In matters of the heart.

Today, I have an appointment to get an ultrasound on my heart.

I always thought the first time I’d hear the word “ultrasound” and my name in the same sentence or would ever need to have one would be because I was pregnant.  To me, ultrasounds are correlated with excitement, anticipation, new life, a baby’s tiny fingers and toes waving a first, shy “hello.”  I never thought I’d receive one because my doctor was worried I have a leaky valve or an abnormality or some other undetermined cardiac issue.

The writer in me wants to spin this poetically:  My heart is not quite working properly.  That is the literal, physical conclusion.  But oh, the many metaphoric possibilities within that diagnosis!

Trouble is, there is no poetry in undressing in front of strangers in a sterile, neon-lit room and laying on an examination table and having an unnamed nurse rub cold gel on your pale, bare skin and ask that you breathe normally and try to remain calm while a machine assesses the health and viability and function of the very organ that keeps me alive and breathing.

Or, if there is poetry in this, I am clearly not the writer I thought I was.

In my gut, I believe my doctor’s reassurances that everything is probably okay and these are merely precautionary measures.  In my head, I trust my parents’ nonchalant reactions and calm, steady reminders that I’m young and healthy and absolutely, 100 percent fine.  Rationally, I know some people—even good friends and family—who have faired far worse and more serious health problems and came out kicking, no complaints or blog posts needed.  Logically, I know I am worrying before I legitimately have something to worry about.

But…  There?  In my heart?  At the core of me?

That part defies the rational, the logical, the sensical.  That part feels—instinctively, honestly, purely, without agenda—and responds accordingly.  Isn’t that its beauty, its promise, its ability to surprise and transform and push you, beat by beat?  After all, it is the heart that falls in love, that mourns a loss, that kisses the forehead of the sick and dying.  It is the heart that breaks and rebuilds and forgives.  It is the heart that finds the poetry, in all things.  It is, always, the heart that wants to try again, that wants to go out and scrub clean the huge mysteriousness of the past, searching for meaning, answers, understanding.

It is the heart that matters.

My heart—I have always trusted.  I have always assumed its strength, its resilience, and, naively, its invincibility.

What if I was wrong?

Today, a nurse might point out an abnormality there.  A doctor may tell me I need to begin a daily dose of medications.  I may actually see the greatest, strongest muscle in my body on screen, live, not bloody but merely black and white, and moving, right before my very eyes.  How strange that will be: to actually see what I normally only sense within me.

I am nervous.  I wish I was not going to my appointment alone.  I wish I had a warm hand to hold.  (Although, admittedly, it was my stubborn “I can do this by myself” attitude that turned down kind offers of company.)  I wish I didn’t feel so damn emotional and frazzled and genuinely freaked out.  I wish I hadn’t already had more doctor’s appointments in the last week than I’ve had in the last nine months.  Yes, I wish a lot of things.

But, in matters of the heart, we can never just wish.

The heart is too real, too present.  It is too all or nothing.

We do not exist otherwise.

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