RAMBLINGS ON THE HEART

The human heart … it’s a muscular organ, about the size of a closed fist and located between the lungs. Its job is to pump blood through our body’s circulatory system. I’ve been thinking about the heart a lot lately, even though we celebrated Valentine’s Day over a month ago.

The cute little red heart that shows up on Valentine cards, and has morphed into an emoji to be tacked onto text messages and emails, is widely recognized as a symbol of love.

The history of that symbol is long and somewhat unclear, but may go back as far as an ancient Indus Valley civilization.

I even read that the ancient Romans held a belief that there was a vein they called the vena amores, that ran from the fourth finger of the left hand directly to the heart. Although the anatomy was inaccurate, this belief persisted, and may have been why the wedding ring is traditionally placed on that finger.

 

 In more recent history, 1977, to be exact, the heart symbol actually became a verb. That’s when the “I (heart) NY” logo was created to boost morale for a struggling New York City. It caught on, and now we can “heart” anything and anyone.

 

I’ve heard that the word “heart” occurs over one thousand times in the Bible. In most of those scriptures, though not all, it denotes a person’s center of emotions, intellect, morals and devotion.

 

As I’ve mentioned in my blog, before, Dan and I are amateur astrophotographers. One nebula we’ve imaged is the Heart Nebula. It is 7500 light years away from Earth, and spans an area of the sky that is four times the diameter of the full moon. It has a companion nebula - the Soul Nebula - which Dan and I have not yet imaged. Dan tells me that this pair of nebulae never dips below the horizon - it's always there. That seems appropriate for something we think of as representing “love.”

 

So, why am I so preoccupied with the heart these days?

On Tuesday, March 14, Dan went into the Baylor Scott & White Hospital (BSW), here in Temple, for an aortic valve replacement. This was accomplished through a procedure known as Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR), which means that he did not have to have open-heart surgery. Although this was the less-invasive way to have the valve replaced, it was still a major procedure.

Dan spent two nights in the hospital following the TAVR, and came home on Thursday, the 16th, wearing a temporary, external heart monitor, due to the possibility of “heart block” following this kind of procedure. He was doing well until Saturday morning, when he was complaining of lack of energy and feeling “off.” Around 1:30 that afternoon the heart monitor company contacted him, which resulted in him calling the BSW Patient Advisory Nurse. She stayed on the line with him for about a half-hour, and determined his heart rate was in the 35 beats/minute range … way too low! So she sent him to the ER. We were taken back immediately, and an EKG verified he was in heart block. What that meant was that the heart’s electrical signals were not passing between the upper part of the heart and the lower part. Therefore the heartbeat was erratic.

Because of that, Dan was readmitted to the hospital and, the next day (Sunday) went back into the OR to receive a pacemaker. That second procedure was successful, and Dan’s heart, once again was beating properly. He stayed another night in the hospital, and on Monday, came home again, with a monitor that would send heartbeat data back to his medical team.

We have been blessed, throughout this past week, with an outpouring of love and assistance from our church family. Six friends sat and visited with me at the hospital on Tuesday, for the initial surgery. Others sent cards, visited at Dan’s bedside, brought food or took me out to eat. Prayers were raised from, an "army" of people.

Dan is still recovering. It will be a couple weeks, probably, before he’s back to normal, but he’ll get there, with God’s help. Thank you, everyone, for the love you've shown us.