Strapped to a table; didn't turn into a monster

I used to come close to fainting about once a week.

I got fed up a few times and scheduled a blood test or a scan of my heart. Each time, the doctor would give a new recommendation. Quit coffee, take salt, nurse Gatorade constantly, wear tights, take beta blockers, avoid beta blockers…

Nothing worked. I didn’t have time for test-after-test, so I tried to ignore it as much as possible. I got used to feeling miserable.

There was one thing the doctors thought I might have, but to find out for sure, I’d need to undergo a “tilt-table test.” (If your mind immediately jumps to medieval torture chambers, I’m right there with you.)

The doctors described strapping me to a moving table, which would stand my body up and then drop it down while injecting me with adrenaline to “see what would happen” to my heart. One doctor described it as “almost inducing a heart attack, but not all the way.”

I think now she was being dramatic, but you can see why I avoided this test for months.

I don’t remember asking God to heal me. Because the doctors couldn’t confirm the problem for so long, I wondered if it was all in my head. I certainly wasn’t going to pray for healing from something I couldn’t prove existed.

The big day for the test came in early 2013, and they velcro’d my arms, legs and waist to a table. My body was covered in plastic sensors. Less than halfway through, they shut the test down because it was already conclusive.

After the test, it was simple. The doctor gave me pills, which I take several times per day, and I truly feel 100% better.

What’s the moral to this story and posting this personal information on the interwebs?

I didn’t know how terrible I’d felt until I remembered how wonderful it was to feel well—really, truly well. And I am grateful to feel that way now.

It was a season of feeling miserable I thought would never end, but it did.

In a small way, my three-times-a-day pills remind me that God can make things over and that nothing I fatalistically accept has to be.

It’s not a deep message, but important if I let it seep in.

Nothing in this world is set in stone. No cause is ever truly lost. Tomorrow is not sentenced to being the same as today. Times change on their own—sometimes despite my lack of effort. And to me, this is an encouraging thought.