Blessed the Broken Heart

Take a look, a good one & I promise you’ll find yourself interested our journey. Similar to several others I was medically gaslighted with “You look fine”, “Others are sicker than you”, etc. Shamefully I listened to them for the longest time. 28 years old, I couldn’t possibly need a cardiologist. Or could I?

Gaslighting at it's finest

I had scheduled to have a tubal ligation, and she looked at the monitor as it beeped and said we need a Cardiologist. The Cardiologist looked at me and gave me the all clear because of course “I looked fine”. After the surgery, I had to wear a life vest for about three months, and started a few medication’s, but had no test ran. I was uncomfortable with the doctor so I decided to look for others and lo and behold. I was medically gaslighted with the others as well because physically, I loved and appeared to be in shape and arrhythmias were normal for individuals who were healthy.

But, I am not fine

Finally, I accepted that I was not feeling what others would consider to be normal, and proceeded to find a doctor and approached him crying and we proceeded with an Echo. By the time I made it to the parking lot he made a call to me and told me my heart function was at a 30 to 35 and the arrhythmias I were having was not normal, and I needed to get down to Tampa General , long story short I have had 19 ablations at TGH, one point my EF lowered to 20-25, 3 at UPENN, as the arrhythmias are all over my heart, they’ve never been localized. I’ve had three pacemaker surgeries. With the last causing a lead perforation into my right atrium and my lungs. I had to go to the local hospital where he was going to release me on muscle spasms and thankfully I advocated for myself, but unfortunately had to be met flighted to Tampa general to have my life saved. I had a collapsed long for nearly 6 months, had a chest tube, all while having to go under a double mastectomy, and while attempting to get implants, I had gotten pseudomonas three times and ended up with a pick line 3 times. All caused by a gene that I continue to fight against every day.