Hearts and caths

Monday, April 20, 2026

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

 

Hearts and caths

I have chosen the way of truth,

I have set my heart on your laws.

I hold fast to your statutes, O my Lord

Do not let me be put to shame.

I run in the path of your commands …

For you have set my heart free.

Our family heart has been getting regular attention on the playground of this world-wide school God built for all of us. We have history, which I have been trying to compile. Here is some of it. Actually, Margaret has enough to fill a book. My own heart rescues began in 2020, continued in three installments in Austin in 2023, and I thought maybe it was over. I guess it was for awhile.

But no, not quite yet. When Dr. Liu called me “sir” rather than David after a “routine” echocardiogram a couple of weeks ago, I knew I needed to listen more closely. He said I needed another heart cath soon, hopefully to open what appeared to be a narrowing stent. The aortic valve Dr. Pirwitz put in place with the TAVR procedure three years ago did great work the first time, (they called him the sensei then) and he will be by my side again today at 2:45. (Joining the Holy Spirit, who is always there.)

At the Bullock IMax theater in Austin, the boys and I watched Super Human Body, and the main character was an active mountain climber who needed a replacement aortic valve. His surgeon used a TAVR procedure to do the work, and he was back on the mountain in less than two weeks. Wow! Me too!

I would like to say I’ve exercised and eaten carefully since, like I imagine the movie guy has, but I haven’t. After several weeks of supervised cardio exercise at the hospital, I didn’t keep it up. It’s been three years, and listening to the guy in the movie, I felt a little guilty.

So … as I reread the stories I wrote before (linked above), I’m asking for prayer, and for God’s touch, and for something new to be born inside me, some new resolve to change how I’m living my physical life. Walk. Breathe. Swim. Eat fewer carbs. Etc. You know the drill, and so do I.

We’ll see. God knows. And as they say in We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, “We’re not afraid! … We can’t go around it … we can’t go over it … We can’t go under it …  Oh, no! We’ve got to go through it!”

It’s getting on toward midnight Sunday night, when my mouth must close. No more food or drink. We’re going to watch Jasper’s recitation at ACS and then we have long-scheduled Medicare wellness checks, and then our friend Allie is taking me to Ascension hospital at noon.

I want to say “Can’t wait!” That what Enneagram 7 Wing 8’s are supposed to say.

Wait for what? That remains to be seen. God, thanks so much for loving all of us, and putting us back together under the surgical lights, again and again.

One does not live on bread alone,

But on every word that comes forth

From the mouth of God. 

(Acts 6, Psalm 119, Matthew 4, John 6)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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