It all started when I was five. I was lying in a too large bed in my family's house on Piedmont Road. I had just got home from preschool and was taking a nap while my dad cooked dinner. With a sudden JOLT! my heart began racing at three times the normal speed. I spent the next three days in the hospital, after which time my heart mysteriously ceased its pounding. That heart problem (arrhythmia) would significantly impact my life for the next seven years.

The cures presented at first were ineffective medicine, but the later attempts were hindered more by my unwillingness to cooperate than by any inherent failure of the technology. In the end, the solution was forced upon me, and that left me with mixed feelings. The attempts at stopping the arrhythmia originally failed because of incorrect diagnoses by the physicians involved. It was not that they were incompetent, but the problem was rare and there was a lack of information about it. My physician originally suggested I use digitalis, which I continued to use for several years, after which time it was revealed as useless and perhaps even counter productive. For the first years after the problem developed, the only way I could control an episode was by waiting it out, sometimes in the hospital. However, being as young as I was, this never became intolerable. Eventually, a cardiologist from the Twin Cities came to see me. He suggested a new technique based on the diver's reflex. I was to immerse my head in ice water and hold my breath until my heart calmed down. This did a fine job of controlling it, if I let it.

As I became older, I just expected the arrythmia to quit if I dipped my hair in the water, and if it didn't, it was the water's fault, not mine. I also began ignoring the rapid heart beat and pretending my heart was going its normal speed. I cannot recall the precise motivation for this, but I imagine it was the standard middle school fear of embarrassment. Eventually, I learned my lesson. I was at Boy Scout camp out in Tomah, a small town in Wisconsin. The troop had just arrived and I was wrestling with Erik Keisler. He slammed into my chest and my heart quickly accelerated to 250 beats a minute. I was having so much fun, I decided to ignore it. I figured it had never done any harm before. Before, I had controlled the arrhythmia with ice water within an hour, or spent the day resting in a hospital. In Tomah, I let the episode go on for twelve hours, during which I was extremely active. I woke up at 2 the next morning, vomiting and dizzy from the pain of an over-stressed heart. I was driven to the local hospital, where I attempted to get a bin of ice water. The only way I mustered the strength to dive in chill liquid was fear of the IV I would be injected with should I not. The next morning, my parents arrived and drove me home. Even I recognized something had changed. After being hospitalized for the first time in over 5 years, my parents and my cardiologist decided that something had to be done.

The solution was a catheter ablation. This involved being put under using an IV, then sticking wires to the heart through the arms and near the groin. I have a phobia for shots and was vehemently opposed to any thought of having this done. I had totally convinced myself of the justice of my cause and was determined to live with my heart problem until I died from it. My parents took the matter out of my hands.

The surgery was far worse than any pain inflicted by the arrythmia. After it was done I was nauseous, in pain, and unable to move. It has been the single worst experience of my life. The solution to my problem did not come from my own strength or ingenuity, but rather was forced upon me by others. I never fully accepted the cures that I was supposed to use, as I could only see the negative aspects. It is one thing to agree to have pain now so that you will feel better later, it is another to force this on you. If I had chosen to have surgery, it would remain a painful but necessary and positive aspect of my past. Because it was not my choice, it can never be anything more than an act of cruelty. I do not think less of my parents for making me choose the surgery, but the memory of the ablation is tainted with anger.

The recollection of this experience has taught me several important lessons. The first is, if you want to fix a problem, you have to genuinely try and fix it. If you hold something back, it will continually sabotage your efforts at a solution. A second lesson is that you cannot become angry at others for an act done in ignorance. The doctors didn't mean to give me the wrong medicine; my parents thought the surgery was a gift. The final, and most painfully learned, lesson is that regardless of how much more you know than someone, you cannot force them to accept your solutions to their problems. Beware of love becoming domination. Remember that even young children are humans, and their thoughts and emotions are not less than your own. They do not appreciate being controlled, even if it is "for their own good."