What were you doing at 11:20 last night?

I was freaking myself out.

My day started out with me determined to consume more calories.

Dustin and I took the girls up to the farm so Karis could show off some of her tricks on the jungle gym in the basement.

While they were showing Daddy the tricks, Mommy was having her Mom put her on a scale.

The results were somewhat terrifying, but I knew if I ate all these calories I would gain, so I kept packing them in.

When we got home I noticed that my heart was beating a little harder - like when you walk up a flight of stairs. Or, at least when I walk up a flight of stairs these days. :-)

Only I was sitting, I wasn't walking.

I wasn't too concerned.

I kept eating.

My tummy felt so full.

My heart was still pounding harder - You know how you never notice your heart beating? It was just beating enough harder that I noticed every beat.

Ok.... a little weird.

I decided to stop eating.

After the girls were in bed, I laid down and watched a little t.v.

All of a sudden my heart started racing for about ten minutes, then went back to it's regular pounding.

Now I'm really trying not to freak out.

I've had no drugs - nothing to trigger anything.

What if I'd lost so much weight that my heart was starting to malfunction.

I thought I'd heard of heart failure due to anorexia at some point in my past.

I called my mom.

She said to call my naturopath.

I called him.

He listened to what I ate, asked if I was bloated.

Don't you love the questions doctors ask?

Can you imagine it in any other situation? Like a party?

So.... I feel a little bloaty, how about you?

Anyway.... I looked at my stomach.

Seeing as it was much bigger than it normally has been I decided I could be bloaty.

He said that when you eat an abnormal amount of food your stomach area can push on your heart and cause it to react by pounding and racing.

I was glad for a logical explanation, but really?

Could I trust Him?

I lay in bed that night, flat on my back because I had pulled some muscles coughing around my lung that were making breathing extremely painful in any other position.

So.... as I'm laying there, knowing any movement would make breating painful, these are the thoughts I had.

What if He was wrong?

What if what I thought were pulled muscles was my heart getting ready to have an attack?

See? Freaking myself out!

And then I'd say, "Really, Becca? Isn't it enough that you are fighting Cancer? Do you really have to imagine that you have Heart Disease as well?"

"But," I'd answer, "I know what I'm feeling. I could be dying. What if I should go to the emergency room? What do you feel like before you have a heart attack?"

I finally made myself get beyond the pain of moving and went out to the living room and our lap top.

Dustin comes upstairs to find his wife at 11:20 at night logging on to the Internet.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing." (Why do we say that, by the way, when we are obviously doing something?)

"What are you doing?"

"I'm looking up the symptoms of a heart attack."

Just what every husband wants to hear from his wife in the middle of the night, right?

Web M.D. wasn't helpful at all.

Warning signs are:

Fatigue - I always have that.

Anxiety - Ummm..... yeah!

Fullness - I was full.

Shortness of breath - had that too.

I decided that I could either continue freaking out, or I could admit that I had these symptoms all the time due to other things, and Dr. Moffett did probably know what he was talking about.

Dustin prayed with me - that always calms me down so much. Something about his voice, his confidence, who we are talking to.

I returned to bed and actually fell asleep this time. If I had a heart attack, I had a heart attack.

This morning, however, the anxiety returned.

I have a hard time keeping that at bay some days.

What if my heart just felt normal again - it may be faking it, just waiting to scare me again.

Before I ate anything crazy, I called my nutritionist. It was time for a new diet from an expert and I needed a second opinion on my heart reactions.

Thankfully she had an appointment at 11 for me.

I called in fear and trepidation, expecting her to be horrified when I told her my weight.

She was amazing.

First, my heart was reacting normally to large amounts of food.

Praise the Lord! I don't have Heart Disease!

Second, the diet is very manageable and she is predicting that I will gain five pounds every two weeks - easier than my first one. Still no dairy or sugar.... :-(

I almost cried when I hung up, the relief was so great.

I wasn't in a bottomless pit. I was in a little hole that hopefully I'll be able to crawl out of in a couple of months.

And can I just say again that I am not going to have a heart attack one more time? You have no idea what a relief that is.

Dustin sympathetically laughs at his crazy wife. He was a tad bit more sensible than me.

Oh, and then I got the mail.

A precious relative of ours sent this amazing letter of encouragement as well as a gift that makes the trip to Chicago possible next month. We weren't sure how that was going to happen, but God is so faithful.

I did cry then.

God is so good at bringing in the encouragement just when I need it.

It is true... "For nothing is impossible with God."

Love you guys!