Childish

Having a heat condition is like having a three year old living inside your chest.  Some days you want to pull it out, tell it to settle down and behave, no one wants to listen to this.  This would be a bad day or maybe an in-between day.

Let me explain.  There are good days and there are bad days.  Then there are those in-between days. Days may start out glorious, then turn to a fecal splattered experience.  Or they start out slow and painful, but eventually turn out pretty good.  They may start AND STAY mucho grande good!

Rejoice in the good days - play - remember how good it is to conquer the world or at least climb the stairs without having to stop because the three year old inside your chest starts jumping up and down. These are the days you wake up, breathe deep, and SMILE.  It feels so good to just be and to just be without some weirdness residing inside the upper torso.

On the bad days, sit down, care for yourself, reflect on what you have accomplished and what you have left that you WANT to do.  These are the days to be selfish, maybe even cry a little.  let your tensions, fears, and emotional pain out for a walk.  Let them all roam free so they can settle back down and let you get on with this weird thing called life. Letting those feelings out releases tension within the body.  And guess what, releasing tension, very often lets all the body parts relax, even that damn misbehaving three year old.

Bad days are also one of the best times to think of YOU.  As women, we mostly think of THEM or OTHERS.  We really, really need to think of ourselves more often.  Sides, what are the others or them going to do if we aren't around.  So, think about the things you want to do, places you want to see, music you want to hear.  Then on those good days, cross something off your list.

So while our hearts can be misbehaving children, let us remember we too can misbehave.  Take care of that torso bound three year old, the rest of the body and spirit.  Lastly:

LET US ALSO CHILDISHLY MISBEHAVE AND HAVE FUN 

Everything is Fine

Target - the store, not the object.

Reading a label..

Two second kick to the chest,

No air, quick, short temporary blackness.

Hm... That's new and different.

Then

Everything is fine.......

Second quick, sharp kick to the chest.

Done shopping now, going home.

Tired, sit down.

Everything is fine.

Pay Attention

Hearts keep a beat - most of the time.
Until they don't.

"Hearts" skip beats when we are in love, happy, dancing down the street, or when something is amiss.  "Hearts" sing when we are in love.  We say our hearts are breaking when we are in deep emotional pain.  But we don't mean our physical hearts, do we?

Physical hearts are pretty much ignored until they slam you in the chest.  Then we pay attention - sometimes.  As women we just might call it something else ... or ... think we need to finish our shopping  ... finish taking care of business ....  Yeah ... that's called ignoring the heart, the one thing that means we stay on this side of the grass. You could almost call it a boss. 

So what happens when we ignore the boss?  The boss lets us know about it.  For the heart, that means sending out a pain signal.  And it sends pain in the oddest places, not always in area the heart resides.  Sometimes the pain is a mule kick dead center of the chest; sometimes it is a wormy felling somewhere in the chest cavity (the $25 word would be peristaltic); or a small squeeze, just to let us know the heart still matters. That pain may manifest on the left side, the right side, an arm, a shoulder or even in the back.  Hell, it might add a bit of spice and bring in allies, like the stomach or lungs.  All or any of it is a reminder the heart is being ignored. 

Love yourself is a common refrain.  It is a good one.  Love yourself enough to pay attention to pain not normally there. Don't ignore it.  And don't let the anyone else tell you, "it's nothing, here's an antacid."

Love yourself enough to care for that heart - "feed" it properly, exercise it, treat it with the respect it deserves. And sometimes, you just gotta be tough with it.  Sometimes you get to go on  a safari for a doctor that will listen and believe.

The heart needs love too.  Or ....  There is that alternative of being on the underside of the grass........ before you really need to be.