Crisp Sinus Rhythm

This week’s blog is going to be a little different, a more personal, recent experience.  It’s a real story in real-time that happened the day before Thanksgiving.

One thing I want to point out first and foremost is “God did it”, I told Him that I would tell everyone.

For the past few years, I have been periodically troubled with Arterial Fibrillation or AFIB. It is where your heart rate sometimes beats too fast, sometimes too slow, and sometimes just out of rhythm or skipping beats. It has been more troubling the last couple of months as it has been happening almost daily and disrupting my quality of life.

At times causes shortness of breath, fatigue, and most notably can cause blood clots that could possibly lead to a stroke.

I had a cardiologist that treated me a few years ago, and I was telling him of my new symptoms and how they were much more frequent. He would run an EKG at the office; my heart would be fine at this point, so he would send me on my way, no real response or care for the AFIB.

I also tried my regular doctor to no avail, both would tell me to stop drinking coffee, stop smoking, and stop drinking alcohol, all of which I had done some 20 plus years ago when I started serving God and trusting Him with my life.

A few weeks ago my wife started looking and found a new cardiologist.  He ran an EKG and noted that I was in AFIB at that moment and that by listening to my story it sounded like the AFIB had become persistent.

He quickly wanted to get my heart back into normal sinus rhythm, so he scheduled a TEE test along with Cardioversion. The first test is a sonogram of your heart from the inside, a tube is run down your esophagus, and pictures of your heart are taken from the inside. Sounds intrusive, right?   This test is to make sure that there are no blood clots in the heart before they do the Cardioversion, which is to shock your heart back into normal sinus rhythm.  Both procedures require sedation and a team of nurses with the doctor to man all the necessary equipment to complete both procedures.

Upon my arrival at the hospital, I had a COVID-19 test (negative) and then proceeded to be prepped for my two procedures.

An I.V. was placed in my forearm for fluids and sedation, machines were rolled into the room for various functions, and three nurses and the doctor arrived. Meanwhile, the doctor was looking for the anesthesiologist who finally came in the room.

With all the machines hooked up and humming, the anesthesiologist gets ready to administer the sedation, everyone takes their position (there wasn’t much room for me) and we were ready to roll.

Then all of the sudden I hear the doctor say “Wait a second – the one monitor looks like he has converted to normal sinus rhythm”! “The other one still looks like AFIB but that one looks like normal sinus rhythm”.

The nurses quickly return me to my back and hook up a twelve lead EKG that monitors your heart extra close. I will never forget the words of my doctor when the reading came on the screen, “Crisp Sinus Rhythm”.

God showed up at the last second to restore my heart, even the doctor said, “I have never seen anyone convert to normal sinus rhythm at this point”.  Usually, more stress causes more AFIB, not a conversion to normal sinus rhythm.

So now everyone is scurrying to unhook me from all the machines, a couple of the nurses asked the doctor if he wanted them to leave the machines hooked up in case I reverted. The doctor said, “No he has converted and all is good”!

I will pause here and tell you what I was thinking at this moment and it was, “you can’t make this stuff up”, “you can’t make this stuff up”!  As I was watching and listening to everything that was unfolding, I started thanking God for interceding on my behalf. Thanking Him for answering mine, my wife’s, and my family’s prayers. 

Then the doctor looked at me and said “you don’t have to have either test, just some medication to keep your heart in normal sinus rhythm”. I exclaimed “Hallelujah”!

The doctor and the team of nurses left the room with the instructions to run another twelve lead EKG in about an hour and if everything was ok, release me.

During that hour was when the fight of faith began. 

All alone, in a dark room, still hooked up to the heart monitor, hearing nothing but the beep, beep, beep, with every heartbeat.

The beeps would change occasionally and when I looked at the monitor it seemed that my heart was skipping a beat at times. Every time that would happen I would say, “God gave me this (my normal sinus rhythm) and I’m keepin’ it”! This was my statement of faith for the next sixty minutes.

After about fifteen minutes a nurse came in the room, and after checking the monitor she said, “Beautiful sinus rhythm”, relief came over me and I rested momentarily.

It wasn’t long after she left that the monitor started in… strange beeps and squiggly lines, and the thought came to me again, “you are out of sinus rhythm”.  Again, I fired back with my statement of faith, “God gave me this and I’m keepin’ it”, and my peace would return.

I fought this fight of faith many times during that 60 minute waiting period, and by thanking God and repeating my statement of faith, I held onto my “Crisp Sinus Rhythm”!

The nurse ran the final EKG and repeated her previous “beautiful” statement, and I was released from the hospital soon after. Praise the Lord!

My wife was out in the waiting room, because of COVID-19 she was not allowed back in the recovery area with me, although she was hearing bits and pieces of my God intervention from the doctor and intake nurses.

She was super excited to see me and hear how God had answered our prayers and to hear how He had orchestrated my miracle.

Even with masks on you could still see the joy in our eyes as they were lit up with excitement, and we praised God.  I looked at her and exclaimed “you can’t make this stuff up” as we headed out to the car.

Once in the car, my wife was so excited about the goodness of God that she wanted to hear every detail right there in the parking lot. We shouted and praised God, we thanked God over and over for His goodness, we laughed and we cried with joy and relief. Glory be to God!

My wife really took hold of my statement of faith “God gave me normal sinus rhythm and I’m keepin’ it”.  She reminds me of this whenever I have any symptoms that try to return. Amen!  We need faithful spouses and friends to help us hold onto our miracles and the workings of God in our lives!

As I look back I see how the outcome is directly related to the life my wife and I choose to live daily. By the grace of God, we put God first every day, we read our Bible first thing, and we do not compromise the word of faith when it comes to our beliefs. We do what the Word says as much as depends on us and that is much. Amen!

By the grace of God, we obey God’s teachings throughout the Bible and do our best to trust Him in every area of our life.  We endeavor to be Spirit-led and to heed the Word of God to the best of our daily abilities. Do we miss it at times, sure, but we repent and get right back in the right place with God because He is faithful.

God wants all of us to walk in; signs, wonders, and miracles.  Now in this time, today! Amen!

It’s easy to look at what’s happening around you and miss what’s happening inside you.  I will repeat that for affect, “we look so intently at what’s happening around us, that we miss what’s happening inside us”. Selah!

To be honest, leading up to the procedures I was only asking God to “guide the doctors’ hands”, “let me not have any adverse side effects from the medicine, etc.”.  I let the things that were happening to me, dictate my prayers.  But thanks be to God, He had much more available and in store for me.

I should have had the faith to ask God to intervene before I was lying on the table, but I was looking at everything around me, all of our fears stop at the point of our faith. My faith was in my doctor’s abilities and in modern medicine, which is okay…

But God being full of grace saw my heart and responded to the faith available for this situation and based the outcome on His abilities not my seemingly lack of faith. Oh, how thankful I am to have a loving, powerful, miracle-working God, who loves me and sees me through Jesus.

I am also thankful for a praying wife and praying children. God truly does listen and answer our prayers.

I will close with my opening, “God did it, and He’s marvelous in my eyes.”

If you need a faith boost today, please leave a comment and I will prayerfully respond.

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Scriptures of encouragement and content: Revelation 19:10, Romans 13:13, Jeremiah 8:22, Acts 3:16, Deuteronomy 10:21, and Psalm 116: 1-2, “I love the Lord because he heard my voice. He heard my cry for His help. Because He paid attention to me, I will call out to Him as long as I live”! Amen!