On May 5th 2000 I was doing some laundry in the morning when I noticed I was short of breath while carrying a basket of laundry up a flight of stairs. It felt as if I had the wind knocked out of me. So what I thought was another simple day in my 39-year-old life, turned into a nightmare.
I decided to call my doctor and tell him my symptoms. I was told to go to the emergency room at once because I was having cardiac symptoms. I was shocked. I believed I was a pretty healthy individual and in good shape, not great but good. I tried to talk my way out of going but my doctor insisted.
The next thing I knew I was hooked up to all kinds of monitors and I was being given nitroglycerin, which was relieving my symptoms. This gave the go ahead to test further. The result was a spontaneous tear on the inside-descending artery on the front of my heart. It was bleeding on the inside and the blood started to clot, which created a block for blood flow much like what happens to patients with blocked arteries from heart disease. The good news was I had a very healthy heart and no sign of heart disease. However, the doctors were scratching their heads as to how to solve my situation.
My husband put the call out that we needed a miracle and if anyone knew of anyone who could help to call us ASAP. In the mean time I was weakening. After walking from the parking garage and driving myself to the hospital, by 9pm the same day I could not even get up to use the toilet. The tear was growing the entire length of the artery. I could feel myself slipping away. I remember feeling frightened and in that moment the phone rang. It was my mother who lives in Oregon. She could hear it in my voice. She calmly and tenderly said with more love than I had ever felt in my life, "It is time to surrender. This is in God's hands." With the sound of the last words leaving her lips I was washed over my entire body with warmth and love that made me vibrate. I suddenly felt complete calm and blissful. I knew everything would be fine. The next thing I knew a man entered the room. He was the surgeon who saved my life. He was called after a friend of friend of a family member gave him our name. Three months later and after much hard work I could finally breathe deeply again (literally). Breath is everything to me now.
I began practicing yoga to regain my strength slowly. My sister owns a yoga studio and was quite helpful in my practice. After a year passes I was doing it off and on. Then last year I really began to focus. I was gaining back my strength and flexibility but not in the chest area. I was still feeling vulnerable there. In addition, I had gained about thirty pounds I had been trying to shed and couldn't quite nail it.
I began Bikram Yoga July 5th 2004. I have attended classes six days a week giving myself one day of "nothing". I have lost 14 pounds and have done poses I thought I would never do especially the chest openers. I am emotional just writing about it. For the first time since my heart ordeal, I feel like I have my life back. I have more energy, strength, and stamina. I know I will be doing my practice for the rest of my life. For those who will understand, the spiritual reason for my heart ordeal, I was having a great deal of trouble forgiving myself for something I thought was unforgivable. A week before the incident occurred, I got on my knees and prayed for a new heart because I believed mine was not good enough. We are powerful beings and I know after seeing the pathology reports and being written up in the medical journals for rare and unexplainable cardiac cases, that a miracle happened in my life. I surrendered. I stopped beating myself up, I stopped fighting everyone and everything and I surrendered to who I really am. My heart is good enough and now even better. I have learned to love myself first and this gives me the capacity to love others.
Thank you for listening.
Teresa Lieberman
