Love Helps Forget

Waking up from open heart surgery is quite the experience. As the anesthesia wears off, the beeping of machines fills your ears. Slowly you start to regain consciousness. Then it just hurts. After some time, you open your eyes to see where you are but the anesthesia makes you pretty groggy. Pretty much all you can put together is that you are not dead, there are a bunch of people around you, and some kind of machine keeps beeping. Eventually, the anesthesia gets out of your system and you can think clearly and quickly. My favorite part during this phase is the sick feeling usually goes away and you are ready for food. Still hurting, you step by step become yourself again. Gradually the pain subsides until you get to the point of boredom and finally you get to go home!

That is pretty much what it is like to wake up from surgery. There are many other things that go on after surgery: bandages, physical therapy (I don’t like this one), tests, tests, and even more tests. What is interesting to me is not what I remember about post op, but rather, what it is that I don’t remember. I honestly don’t remember how the pain felt after any of my surgeries. Four open heart surgeries and I can’t remember how the pain felt. I do remember that I was in more pain then I had ever before been in. I can tell you that I thought, “this must be what it feels like to get hit by a train head on.”

Now, i’m sure a social worker or psychologist has a mental or physiological explanation for this lack of remembrance; and I am not saying that those answers are wrong. But I do have my own answer for why I can’t remember how the pain felt after surgery: Love. The love that Heavenly Father has for His children. I believe that a merciful part of Heavenly Father's plan for us prevents us from exactly remembering the pains of the past. We will remember that it hurt, but not what that hurt felt like. I’m so grateful for the love Heavenly Father has for me, in allowing me to forget the pain of the past without forgetting the experience.

The Power of Thought

The arrhythmias began the final day of my junior year in high school. Without any provocation, my heart would go from a normal 60 beats per minute (bpm) to an astounding 300 bpm. As soon as my heart rate jumped so high, my heart stayed at the fast rate. As you can imagine, at 300 bpm my energy level would quickly decrease. To bring my heart rate back to normal, I would go to the hospital where they would shock my heart and bring my rate back to normal.

That day, the last day of school my junior year, was just the beginning of the struggles I would have with arrhythmias. Over the next few years I would go in and out of arrhythmias, always ending in a hospital trip to get shocked. More than anything, getting shocked was inconvenient. Every time I went to the hospital, I knew that I would be there for at least five hours. I came to dread arrhythmias because I didn’t want to take time out of my schedule to go to the hospital.

This dread lead to hyper observance. I would monitor my rate rate several times every hour to make sure that my heart rate was where it should be. But as the weeks went on I began to go into more and more arrhythmias. Eventually, it became clear that the increased frequency of arrhythmias was my fault! My hyper observance was inadvertently causing me to go into arrhythmias. My preoccupation of arrhythmias stressed me to the point of arrhythmias.

With practice, I learned how to control my thoughts so that I my attention was not focused on my heart rate. The frequency of my arrhythmias drastically decreased and my quality of life increased, all because I changed the focus of my thoughts.

Living is a Team Sport

I imagine my friends were quite amused seeing me arrive home from the hospital after surgery. As I came up the street where I lived, I saw many of my friends outside waiting for me. I tried to wave but only ended up wiggling my fingers. My friends came and opened the car door and I got out to talk with them. Between the painkillers the doctors had me on and my slow movements I was very entertaining to be around. Strange comments and delayed responses kept my friends laughing for hours.

While I was not feeling very well the day I came home, the fact that my friends cared enough about me to be there and stay with me meant the world. My friends were a crucial support system for me after my fourth heart surgery. They spent a lot of time with me doing anything they could to help. On good days we would watch movies, play video games, enjoy board games, or just talk. When I was having a bad day my friends would bring me a treat or write me a card. The little things they did really made the difference for me. I am forever grateful for those trying times in my life when my friends and I were able to strengthen our friendships.

Friendships are some of the sweetest associations we will ever have in our lives. The happiest families will describe themselves as friends. The closest couples say that they married their best friend. Time and time again it always comes back to friends! When it comes down to what brings us the most joy, for me I have learned it is all about friends. In tough times or easy times, friends are what make experiences worth remembering. Friends enable one to really live; after all, living is a team sport.

A Living Hope

While I was serving as a missionary in Washington D.C., my heart problems began to act up. Without warning my heart would abandon its calm pace of 70 beats per minute (bpm) and begin to race at 300 bpm. This unusual pace or “arrhythmia” as doctors call it, almost entirely incapacitated my ability to do normal missionary work. After my heart went into an arrhythmia, I would travel to the hospital where they would (1) admit me, (2) talk with my doctors, and (3) shock me (cardioversion) to fix my heart. Two to three hours after I was shocked the hospital would release me. This pattern happened three different times. The fourth time my heart went into an arrhythmia, this pattern broke, and the greatest missionary opportunities I had during my mission occurred while I was a patient at Children's National Medical Center.

One of these great missionary opportunities came as I found myself wandering through quiet hospital halls. Because I was a missionary, I couldn’t watch television or listen to music, so I spent a lot of time walking around the cardiac unit. As I rounded one corner, I saw a young Hispanic couple sitting on the floor crying. My eyes went from the couple into the room they were next to where I saw the cause of such sadness, a newborn fighting to live. I continued forward until I reached the couple. Without saying a word I sat down next to them. It must have been odd to have a young white guy wearing a hospital gown, who you have never before met, sit down next to you. After a few moments I looked at them and said, pointing to their child, “That used to be me, but look at me now.” These parents began to open up to me and talked with me. As I explained my story to them I began to see a hope developing in their eyes.

I am convinced that this experience was no coincidence. The opportunity I had to share my story of struggle and triumph with this family that was just embarking on a lifelong journey brought me so much joy. I couldn’t help but pray that they would be able to feel God’s love through their trials; I think they could. As I walked away from this couple, the mother shouted, “Eres mi esperanza!” Which translated into English is, “You are my hope!”

The Timing of the Lord

When I was 16 years old, I was scheduled for open heart surgery at Primary Children’s Hospital. The surgery that was to be performed was quite risky. Due to the high level of risk, I was to be the only cardiac patient having surgery that day and the only one coming into the CICU. On top of the three pediatric cardiothoracic surgeons from Primary Children’s Hospital, a fourth surgeon was coming in from another hospital. Needless to say, this was going to be a big deal. The day before the operation was to be performed we received a phone call from my cardiologist informing us that the lead surgeon no longer felt good about performing the operation and had cancelled the surgery. As I listened to my doctor my heart just sank. I began to think, “If this team of surgeons feels that my surgery is too risky to perform, will anyone else be willing to do the surgery?”

A few days after my surgery was cancelled my cardiologist called us to tell me about the new plan. He said they had referred my case to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. We were told it would most likely take a few weeks for them to get back to us and that hopefully we would be able to schedule surgery roughly six months later. The next day we were contacted by the Mayo Clinic and within two weeks we flew out the Minnesota to prepare for surgery just fourteen days after the operation at Primary Children’s Hospital was cancelled.

I never have nor will I ever believe in coincidences. This experience testified to me personally that Heavenly Father is well aware of what we need when we need it. If we trust in Him, no matter what His timing may be, everything truly will work out for our best in the end.

Becoming a Big Picture Person

All of us have those experiences that change the way we view life. Often this means we gain a new perspective on a specific issue. While the perspective we acquire may not be very grand, novel or unique to the world, it is to the one who gains the new perspective. Like putting corrective lenses on one who has never before seen clearly, new perspectives, though small, change our entire world. This was one of those experiences that have forever changed my view.

When I was 10 years old, I was scheduled for an open heart surgery at Primary Children’s Hospital. The surgery that was to be performed had rarely been done on a child as young or small as me. I was nervous. As I sat one night thinking about the surgery, my mother came in and talked with me. As we spoke I noticed that she didn’t seem scared. This puzzled me, but then she taught me a lesson I will never forget. My mother then looked at me and said, “learn how to view your trials for what they really are-opportunities to become better.”

Even now, when I’m trying to see how a difficulty is an opportunity, it’s helpful for me to think of myself down the road and ask myself, “How am I better, more capable, or more helpful because I went through this?” In learning to view my trials from a different perspective, one that encourages me to become something more, I approach not only surgery, but life in general, with increased confidence and a positive mentality.