Praise for Prayers

Praise God for all your prayers these last few days!

 My mom went home from the hospital last night, and plans to jump right back into life with both feet. All of her tests came back "clean" except for her blood pressure. She hasn't had a history of high blood pressure before, but she's on medication for that now. Her heart rate is normally fairly low because at age 70 she's more athletic than most people I know (including me). She walks 2-3 miles a day, swims, lifts weights, and does extreme gardening.

Her heart was tested in all the ways that a heart can be tested by a medical team, and they came to the conclusion that although a heart rate between 38-45 is low even for her, her "normal" heart rate of 52-54 makes her lower heart rate less of an issue. Once upon a time, she weighed 225 pounds (height 5'3"), but she lost all that and trained for a half marathon about ten years ago, so her heart is "lean and trim" according to the docs.

Although she had some scary moments at the hospital with chest pains, extreme headaches, shortness of breath, and dizziness, she also made all the docs, nurses, technicians, and physical therapists smile and laugh. With her blood pressure down, she's back to her normal cheerful self and ready for action.

So why the chest pains? That's still somewhat of a mystery, but she does have mild emphysema from 20 years of smoking (she started as a teen and stopped at age 35). . .and that's the closest thing the docs seem to be able to find for a cause, along with her blood pressure.

So, again, thank you for all your prayers and kind words these last few days!