Faith, Stress and heart problems.....

This last week has been a bit stressful for us and also a bit of a shock.

David awoke Sunday morning and at around 5am experienced a tightening of the chest, numbness in his face and left arm plus dizziness and a very erratic heartbeat.

At 6am he woke me to take his pulse which I tried to do. I assumed that I had lost the ability to do this because it was so fast one second and non existent the next!!!

At around 10am after discussion with nurses in our church and phone calls to a local American doctor David went to Selian hospital for a consultation.

Here is the report from the doctor:

I examined David Owens on 25/10/2010 because of intermittent chest tightness and dizziness over a six week period. A chest infection had been diagnosed at the onset and antibiotics prescribed with no improvement. A chest xray done at that time was normal. This morning he once again noted chest tightness and dizziness and came to ALMC. There was a history of mild asthma, though no wheezing at present. There was no other relevant past history. His BP was 84/60, pulse 159 and irregularly irregular with a significant pulse deficit, respirations 18 and 02 sat 96%. Neck veins were flat. Lungs were clear. Heart rate as above varied, I was not able to appreciate any murmurs, bruits or extra sounds. He went to have an ECG taken but converted back to a regular rhythm at rate 82 before the study was done. I recommended referral to a cardiologist for further evaluation.


We left for Nairobi on Monday to drop Zac and called into the heart clinic for further tests. David had an ECG, heart echo, 24 hour heart monitor and a stress test. After which it was decided that he should also have an angiogram.

We were informed that there was a team coming from the States, the following week, of cardiologists who were donating their time and expertise and so we were going to receive state of the art care with a discounted price. The procedure would only be $800 US!!!

We felt we should just get medication and trust God for the rest. The cardiologist, however, mentioned that if we were in the states he would not allow David to leave the hospital but would need to stay till they had done the angiogram and he felt it was necessary. Therefore, this Wednesday, May 5th he will go into hospital in Nairobi in the morning for the procedure and will see what the results are and how he recovers to see if he overnights.

In all of this we have felt the prayers of friends and family and a sense of God's love and care.

It looks like this may have been some of David's fatigue issues all along. He has also experienced the numbness and tingling in his face for months, if not years when he is stressed. God is getting to the bottom of all this and we are thankful.

We appreciate your prayers and words of encouragement for us.

Please stand with us in believing God for his peace, healing, grace to endure Nairobi traffic :D, provision and faith in His all knowing love.