Heart of Hearing

“Your EKG showed us something we didn’t see coming," the cardiologist said slowly and deliberately.

What could it be NOW? My health had taken more twists and turns in the past few months than the road course at Indianapolis.

"You have an ejection fracture in the bottom half of your heart. That means it's only pumping out a percentage of the blood the rest of your body needs."

Translation?

"You have heart failure.”

My cardiologist said it so starkly that it hit like a gut punch. My heart was perfectly functional just three weeks ago. What happened? How bad is it? And how can we fix it?

What I heard next and what the doctor actually said were 180 degrees apart.

Here's what I heard: “With some cardiac rehab options, we can start to recover the full function your heart has lost.”

What the doctor actually said was: “We have some cardiac rehab options, but there’s no recovering the full function your heart has lost.”

It took a few days before my wife was able to convince me of what the doctor had actually said. The cancer had been bad enough; now about 70% of my heart’s strength had been damaged. Was it because of the wear and tear from the chemotherapy? The doctors can't say yet, and without that, we have no way forward.

And as I now understand it, my heart isn’t coming back to full strength. Ever.

REVELATION:

We don’t often hear bad news the same way that we hear good news.

Have you ever thought you heard someone say one thing, and learned later that it was not even close to what he or she actually said? Sometimes you so desperately want to believe something that you’ll hear it spoken your way in your own head, even if it wasn’t spoken out loud.

If you’re faced with a situation that needs careful listening, here are three steps to make sure you don’t misinterpret the important parts to suit your own narrative:

• Repeat what you heard out loud. Speak it slowly and deliberately, just like you’re hearing it for the first time. Let the words sink in.

• Confirm what you repeated is indeed the truth. Verify what was said by asking the message sender if that’s indeed what you heard.

• Take a few moments to gather your thoughts before you speak again. Allow the words to dissolve in your mind and consider the ramifications of their meaning. Often people blurt out off-base questions or embarrass themselves with a reaction that doesn’t fit the situation. Concentrate, take your time, and respond appropriately.

I’ll be more careful in listening to my doctors from here on out. Not only do I not want to embarrass myself, I want to be sure to get my facts straight. I hope you will too.

If you found value in this piece and you took action on something, please let me know. Even though I’m on the mend, I’m still doing my time right here next to the IV bag.

Bill Guertin is a longtime sports sales trainer, co-founder of ISBI 360 and known to many as The 800-Pound Gorilla of Peak Performance. “#GorillaStrong: Life Cancer and Possibilities” is a collection of revelations discovered along his current journey in battling non-Hodgkin’s T-cell lymphoma.

[CREDIT to my wife Sherri, whose idea of a topic was the inspiration for this week's edition.]