Psalm 119:96 Monday

"To all perfection I see a limit; but your commands are boundless." Psalm 119:96

My first panic attack came on February 12, 1987. I told a friend I was talking to on the telephone that my left arm was going numb, I just didn't feel quite right and my heart was pounding. She told me I needed to call the doctor, who told me to come in immediately. So, I got Laura, who was three at the time, drove to my husband's law office, whisked her out onto the sidewalk to Phil, told him I was going to see Dr. Burt and drove myself. Dr. Burt did an EKG and found my heart was beating 186 beats a minute. So he admitted me into the step-down unit of coronary care. He told me I was not having a heart attack; he just wanted to keep an eye on me. For the next few hours, nothing out of the ordinary happened, my heart rate went down and everything seemed okay. I don't think this is actually what caused the incident, but after one of our elders came to see me, my heart rate went back up again and I was taken into the coronary care unit to be watched more closely. I remember asking the nurse if I was having a heart attack and he said he didn't know for sure, but that something was wrong and he would take good care of me; and he did. I asked him if he would just call my husband so I wouldn't be alone. I was there two days and sent home with the instructions to take five miligrams of valium, as needed, and learn to say no. (More on that later). I had my second panic attack August 13, 1991, was seen in the emergency room, told it was just another panic attack and to just go home.

I had my first colonoscopy in February of 1990, my second in 1991, my third in 1992 and my fourth in 1996. After the third colonoscopy in 1992 I started counseling with Dr. Pfohl here in Bowling Green, who said one sentence to me that changed my life. It was a sentence so foreign to me, I asked him to repeat it, I'm sure more than once. This is what he said:

"Teresa, perfection is not a goal, it is a disorder."

(Part one)