Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock

Click, click, click, click, click, click. I hear it in the morning when I wake up, when I'm laying in bed trying to fall asleep and one hundred different times throughout the day. The sound might drive some people crazy, but not me. I hear something different. It's the sound of life, it means everything is ok and it's what my heart does 24/7 now.

I knew I'd be able to hear my artificial valve opening and closing sometimes, but I had no idea it would be so often or so loudly. At first I could only pick it up when I was surrounded by silence and concentrating. Now, even the TV can't drown it out. It began as a novelty. I was excited the first time I heard a click and I immediately wanted to show my family and have them listen to the distinct clicking sound my valve makes, but it has morphed into so much more. It's a reassurance that everything is alright. I love the sound my heart makes now. It's a reminder that it's working and that I'm alive.

I wake up to the sound of a properly functioning heart. It reminds me throughout the day that it's still working and I fall asleep to the sound of it continuing to kick ass. It's hard to explain, but I find a lot of comfort in it.

For as long as I can remember I've been told that I need to be conscious of and on the look out for signs that something might be wrong with my heart. My aortic valve has been the trouble maker my entire life. First, it was too small and misshapen. Then, it couldn't close all the way and it leaked a lot. Next, it wasn't functioning properly anymore, it was leaking and it was enlarging my left ventricle. There were some good times in the middle. I had a 10 year stretch when it was functioning pretty normally, but problems kept popping up. Now, it just opens and closes all day long. It doesn't leak, it's not too small and it doesn't malfunction. Now, it clicks away all day long and causes me absolutely no problems.

Maybe it's a comfort because all of my problems have been impossible for me to detect in the past. I couldn't feel any of my problems, I couldn't see them and I certainly couldn't hear them. Now, there's no mystery about what my aortic valve is doing. It's opening and closing, opening and closing, opening and closing. And, I know it's doing that because I can hear it working. As long as my heart continues to click I can rest assured that the valve that has caused so much stress throughout my life is finally just doing its job.

Spontaneous actions and a little bit of mystery might be fun personality traits for friends or family members to have, but it's not what I'm looking for in a heart valve. I want reliable, I want predictable, I want boring and I've finally found that. I'm looking forward to the rest of my heart's unexciting life. Don't get me wrong I love adventure, but I'm ready for it to come from a different source.