When Life Stood Still: A Wake-Up Call About Health and Love

Two years ago I got some devastating news that had the potential to change my life forever. My husband, Matt, was struggling with some serious health issues. When he worked out all of a sudden he’d be short of breath. It would take a long time to catch his breath. This was happening too often to ignore.

Because of his history as a transplant patient his doctor was actively running him through every test imaginable to find a cause. But test after test after test revealed nothing. Literally nothing could explain what he was experiencing.

One day in early February, I came home from a really long day of work and running our youngest to and from work, anxious to hear about Matt’s latest appointment and hopeful to hear some answers. It was late and I could tell something was weighing on him. I asked, “how was your appointment?” He looked at me and said he wanted to wait to talk about it once our daughter went to bed.

Several minutes passed and she finally walked down the stairs to tell us goodnight. She walked back up and we heard her door shut.

I was sitting on the couch when Matt finally looked at me and said, “the doctor thinks I have heart failure.” I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say. He got up from his chair and sat down next to me. He reached over and we just held each other and cried.

It would be another month before they could run even more tests to get confirmation. And those 4 weeks were absolutely heart wrenching.

We were supposed to celebrate 25 years of happy marriage later that year. The thought of not being able to celebrate broke my heart. I’d find myself breaking into tears with this gut busting pain doing every day things like cooking dinner, washing clothes, and feeding the chickens. And every moment we had together we’d just hold each other and cry.

Worse than that, was not being able to tell anyone, not friends, not family, not our kids, until we knew for certain. Waiting and praying was all we could do.

I cut out every extraneous thing that would take time away from Matt and my kids. I quit YouTube. I quit social media. I found myself going through the motions just numb to everything that wasn’t my kids and Matt.

But as the weeks went by I began to find comfort in routine. Waking up every morning, doing the chores, prepping lunch, taking the kiddo to school, going to work. And then it came, the moment we were waiting for. After weeks of torment, the confirmation.

Matt went alone to his appointment that morning and I dropped our youngest off at school and drove to work. I waited at the office. Impatiently. Shortly after he called. “My heart is fine. I don’t have heart failure.”

The rush of emotions pulsed through me at that moment. All the sadness, all the anger, all the hurt. Every bit of it I could feel in my veins. I cried quietly in a little huddle room in the office breathing relief in and out. “Thank you God,” was all I could say. “Thank you God.”

The next time Matt and I saw each other we held each other so tight, crying tears of happiness and relief. His heart wasn’t failing. He was fine.

Well, not fine actually. Something was still going on. But we at least knew he wasn’t dying.

We celebrated our 25th anniversary a few months later.

We still don’t know what was going on and why he was having trouble breathing. In the end the doctors chalked it up to anxiety because there was no other physical explanation. The shortness of breath never went fully away but they don’t happen as often. He’s eating healthy and exercising daily. He’s as fit as can be considering. And we’re thankful for that.