What a busy couple of weeks! Let’s catch up on this heart of mine, both literally and figuratively. Remember a couple of weeks ago when I shared that the doctor didn’t see things my way, well good news – I wore them down. Ha, or maybe I finally learned to take a seat and wait things out, and give my body the rest and attention it needed after all. Maybe – but I like to think I wore them down 😉

So a couple of major milestones, that will seem small to the average human, but have been significantly making a difference along this journey for me. First, I returned to work last week! Yep – this is when I knew that doctor was tired of hearing from me. I jumped right off in to the deep in or that “return to work” pool at full speed and smacked right in to the concrete bottom of that sucker! Y’all, I would not be in keeping with the theme of this message if I didn’t honestly and openly share this next statement. Returning in that way was truly a disaster! I was exhausted each day. By day four, I was in tears, cue the sympathy for Mr. B, my body ached and truly most days my heart was flopping, flipping and racing a few times – it was a mess! So I took to napping and resting all weekend long. Just what the heart needed. I am learning to listen, when this body is done, it is done – I am just a slow learner.

The second event that occurred was an addition of a piece of equipment! That’s right, I am now a bit bionic. Not really, it’s my heart monitor. I will wear it for a few weeks and try to do as much normal activity as possible and see what my heart does or doesn’t do at this point. I mean, I don’t think I will be running any marathons with this thing on, but I do think a walk around the block can’t hurt. I was also cleared to get in more activity than walking around the yard and my sodium limit was raised , just enough for me to enjoy a potato chip a day. Seriously. – I miss salty snacks. (We will save that for a different post)

We have also hit the thirty day mark on all these meds. I have multiple pill boxes and carry them in my purse – If someone ever found my purse they would never believe that it belonged to a woman in her late forties, but yet to a woman in her late eighties, just by evidence of my pill boxes alone. While I wish I could say we (my cardiologist and I, because we are a team 😉 ) have figured out this medication regime completely – we haven’t. We added two more medications this week, one because I am having so much trouble keeping fluid off and the other to add some potassium – which will hopefully help with some fatigue. The struggle has been real y’all.

Ok, so now you’re caught on the technical info on how things are going. Oversharing at it very finest – I know this is exciting content, but remember this was my way of staying accountable, so humor me here.

So now let’s get down to the real business. I heard something today and I felt compelled to share it with you. This message spoke to me SO loudly that I replayed it over and over again. I am hoping YOU will hear it too – because we need to do a better job of taking better care of ourselves.

The words were this. “I need you to take care of you. You’re dying on the inside. Mentally, you’re all over the place. You’re scattered. Spiritually, you’re empty right now. Every day you wake up, and do everything you can to make sure everyone else is ok. The job, the kids, the family, the house, the dog…. You do everything for everyone else, but you are forgetting about you. I want you to know that you are important, and I want you to know that your health matters. And if you don’t take care of you, you’re gonna lose yourself in the process while trying to save and be there for everyone else. If you’re not there for you, who’s gonna be there? I want you to know that you are worthy…”.

Such a powerful message – I hope it resonates with you. What have you done to take care of yourself this week? Did you make that doctors appointment that you’ve been putting off? Did you take the walk to clear your mind and heal your heart? Please make time for you – I need you, your family needs you, your community needs you.