I was watching a poor woman crying out loud last this morning as I passed by as she got treatment. Hospital wards often remind me of Purgatory on Earth, but filled with angels. We are angels ourselves when we pray from these poor people, how could we help but pray?
Feeling much better today. The rep from the pacemaker company had the diaphragm spasm sorted out literally in 5 seconds from placing the pickup over my chest where the pacemaker was implanted.
My friend Dr. Chris said we need to go for a bike ride now, and if I run out of battery on my e bike we can just hook it up to my pacemaker
I’m already seeing concrete improvement just two days after getting the pacemaker. Two symptoms I was experiencing were nighttime shortness of breath when laying down, and serious shortness of breath when bending over to tie my shoes. Both are symptoms of heart failure, and both are already improving. I just bent over to tie my hiking boots and didn’t get short of breath at all. Before I would have had to lift one leg on top of the other knee to tie my shoes, or sit here breathing heavily for a couple minutes after bending over. Deo gratias!
This is so good to hear Brian. That pacemaker is doing it's job! What a wonderful blessing that you are feeling so much better. You are a new man.
Modern medicine, or miracles? Folks have a tendency to criticize both doctors and modern medicine in general, and pharmacology in particular. I would not be alive right now if it weren’t for both, as well as obvious Divine Intervention. Good people have prayed for me around the world. If it weren’t for their prayers, frankly, I wouldn’t be here right now I have familial inherited high cholesterol and high triglycerides, as well as inherited atherosclerosis from both my mom and my dad’s side, with heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and stroke on both my parents’ sides. My siblings and I therefore inherited a double dose of all these genes. I’m the middle child of five siblings. We’ve already lost my older brother and older sister to heart attacks, at 54 and 49 respectively. My cholesterol has been as high as 650 and my triglycerides as high as 1300. These are pathologically high numbers with enormous risk for atherosclerosis. I’ve paid the price with a heart attack, triple bypass, diabetes, hypertension and five strokes and recent advanced congestive heart failure. Late summer and fall, my cardiac output collapsed from 40% (which it’s been for 12 years since a heart attack and triple bypass) to 18%. Normal is 50-55%. I have severe left bundle branch block and extensive heart muscle scarring due to prior heart attack(s?) and ischemia. I was rapidly getting symptoms of severe congestive heart failure this fall, with leg swelling, fatigue and bad shortness of breath with any exertion or laying flat at night. On Friday the cardiologists surgically inserted a bi ventricular pacemaker with a defibrillator in my left upper chest. I had thought it was simply to delay the inevitable. However, it turns out that with advanced left sided cardiomyopathy due to advanced left bundle branch block, these special pacemakers can actually cause the left side of the heart to physically and physiologically remodel, shrink and return to normal size and shape, restoring cardiac output; my left ejection fraction could return to its former output of 40% in two to three months. I had the pacemaker surgically implanted on Friday at noon. Already today, 72 hours later, I no longer have shortness of breath or wheezing with minimal exertion, I can lay flat on my back with no shortness of breath, my ankle edema is mostly resolved, and I did errands all afternoon without fatigue. I feel better today than I have since August. They also started me on Praluent, a twice monthly injection that blocks cholesterol production in the liver, and Vascepa, a prescription only high dose of Omega 3 fish oils that lowers triglycerides. That combination of medications has brought my cholesterol and triglycerides down to the lowest levels of my adult life. They also added Farxiga, a diabetes medication that also drastically improves outcomes for patients with congestive heart failure. It’s a natural diuretic that functions by causing the kidneys not to reabsorb as much glucose from the urine, thus spilling glucose in the urine, lowering blood sugars and blood pressure and alleviating the symptoms of heart failure. The addition of Farxiga to the metformin I already take has rapidly resulted in an HgA1C of 5.6. My blood glucose is now “normal,” no longer in the pre diabetic, let alone diabetic, range. These results are due to good diligent medical care with techniques, technologies and pharmaceuticals that simply were not available in my younger adult life. If they had been, I think my older brother and sister would likely still be alive. How much of my current dramatic improvement, despite being on the cusp of cardiovascular collapse just last week, is the result of modern medicine, and how much is a result of the ardent prayers of good and holy men, women and children, many of whom are not known to me personally? I have no idea. It’s one of those questions - on a long list of questions - I’m going to ask if and when I make it to Heaven. In the meantime I do truly believe that, despite all the top notch medical care I am receiving, I wouldn’t be here if not for prayer. And for that I am grateful, and owe many of you a depth of gratitude I simply cannot adequately express.
You have expressed it very well, because you're still here. Oh so happy too, our General in arms Queen of us all needs her army fit.
Brian, I am so glad that your health is restored. Also, I want to thank you for sharing these medications that helped you. God Bless you!
Brian i am beyond pleased and relieved to see these results. In the book of Sirach there is a wonderful passage about doctors and how God gave them to us. The miracles God works through prayer certainly include doctors who know the right treatments and pharmaceuticals that successfully treat the problem. We must not sell short the excellent medicines and devices that save lives. It is not an either or but a both and. God works through both prayer and medicine. And I know everyone who has prayed for you sees the hand of God in your current successful treatments.
