My Trip to the Emergency Room

About 10 years ago now, I spent the afternoon and evening in the Emergency room of the Calgary Foothills Hospital.

My heart was beating erratically, I was sweating, and feeling lightheaded.

Here’s the embarrassing truth… it was nothing more than having too much caffeine in my Starbucks!

The thing is, once you ingest too much caffeine, it can interfere with the chemicals that regulate your heartbeat.  It’s not serious, but it does make your heart hesitate on some of the beats.

The trick is, you need to really tune into it to notice.  If you’re busy, loud, or focused on something else you can’t even tell.

Once I’d tuned in though, my emotions got involved.

… that can’t be good!

The sweating started.  Lightheadedness.  More weird heartbeats.  More sweat.  <=== you see where this is going?

The E.R. Doctor was awesome.  Once they had run their tests thoroughly, he explained how this happens, the chemicals involved in the heartbeat signalling and all the good scientific/biological details.

What he carefully and gently explained was that my mind is more powerful than the caffeine.  Nearly all the symptoms were generated by my mind.  And I thought that I was being cautious, careful.

Notice this:

Once the Dr. had given me the proper perspective the symptoms disappeared almost immediately.

From time to time after that I still would notice the funny heartbeats, but due to my changed perspective, I never again had all those problems.

Perspective matters…

Gain a Higher Perspective by learning how to sit in God’s presence.  Wait on Him.