I want to be labeled as healthy.

7 years ago I made the decision to become a vegetarian. It was an innocent decision that lasted for a few years that way.

Then it slowly started to become my excuse.

My excuse to not have to eat much.

My excuse I could use when I wanted to skip a meal. “Oh, there’s nothing here I can eat“

My excuse to eat as little as possible.

Vegetarianism can be healthy. For me, it wasn’t about a lifestyle change or better eating habits- it was a way to hide the fact that I hated my body. It was the excuse that people would believe when I wouldn’t eat.

Vegetarianism is also a diet. A diet that you can use to constrict food. It limits the amount of food options, and most the time it even completely eliminates any food options depending on where you are.

It also creates a sense of control. You are able to control something. Even something as simple as food, it’s control.

For me, vegetarianism was a way to restrict my food options, and have some control over my life when my heart was getting worse. Meat slowly became a fear food.

Over the past few months I’ve been taking a lot of medications for my heart condition that happens to make me not have an appetite. So that doesn’t help either- but that I have no control over. This- I can control.

When I’d have a bad day with my heart, skipping a meal was my release. It was how I’d handle the anger I had towards God for giving me this. It was how I handled the insecurities I had about my weight and my body. It was how I’d handle the depression. It was how I’d handle life.

A few months ago I decided I wanted to stop this unhealthy eating habit, or whatever you want to call it. If I had to deal with my body already failing, I didn’t want to be the reason it was failing even more. I decided that I was going to start eating meat again, stop using vegetarianism as a cover up for eating as little as possible, and get healthy.

That idea lasted a few days and I literally couldn’t bring myself to end it. So I didn’t.

Here I am, months later, into my 7th year of this, and I’m ready.

With my health getting worse, I’ve decided that I need to do this. It isn’t easy. Probably going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I want to get to the healthy version of me.

I want to be happy, and healthy, and that’s what I am working to become.

I post this to say that I’m not perfect. I make mistakes and this was one of the biggest ones I’ve ever made. I truly believe this vegetarian lifestyle can be healthy, and who knows, I might decide to stay one and turn it into a healthy one. All I know is that I’m finally taking this into my own hands. Whether or not I eat meat isn’t a big deal honestly. The important thing is that I live a healthy lifestyle.

I don’t know what I’m going to do in terms of this. I’m figuring it out along the way. The ache has just been getting stronger and stronger and I know it’s time to surrender it all.

I’ve been scared of what people will think when they know about this. Which is why I haven’t opened up much. But I know no matter what I choose, I am strong enough to handle this. Whether on my own, or with support, because my God is with me every step of the way.

I’ve struggled for years with not being enough. I am learning that I am.

Size doesn’t define me.

A measuring tape doesn’t mean anything.

Food shouldn’t control me.

I am strong enough to get through this. My goal isn’t to end this vegetarian lifestyle. It’s to become healthy again, vegetarian or not. I’m tired of labels. I don’t want to be labeled by the foods I choose to eat. If I decide to stay a vegetarian, I don’t want the label to define me. If I decide to eat meat, I don’t want to be defined by that either.

I want to be labeled as healthy.

Aug12016Feb 12 2019

I am not okay- yet.

Today started out not so good. Long story short, I broke down in tears in the bathroom (even though I shed a few at my desk). For the first time I realized how much this was affecting me, and how I can no longer hide it.

I never like to tell people how much this is affecting me. No one knows how bad it really is. Not my family, my friends, or even this blog. People will tell me, I’m so sorry, I hope you get better. All I can think is- if they only knew.

The machine that connects to my implanted heart monitor that shows the marathons my heart likes to run.

If they only knew that what they see is a front. What they see is the me I present. That the I’m Fine probably means Today was really hard, and I’m in a lot of pain but I’m here.

I smile a lot, even when I’m not feeling good. I don’t feel good about 99% of the time, and that’s not an exaggeration. I don’t even remember what good, or normal feels like.

Today I realized how hard it truly is, to put on a face of I’m okay. I mean, my slogan on this blog is it’s okay to not be okay

…. yet, I am having a hard time admitting i’m not okay.

But, although the first half of the day was not okay, the second half was.

I went back for my last check up before school starts.

And finally, after almost THREE years, I heard the words I have waited for.

“The searching is over. No more tests.”

I was told I am having a lot of Atrial Tachycardia, and once fixed I should be back to okay, whatever okay is.

But, I am so excited to truly feel okay again.

We’ve made so many steps, and today was the first time I feel like we truly stepped a foot in the right direction.

One more step to being okay.

Jun262016Feb 12 2019

200.

For the first time in a really long time I am okay.

I went to yet another appointment last Friday. I was somewhere between ‘dreading it’ and ‘hopeful’. I left actually feeling okay about it all, which is a first. Like most appointments, I was put on more medication. But like most appointments, I was really hoping for something different. I am so tired of taking medications to “fix” the problem when it doesn’t fix anything. He also decided that it’s time to see a neurologist. Another doctor added to my lovely list. Yet I am praying another set of opinions and eyes will find the cause to it all.

But, I also was praying that he didn’t suggest another procedure. After the last one, I am really not looking forward to anything like that again. Obviously if it meant I’d be better, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

So I guess if I am not ready for another procedure, then I’ll have to settle with medications for now and another doctor.

He told me that my heart has gone over 200 beats a minute… twice.

I honestly thought he was joking. Until now, the highest has been 180. I’ve hit a new record! wahoo!

But at the same time, 200 beats a minute isn’t good. Obviously. And I know beating over 100, for years and years, isn’t going to be good either. So right now, as much as I want to feel better now, I need to start thinking about the future. As much as I hate how these medications make me feel, and how they don’t work 100% of the time, they do work at least some of the time, so for that I need to be thankful.

This past week has been a weird. I was dizzy literally every single second, had to pull over while driving multiple times, blacked out once, and went out of it once (where when I came back to, my coffee was all over my desk- yay).

This week has showed me that this isn’t going away. It showed me that even though I really hate this diagnosis/treatment process, I really need to trust God, and keep moving forward, because if this past week was an indication of how much worse it can get, I really need this fixed, fast.

So here’s to another medication. Here’s to a new doctor. Here’s to another week of living with this.

But here’s to another week of learning to trust God. Another week of keeping hope. Another week to remember how fragile life can be and just be thankful for the little things.

Jun192016Mar 2 2017

One day.

The last few weeks I’ve felt okay- a lot better than usual. I still didn’t feel 100% better, but a little better is enough for me.

I stopped myself, and reflected on how I hadn’t had a bad episode in a few weeks, and I was happy. Because like I said, a little better has always been enough.

And then it came- a bad episode.

Although the episodes are painful, I hate them for another reason. I hate them because people see me as not being okay. I do my best, and I’ve never allowed anyone to see what it’s really like. I smile, and tell them I’m fine.

But the episodes are scary.

They are scary because I am unsure of what will happen. Unsure how much worse it’ll be than the last. Scary because it’s proof that this is real, and this isn’t normal. Scary because it’s a reminder that I’m not okay.

Someone asked me today, “so what exactly is wrong?”

I laughed because I don’t really know.

For the ones that read these posts and are curious, below is the best explanation of what’s going on.

My heart beats really fast (tachycardia). It does it while I’m sitting, and while I’m walking. According to my doctor, your resting heart rate should only increase 10 beats when you begin to move and walk. Mine will increase anywhere between 30-100.

A normal heart rate can range between 60-100, but most people’s are in the 70’s.

Mine’s usually 100-200; occasionally it’ll behave and stay in the 80’s to high 90’s for a little bit.

As of right now I’m diagnosed with Inappropriate Sinus Tachycardia.

“IST is a rare type of arrhythmia. It can be caused by the sinus node having an abnormal structure or function, or it can be part of another condition, dysautonomina, a disturbance and failure of the autonomic nervous system.”

I passed the test for a condition underneath the dysautonomia spectrum, but an official diagnosis would require a trip out of state, and there’s currently no good treatment for that condition either.

Basically I am still trying to figure it all out.

I don’t mind people asking me questions. Talking about it does help me feel less alone in all of it. Which I’ll admit, dealing with something like this, that no one can see, and is considered an ‘invisible illness’ is horrible. No one can see how much it’s affecting you, but you don’t want to seem like you’re complaining so you tend to keep quiet. That’s why I love having this little space- I can talk about it all and not feel like I am sharing too much, or a burden on someone.

People with chronic/invisible illnesses deal with a lot. It’s not easy, but we put on a smile. We have to. We have to keep going because life doesn’t revolve around us, and it doesn’t stop just because we’re having a bad day. So we put on a smile, and we continue living.

I don’t know when and if this will ever get better. I am to the point now where I do pray I get healed, but right now I am taking it one day at a time, and just praying for one day.

One day of no episodes. One day where I can forget about it all, and go to bed that night saying, “wow, this is what it used to feel like. This is what normal is.”

And whether or not I have that day here on earth, I do have hope knowing that in the presence of Jesus, when I make it to my eternal home, I will have an eternity of these one days. And knowing that makes all these other days a little easier.

Jun42016Mar 3 2017

Some hope.

It’s not the outcome I wanted.

I wanted to walk in those hospital doors with a misbehaving Herald (my heart is such a big part of my life, he deserved a name, right?! LOL), and walk out with a well-behaved Herald.

Well that didn’t happen.

I left with a tiny bit of hope implanted in my chest (literally). I was given a permanent heart monitor (linq recorder), which I will wear up to three years- until they find a cause for my heart’s rapid beating.

Although it’s not the hope I was hoping for, it’s something.

Usually after every disappointing appointment, I would leave questioning God. I would get mad at Him for not providing answers.

I woke up from my first procedure, and when I asked for the results (hoping to be told they were able to fix it), I was told the opposite, and I tried to hold in the tears, but I couldn’t.

I cried as they hooked and unhooked wires.

Each nurse that walked in asked if I was okay, and each time I lied.

Each time I told them I was fine, when I knew deep down I was disappointed again.

Finally, another nurse asked me and I told her the truth- no.

No I am not fine. She asked me why. She thought I was crying from the physical pain, yet the physical pain doesn’t compare to the depressing pain I feel knowing that I’d leave and have to continue living this way.

I told her. I told her how I want so desperately to feel normal again. I told her how I want to make it through my last year of college, and how I want to just be me again.

She told me she understood it was frustrating, and she walked away. Her statement so plain. Her statement was short. I didn’t expect a long response, but the one she gave me couldn’t be further from the truth.

I know she didn’t understand. She didn’t know what to say to me. No one does. I understand that others don’t truly understand what I go through. Just like I don’t understand what other people are going through.

The saying- Don’t judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes, is such a true statement.

I write these posts as a way for me to express myself, but also to spread awareness for the undiagnosed, and invisible illness community. To shine a little light for us that are dealing with things that no one else knows. I cannot explain the amount of people I have had message me since my procedures, saying they didn’t know about this. I try my hardest to not share it too much, but it’s getting bad. So bad I’m done hiding it. I am slowly losing myself in it.

I am so ready to be back to normal. I am so ready to say adios to bad Herald, and hello to good Herald.

I left the hospital with a little hope. Although it’s not the outcome I wanted, or the outcome I prayed so long for, it’s a little something.

Sometimes the smallest hope is all you need to keep moving forward.