A Shocking Story About My Heart

3 days ago
2 min read

Or When A-Fib Sent Me to Emergency on my Birthday!

An important lesson learned on July 16^th, 2026: Any given lab report including blood work, X-rays, CT and PET scans, Echocardiograms, and EKG’s, give you data at the moment of the test, but doesn’t describe your future.

Blithely, I’d seen a cardiologist nine months ago, and taken all the tests and scans he required to assess my heart health. A prophylactic measure? Yes. After a six-year battle with metastatic melanoma I wanted to make sure immunotherapy hadn’t damaged the most important pump system in my body. Test results and my doctor’s analysis: my heart was fairly healthy for a woman of my age and blessed with a life-long low blood pressure, I could forge ahead with the curve balls cancer was throwing my way.

The day before my birthday, July 15, 2026, in my pulmonologist’s office, he applied his stethoscope to my chest and blinked his eyes like a frog in a hailstorm. He said, “You are A-fibing.” Once he’d administered an EKG, which recorded a scary 158 beats per minute, he arranged for me to check in at Emergency.

When disease comes to you out of nowhere, avoid denial and blame; take charge of the future!

Four days later, I left the hospital with an unhappy heart and five different medications. In fact, I spent my 81^st birthday in the hospital, can you believe it?

Now, the hospital stay was chaotic, scary, and frustrating. I’m already fighting cancer and the horrendous side effects of immunotherapy, so heart failure seemed like a pile-on to me. My brother, ten years younger than I am, found out he had A-Fib six months ago. What was going on? But then I had to take a breath. My brother is over 70 and I’m over 80. Old age is the malady and we’re going to have to deal with what’s thrown at us instead of deny it’s there or blame someone or some event for it. That I had asthma as a child and the disease wasn’t treated in those days, is important for me to face. The fact I was an Army brat living in poor or war-torn countries didn’t bring me the best air to breathe, the best food to eat, or the highest grade of medical care, either.

For me, it’s too late to look back and ask “Why?” Instead, I will take as much control over my health as I can and derive as much joy out of what’s left of my life that is possible…that’s what my shocking heart story tells me.