In addition to RA, I also had some heart issues a few years ago, and a visit to the cardiologist for a check up today got me thinking about how living outside of the moment got me through one of the scariest times of my life.

I had tachycardia, and luckily I was diagnosed and got an ablation within a year, but the fear was constant for that year. First it was the fear of what was happening to my body; my heart would beat over 200bpm for seemingly no reason, and I had no idea what it was until an attack that didn’t stop on its own landed me on my friends floor with paramedics giving me an injection to stop my heart for a few seconds. Then it was the fear of where and when I would have another attack. I drove everywhere just so I would be able to get to a hospital quickly if I went into tach. I wouldn’t go too far from a main road on a hiking trail. Every experience I had was shadowed by the lurking presence of a heart problem that could come out of nowhere and not stop. Finally, it was fear of the surgery. My quality of life had deteriorated so miserably that I elected to get the ablation the moment my cardiologist said I could. I was awake for the whole procedure, with electrodes winding their way up an artery from my groin to my heart, zapping my heart to try to annoy it into the tachycardia rhythm. I lay on the operating table for six hours, breathing and thinking of every positive thing I could think of to get me through the operation.

Before this, I had been ignoring my body’s pain and fatigue. Before this, I had a running list of all the terrifying things that could possibly happen to my body. Before this, I didn’t think I would survive the stress and fear of having to go through something like a surgery.

But then it actually happened, and I found that I had a hidden superpower: I could cope. Not thrive, not love every minute of what was happening to me, not feel so #blessed or #lucky or #livingmylife or whatever, but cope. And I still use my coping mechanisms every time I have a horrible painful spoonie day, or go to see a doctor, or take a test, or have to take meds.

I believe that all people are born with the hidden superpower of coping. I think that our urge to survive is so strong that even in the most awful circumstances, we will find a way to get through it- even if it means simply surviving instead of thriving.

Today I went in for an echo and a stress test, just to check in and see how everything is doing now that it’s been a few years. Everything was great, and for anyone out there debating whether or not they should get the surgery, I can give you my 100% guaranteed seal of approval. I am the poster child for a perfect ablation, where my quality of life and the health of my heart has only improved. Even with all the improvements to my heart, I still used my coping mechanism of shutting down and dreaming. But I also found that after coping successfully for so long, I hardly needed to do it at all today. I could relax in the moment, thinking “I’ve survived worse than this”, and laugh about what a walk in the park a little test was compared to six hours of heart surgery.

People like to say that you should be present, that you should live in the moment and for the moment, because YOLO, or because life is what happens when you’re making plans to live your life. I, however, would like to extoll the virtues of living outside of the moment for the sake of surviving the awful and traumatizing moments. If I fully lived in those moments of poking and prodding, of emergencies and possible/impossible future cures, or my moments of pure agony and exhaustion, I think I would be lost. It’s leaving and dreaming outside of the present moment that helps me cope.

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans, but sometimes that’s the best thing for you.