Laur's Blog, Volume 8: The Art of the Human Heart

Light as a Feather

I am light as a feather, stiff as a board. At least that's how it feels. Sometimes when my heart races and my vision goes fuzzy, I float. The weight of the world gets lifted from my shoulders. For just a brief moment, I am not in pain... Or I can't focus on it. Sometimes, I get lost in the feeling of passing out. I like it when the world goes dark, silent. I like it when I can no longer feel. I hate to admit that. I hate that I have adapted, made the best out of living with heart palpitations, living with the ability to go down at any moment.

I got diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) after the great fall of 2024. I had just worked out. I was walking to my closet, getting my clothes ready after my shower, and I passed out, landing on my furniture. I hit my head seven times, broke my nose seven times, and shifted it all the way to the right. I damaged my dominant shoulder in a way that ended up destroying the majority of it. I woke up five minutes later in a pool of my own blood; dazed, disoriented, and confused.

Running Until Collapse

After the nose and shoulder reconstructions, I was cleared for an exercise test. I had stickers all over me, tracking my heart. Prep for the test took around thirty minutes... Hooking me up to all the different heart monitors. I had two nurses standing next to me as I began walking on a treadmill. They monitored my heart rate as the speed increased. Not many patients know this, but there is a double-sided mirror in this particular exercise room. Cardiology specialists watch as the test is conducted. I knew half of the people on the other side of that wall; they were my dad's work colleagues.

The nurses tried to distract me as my heart rate was rising. For reference, the average human heart rate is around 60-100 BPM, and it can reach 120-150 BPM during physical activity. Mine was already at 200 BPM within 10 minutes of walking. As the speed increased, I grew dizzy, light as a feather.

"Are you okay to run?" One of the nurses asked me, in between conversations about my college plans.

"Let's do it," I said.

Within 20 seconds of running, my heart rate was somewhere between 250 and 275 BPM, far beyond what the human body can handle. The world went black, quiet, just for a glimpse of time. The nurses had caught me, and I woke up on a hospital bed. They were letting my heart rate return to normal. It took 30 minutes to drop to 200 BPM. This is unusual. This, this is not good. I met with my cardiologist later that week, and she told me my case would be handed off to a POTS specialist.

Since then, I've been cautious about my activity and my heart rate. I chug water and take in as much salt as I can. I do everything they say. I don't work out unless I cool down. I don't get up too fast. When I feel light, I lie down. When I feel stiff, I stretch out. However, I still pass out. I still fall. My bones still ache. All the specialists, the medication, the steroids, the shots, the surgeries, they catch up to me. They're wearing me down.

Over and Over Again

I fell a good five times last semester. I ended up spraining my ankle on four of those separate occasions. In December, I got an MRI. They said I was a candidate for an ankle reconstruction. In February, I went to the ER near my school. They put me in a boot, since I could hardly walk by then. I reached out to my orthopedist with the subject line, "My Ankle is No Longer an Ankle." He said he found that funny at our appointment.

On May Fourth, I'm scheduled for a right ankle open lateral ligament reconstruction with allograft, possible internal brace, and ganglion cyst excision. In plain terms, they're using cadaver tissue to "sew my ligaments back in, kind of like a shoelace," as he put it. This will be my first time being cut open. I do have 13 screws in my shoulder, all of which were placed through arthroscopy. I am scared. I am stuck, stagnant, waiting. I do not want this to happen.

I was told I would never regain function in my dominant arm again after the shoulder surgery. The night before, I made it my mission to create my "last" piece at the time, "Heart in Bloom". I had spent the day sketching a human heart with flowers growing out of it on a piece of wood. I painted until two in the morning. It was freeing, it was claustrophobic. I felt like I was a bird, flying, but I was caged. It was contradictory. I couldn't make sense of it.

Stillness and Flight

Two Springs later, and I'm inspired by the same feeling. I can still create now; it is my means of functioning, of salvation. But I am still trapped, waiting. I am still in the cage. I am still waiting to be free, waiting to be planted. I am a bird that has yet to fly, a seed that has yet to grow. I know I will bloom again, but it is just a matter of when. I try to put my faith in time. I tell myself that it will get me through. I tell myself that hope means nothing when it is the only bit of dignity I have left. I am living in illusion, in a way, a state of contradictions. I am stuck in the middle.

I hate that I find comfort in familiarity. I wish I didn't have to adapt to these circumstances. I wish this story had a happy ending now. I wish it were my time. I hope that one day I'll stop misinterpreting the darkness as warmth. I hope that I will have the chance to fly, soar. I know that one day, I will plant my own seeds. I will bloom again.