysautonomia), which explains a LOT! That actually is a whole other story but I started seeing that cardiologist and he is still my cardiologist today.
Long story short - I did drop 15 pounds from just hiking without even trying to lose weight but I still had heart pain and PVC's and was struggling from brain pressure that I had gotten from brain damage from a car accident and that prevented me from being able to function normally. I had prayed constantly that God would keep me and my family from contracting COVID but I felt the Holy Spirit dealing with me to pray differently and I (finally) heeded this and started changing my prayer to: If it is Your will God for whatever reason for us to get COVID then so be it. We immediately got COVID lol and that was in Nov. 2021. COVID somehow "healed" my brain pressure!!! I no longer had to take things to reduce the brain pressure every morning just to function. I started coming alive and being able to function like I used to thanks to COVID. I did lose my smell and some of my taste and still haven't regained it but my brain pressure is GONE!! (They're actually researching this right now.)
After getting off the things that I was taking for the brain pressure since I no longer needed them and feeling like I was given a new life, I decided to try and lose weight ...and that's where we will continue from in Part 2.
