My Heart is Trying to Warn Me.

I’ve written a lot about what it feels like to live inside a body that’s fighting for regulation. Blood sugar, hunger cues, insulin, inflammation, weight, all of it. But today, it wasn’t a gut feeling or a weight plateau or a frustrating call with a pharmacy.

Today, it was my heart.

Over the past couple of days I have fell, “off”. Getting super dizzy when doing very little. Some brief rest seemed to set me straight. I chalked it up to low electrolytes and started focusing more on my water and liquid IV intake.

This morning, in a very scary moment for me and my family, I nearly passed out at the grocery store. Out of nowhere, I felt lightheaded and weak. When the ambulance got there, my blood pressure was 172 over 110. My heart rate was 120. That’s not a “maybe drink more water” number. That’s a red zone. On the way to the ER, things started to settle. Heart rate dropped closer to 100, blood pressure eased into the 140s. Still high, but not in crisis.

At the hospital, they ran the full panel. Chest X ray. Bloodwork. EKG. A D dimer to rule out blood clots.

The chest X ray showed that my heart is enlarged and that there is vascular congestion, meaning my heart is under strain and blood is backing up into the lungs. That alone would have been enough of a wake up call. But when the labs came back, they told another part of the story.

Electrolytes were normal. No kidney damage. No infection. No clot. No heart attack.

Which means this wasn’t a collapse. It was a warning.

The heart isn’t necessarily failing, but it is struggling. The size is up. The efficiency is down. The blood pressure spikes weren’t a fluke. The palpitations and dizziness weren’t random. This is what happens when your system has been compensating for too long and finally cannot.

So what now?

I’m making changes. I am working on the factors I can control. I have an appointment with a cardiologist later this week to get a full picture of how my heart is functioning and what recovery looks like. Based on everything I know, and everything I’ve learned from this community, there is a path forward. The heart can recover. Blood pressure can improve. Nervous systems can calm down. But only if you respond early.

This could have been a lot worse. It wasn’t. But it was enough to make me stop and look hard at what I’ve been asking my body to carry.

The hospital, and medical things in general, are very triggering to me. After my dad’s massive heart attack we spent nine days in the hospital without leaving until he had breathed his last. To this day, I cringe when I even drive by them. My wife was my rock today, and every day. Praying over me, speaking words of encouragement, even washing my feet in a complete act of love. God has been so, so kind to me, in no greater way than the partner He gave me for life. I made these notes once I wiped the tears away after learning what was going on:

If you’ve been feeling it, the warning signs, the shift in energy, the sense that your body is trying to speak up, listen before it has to shout.