The surgeon’s secretary pencilled me in for open-heart surgery at the
end of the month.
The ‘king of hearts’, one of the nick-names for the world-renowned heart
surgeon, is going to take a peek
at my mine and see if he can fix it. Dr. David was confident
he could, until he heard I only have 30% lung capacity. Yeah, that makes open
heart surgery tricky for even the top in the world.
Or it could make surgery impossible.
The risks might be too high. First, he will do some more investigative tests to
see if I can handle having my chest
cut open, my heart and lung stopped, and a valve
replaced after some creative corrective work is done on a damaged area of my
heart.
It’s a strange thing to try to prepare for open-heart surgery without getting
your hopes up that everything can be made well. I can’t quite describe my
feelings as I wait to know if my heart valve can be replaced. It’s eerie,
scary, a little overwhelming. Something
like that. But more. All I really know is I need faith. So I keep asking
God for more of it.
No one knows how long I’ve lived with a sick heart. We do know it
is damaged from the cancer treatments that ‘cured’ the cancer I was
diagnosed with as a three year old. Yeah, the cancer that tried to
kill a kid; that disease that damages for life if it doesn’t destroy your life.
I happen to be a “good statistic”. I survived.
I’ve lived almost 35 years since I began the fight. I graduated from
school, completed college, worked at a job, got married, had three children.
These things are just a normal part of life, but for a childhood
cancer survivor, it’s beating the odds to succeed at any of them.
According to one study, the average age expectancy for a childhood cancer
survivor is 37.6 years. I am 37.9 years old today.
I don’t boast in any of that. How could I? I’m still fighting. This war
is still on. In fact, it never ends. I’ve passed the average, but long life is
not generally a gift handed to the likes of me.
I’ve been given another gift: the intimate knowledge that life is a
vapor. It doesn’t matter how long your life is, what matters is how you are
living your life in light of eternity.
Your heart will stop beating sometime in this life. That’s guaranteed.
It’s a given that life on this earth will expire.
We may be concerned about life expectancy, but life
eternally is the crux of the matter.
To read more . . .
I am honoured that Katie has invited me to share over on her blog for her Open Hearts series.
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