Hmmm...Heart Attack, You Say?

First off, wow! I managed to post every night this week! I'm so impressed with myself, lol. I hope I'm starting a habit here.

Now, Saturdays are supposed to be health updates. I decided 2009 would be my year to get healthy. Finally lose the weight and get to wear baby tees ten years after they've gone out of style. Judging from the past month, maybe I should have started this health thing earlier...

The past month my blood pressure has skyrocketed. Most people would blame it on the fact that I teach sixth grade. Well, this is one thing for which my little "angels" have no responsibility. The past week, I've had random pains in my chest, neck, jaw, and shoulders, as well as having a hard time breathing and extremely high blood pressure. Several nights this week I've gone to bed with the fear that I wasn't waking up in the morning, because I felt so bad. Tuesday night/Wednesday was the worst. I felt awful that day. It was so bad, I stopped by the fire station on the way home, because my best friend was on duty. He's a paramedic, and I let him hook me up to the EKG machine in the ambulance. Yeah, if you know me, you know it had to have been bad for me to allow him to do that. The fear on his face when I was explaining everything made me worry all the more. If he was concerned, that scared me more. That night almost took me to the hospital. I ended up, thankfully, getting ahold of a doctor friend in Maine. He was able to get me set back up on my meds, which I was lacking down here, not having insurance to have a doctor. This is why I never went to the emergency room, although I should have.

FYI: Did you know that a lot of women have different symptoms of heart attack than men? A lot of times, we women don't have the chest grabbing, I can't breath, I can't feel my left arm symptoms. Some symptoms of the "silent heart attack": shortness of breath (check), nausea (check), vomiting, pain in jaw, chest, shoulder, arm, back (check to all except back), unusual fatigue (check), indigestion, gas pains (check), heartburn, anxiety (check), sweating, lightheadedness (check), and, believe it or not, an impending sense of doom (um, not waking up in the morning? check). Those, of course, are not all of them, but a lot. As you can tell, I had a lot of the symptoms. In fact, my doctor friend told me, from what I had described, that it was very likely I had had a very small heart attack earlier this week. Scary much?

Of course, my first thought was, wait a minute. I'm 28 years old! I can't be having a heart attack! But it can happen. My family is riddled with heart disease. It killed my grandfathers (both Dad and Mom's fathers)...it killed my aunt (Mom's sister)...my mom has heart issues...my dad has heart issues. Between family genetics and the way I've cared for myself over the years, it was only a matter of time.

So that's my story. As I sit here typing this, I'm still feeling little pains here and there, and sometimes it's a little hard to get a full breath. But after being on my meds again for the past four days, I'm feeling a bit better. We've also decided to bump me up another pill to hit the blood pressure more aggressively. All in all, I would really appreciate your prayers. For someone my age with no health insurance to be dealing with this, I am still a bit scared about how this is all going to pan out.

There is a good part of this week, though. I've lost 8 pounds this week! Yay!! ;) Love y'all!

"They're Just Trying to Impress You"

The title is what one of my sixth graders said about the fourth/fifth grade class this week. I teach 4th-6th Bible (35 kids...same time...yikes!). Yesterday I gave them an essay assignment. We just got done with the first series of Moses, from his birth to the crossing of the Red Sea. The students had two days to write me an biographical essay on the life of Moses that we had studied so far. I knew a lot of my kids, even though I told them they had to write me three paragraphs, would think they were trying too hard to give me a whole page. The fourth/fifth grade class, however, by the end of the first day, had me pages, and they only had to write two paragraphs! One fifth grade girl handed in three pages! I told my class that the other class was showing them up, and that's when the above statement was said and agreed upon by the rest of my class. I looked at them and told them it's nice to have people try to impress you every once in a while! Then the same student said, "Well, they're scared of you, too!" Technically, this is true. I think most of the elementary school is scared of me. *sigh* I wish my sixth graders still were. But if feels nice to have students who actually still want to impress you. The question of whether or not I'm impressed still remains to be determined. They can write me pages, but it doesn't mean it makes sense on paper. It kind of makes me feel good, though, just knowing the kids want to work hard for my approval. Just their effort wins that. Guess I'm doing something right. Otherwise, they wouldn't care, right?

TBA

It's late, and I'm tired. I'm working on a post, but I can't finish it right now. Why do I feel like I need to post this? Because I've been doing really well this week posting every night, and I would feel awful if had one night that I was working on a post and never posted it, causing me to miss a night. Okay, now I know I'm tired. I'm rambling. Sure sign I need to go to bed...

The Dash

I felt this poem fit well with the theme of our Live Like You Were Dying sermon series at church. Birth dates don't change. Death is certain. We don't know when that day of death is going to come. All we have is this present. This dash...

THE DASH
by Linda Ellis


I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From the beginning to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth
And spoke of the following date with tears,
But he said what mattered most of all
Was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
That she spent alive on earth
And now only those who loved her
Know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own,
The cars, the house, the cash,
What matters is how we live and love
And how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard;
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
That can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough
To consider what’s true and real
And always try to understand
The way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger
And show appreciation more
And love the people in our lives
Like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect
And more often wear a smile,
Remembering that this special dash
Might only last a little while.

So when your eulogy is being read
With your life’s actions to rehash
Would you be proud of the things they say
About how you spent your dash?

© 1996 Linda Ellis

I Have to Admit...

...I have grown to totally enjoy American Idol. There, I've said it. Mock me if you will.

Make Ya Smile

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This is so true of John and I! Whenever we get the chance, we torture poor Blue, his cat, with a laser pointer. It's just too funny to hold back!


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Gotta find out where this garage is so I can AVOID IT!!


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Live Like You Were Dying

"Teach us how short our lives really are, so that we may be wise." Psalm 90:12

This weekend my church started a four week intensive series on the concept of finding out you only have thirty days to live. Most of us have heard and been touched by the song "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim McGraw. If today's sermon is any indication, it's going to be an incredible experience.

How many of you have ever put much thought into the scenario? Going to the hospital only to be told you have thirty days to do everything you wanted to do in this life. How would you handle it? What would you change? How would you prioritize, or reprioritize, your life? What are some things you would want to do?

I've been considering this, and the conclusion I've reached so far is, I don't know. I'm not sure what I would change in my life. The only thing I would really desire is to see my family and friends more and really impress on them my love for Christ, and how desperately I want to see them on the other side. At this time right now, I know my sister, brother, and father are not living for Christ. To consider spending eternity without them is heartwrenching. My words don't seem to have any affect on them. Maybe my death would, I don't know. That's the only major change I think I would make. Does that mean I'm living my life okay right now? I doubt it, but until I figure it out, I'll leave it at that.

What would I like to do? I think there are only a couple of things I would be desperate to do if I only had thirty days. The first would be to hike at least a little of the Appalachian Trail. I still have a intense desire to do that. The other thing would be to be able to spend one more day with one of my closest friends, Ryan. I would love to get all of us back together again and have a huge game of Smashy and Bond and hang out like we used to. Then I would love to gather all of my friends from college and have a huge reunion and just hang out and party. Long live the Living Parables, lol! Those would be my wishes.

So what about you? It's not exactly something we would want to think about, but we have to. Living with eternity in mind is what we're meant to do. I try to impress on my students what a blip this life is when compared with eternity. How are you living this blip now? And what would change if you only had thirty days? Remember, we're not guarunteed tomorrow. All we have is now. What will you do with now?

One of My Latest Obsessions

I have become obsessed with a few websites lately. The main one is icanhascheezburger. Whether you like cats or not, these things are funny! From there, if you go to failblog, you start to feel a lot better about yourself! This is one of my favorites so far:

ICANHASCHEEZBURGER


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