A: Honestly? Suffering from POTS literally feels like your body is imploding and there is nothing you can do to stop it from happening. During a POTS flare, it can feel as if your whole body is shutting down even though your brain desperately attempts to keep your body working. It feels like you’re on fire but in a freezer both at once. It feels as if you are being hit in the stomach with a baseball bat over and over again. It feels like your heart is going to rupture at any second. It feels like you’re trying to walk on a tightrope while someone continuously chucks a textbook at your head. It feels like an incredible urge to fight immediate danger but you’re stuck in cement.” –Crista Propocio
Today I want to tell you guys something very personal to me. I have POTS. POTS is Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, in other words, my heart beats to fast. The funny thing about POTS is it doesn’t only effect you cardiovascularly, but it also effects you neurologically, digestively, and musculoskeletaly. I was sick for three years before I was diagnosed with it my senior year in high school. It all started one day when I went for a five mile run with no shade and no water on a 98 degree day. That day I gained a headache that never went away. That headache soon led to many other problems including random food allergies, numbness in my legs and arms, and many many other things. I was sick and we didn’t no why for three years, all of which included 40 different narcotics, acupuncture, many medical procedures, and a vast amount of others things that would take to long to name. When I started passing out my senior year during cross country meets, they finally realized what was causing my problem and could diagnosis. Don’t get me wrong, a diagnosis is great, but it isn’t a cure. When you get a diagnosis you get a name, but that doesn’t mean you are magically not sick anymore. Sometimes you can get a name and the right medicine and continue to be sick, or at least that’s how I live. But when you are sick with something like POTS, sometimes you get a choice, you can choose to let it shut your life down, or you can continue to live your life to the best of your ability. I chose option two, I chose not to let POTS rule my life. I have run cross country since my freshman year of high school, and I am now running in college. What many people don’t know about POTS is many people become bed ridden or wheel chair bound from it because of the numbness and joint pain in their legs…and as you can tell I didn’t. Although I still run, it doesn’t mean I don’t have problems when I run. When I run a race I experience numbness from my waist down after mile one of the 5k or 6K. I know if I can hit mile one I will either go down because my legs will give out or I will just go numb and I can finish. I have been blessed with a coach who is there no matter which happens. If I go down he is there to help me get back up (or carry me up a monster hill… thanks again Coach B), and if I can finish the race he is there to catch me at the end (yes I literally mean catch me). I don’t only have issues when I run, but I have issues with daily activities. Sometimes I suffer concussion like symptoms, sometimes I pass out in random places, and sometimes I am so lethargic it is really hard to get out of bed. Although I have all these issues, I make a choice everyday to live my life despite POTS. There are many days I don’t know how I will do it, but I know I don’t have to do it alone because I have God. Without God I would not be able to function with POTS on a daily basis, I wouldn’t be able to run, and I wouldn’t be able to live my life somewhat normally. God can give people strength like no other, and will be with you through everything you go through. You can do anything with God, and you can’t do anything without him. Personally, I don’t believe God makes bad things happen to his children, but I do believe God gives you strength during those bad things and uses them for YOUR good, and to further his kingdom. Doctors tell me regularly that if they didn’t know I was sick, they would never be able to tell it from looking at me because I don’t let it control my life. Everyday I thank God for giving me the strength to push through. I know he is using my story and what I am going through to further his kingdom and to show himself through me. It’s like I tell people when they are going through something difficult, “Life sucks. Life really really sucks sometimes and it is really really hard sometimes. But we have a God who is bigger than anything we could possible go through and he has our back. You just have to keep your head high and power through, because he will give you the strength you need and is going to use what you are going through as a testament to his power.” God has used POTS to mold me into the person I am, and he is using it to speak through me to others. Yes it’s hard and yes it really sucks sometimes. Yes it is embarrassing to pass out and have to have your friends help you walk, and yes it’s hard when a doctor looks at you and tells you he doesn’t know what else to do to help you. But one thing I know is even on those hard days, I have a God who is carrying me and who is bigger than POTS. So my friends, whatever hardship you are facing right now, just remember God is bigger than it and he is going to see you through…and who knows, he might just use you and your situation to change someone else’s life. So keep pushing forward and know he is holding you.
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
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