I needed to quiet my mind, but I was really struggling to do so. I tried putting into practice the most effective contemplative prayer and meditation techniques I’d taught myself since my first heart surgery. I’d been praying fiercely since arriving at the ER. More than that, I was scared of the anxiety that might return in recovery.
#DIVINE TIMING FULL#
I lay in my hospital bed regretting I hadn’t been “lucky” enough for the valve to have lasted the full 15. After an excruciatingly long wait in the ER, I was finally admitted to the cardiac ward and scheduled for surgery to replace the bovine valve that had worked for 14 years. Until that August morning, when I woke up struggling for air. I’d come a long way, physically and emotionally, and didn’t look back. My faith discoveries culminated in a new book I was working on, Even Silence Is Praise. I also deepened my prayer practice, exploring contemplative prayer and meditation. I began running in the park again, resumed a normal life, was diligent about checkups with my cardiologist. In the meantime, I tried not to dwell on it and got my anxiety under control. The doctors had said that my new bovine valve would eventually need to be replaced, maybe in 10 years, 15 if I was lucky. Don’t open my sternum and stop my heart to fix it.” As if every cell of my being was worried that if I slept too deeply I might never wake up again. My body would jerk awake, as though it were saying, “Don’t do that to me again. I could no longer sleep through the night. Depression is often an aftereffect of heart surgery, but for me, it was more like anxiety. Recovery was difficult, and the struggle was more than physical. I had an aortic aneurysm when I was only 52 and needed open-heart surgery to put in a bovine valve. I was in shape, running in the park, working out in the gym, eating healthy foods. After all, I was a busy guy-working, raising the kids, trying to be a good husband and dad. Come to think of it, I probably skipped a few years here and there. I went in for annual checkups with my cardiologist, then put it out of my mind and lived my life. I’d blithely figured that “someday” would arrive well into my senior years.
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