Hear me out…

I’ve had over a dozen cardiac events where my heart just suddenly… stops. They diagnosed me with an unspecified generalized arrhythmia but literally cannot find any cause for it and the arrhythmia isn’t a 24/7 thing. Most of the time I’m fine and then suddenly*boom* my heart stops, I’m passed out on the floor, and usually I (sorry, TMI) vomit or lose control of other functions…These events last several minutes and then suddenly I come back. It takes a while to really snap back into reality but eventually it wears off and aside from being physically exhausted for the next several days… I’m “okay.” But it always sort of feels like a choice to come back. Not a physical one. I’m an atheist but the decision feels like something my soul has to choose. Like I’m halfway out the door and something is asking if I’m ready to go yet.

My doctors have been researching my health issues for a decade (I have been dealing with this condition since I was a teenager) and still have no answers or real treatment plan for me. But I worry because the reason I always choose to fight against the feeling of my heart stopping is because I have things to fight for. I choose to come back because there are still things in my life worth being here for. The problem is that there’s also a lot of ugly shit (like major shit, not just the day-to-day stuff that most of us already struggle with… truly horrific shit) happening in my life and I worry that if one of those episodes were to happen right now… I maybe wouldn’t fight as hard. The spark of light that I hold onto when my vision blacks out and it feels like my soul has left my skin and I’m standing next to myself, that pinhole of hope that I wage war for… it’s burning out like a far-off star. I wonder if there will even be anything left of it the next time my heart is convinced to stop beating.