This is my story of how God worked a miracle in my life through unsuccessful medical procedures and what seemed like an “unsuccessful” encounter with Him.
2014 - I was as strong & fit as I had ever been in my life. I was a regular crossfitter.
Beginning of 2015 – Stress test at Berryville Mercy Cardiac Rehab = Dr. Taylor believes I have a condition called Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome. WPW is an extra electrical pathway in your heart that receives the signal from your brain that tells your heart to beat & results in tachycardia. It is a congenital birth defect that affects less than 2% of the population.
The way to fix this is through what is called an ablation procedure, where they feed catheters through your femoral artery in your groin into your heart. They locate the pathway and burn or freeze it.
April - Ablation procedure #1
Woke up to doctor saying "it's imperative that you DO NOT move at this time".
Complication = punctured the side of my heart, sent me to ICU, spent 3 or 4 days in the hospital.
August - Ablation procedure #2
Woke up to being rolled down the halls and all the lights were off, and nobody was around. I had been under anesthesia for 10 hours and they were unable to locate my pathway.
The doctor said he believed I may be an "Atypical" case where the pathway is on the outside of the heart, not the inside like most cases and that I needed to go somewhere else, Mayo Clinic, Vanderbilt or KU Med.
2015/2016 - Started seeing an electrophysiologist in the Kansas City area. He is very well respected and a leader in the field. He put our minds at ease.
2017 - Richard Exley service & prayer. While praying over me at the altar, Richard starts praying with his hand on my head but moves it to my chest over my heart. I remember him repeating “Deep Lord, Deep…”
I hoped and believed that I had received healing, and I even told my doctor’s office that. I stopped taking my rhythm meds, but in a few weeks the arrhythmia returned.
2018 - Ablation procedure #3
I woke up and I asked Jennifer, "DID WE GET IT!?" She just started crying & shook her head NO. After this procedure, I was beginning to lose hope that I would ever be healed. I said the words to Jennifer more than once, “for my heart to ever stop racing, it will have to stop beating.”
2021 – The Mayo Clinic
As my Mayo date approaches, my fear and anxiety are through the roof!
What if MAYO can't fix me?
My Uncle Rick Nance gives me Psalm 23 to focus on before my first Mayo trip. So, I dug into the 23rd Psalm and I found one of the most profound & life changing messages I’ve ever heard.
Don’t Give The Enemy A Seat At Your Table – Louie Giglio
I watched this message over and over before I left for Mayo and just sat there and cried. Because I realized that I was letting the enemy pull up a seat at my table!
I had to rewatch it again this week as I was preparing to tell my story. The enemy was telling me, “Nobody wants to hear your story” and “your story is not worth telling.”
Sunday night phone call –
The doctor asks, “Are you aware that you have a bicuspid aortic valve?” A bicuspid valve is another congenital birth defect that affects less than 2% of the population.
Where most people have 3 cusps in their aortic valve; I have only 2 and they were very loose/free flowing.
Ablation procedure #4
I wake up to Jennifer hovering over me this time, and I ask, "DID WE GET IT!?" She smiles and says, “THEY GOT IT!”
After almost 7 years of living with this arrhythmia, it was FINALLY gone!
We meet with Mayo’s #1 valve doctor to discuss my valve issue, and he says, “you might be stable like this for decades.”
After I saw that Richard’s prayer aligned with the doctor’s procedure notes, I knew that NONE of this surprised God and that He knew exactly what I needed all along!
From 2021 through 2025
We no longer see electrophysiologists but are now seeing valve specialists to monitor my valve and the stress level indicators on my heart.
July 2025 – We go up to Mayo for my annual visit, and we take the kids along with us to be scanned. We learn that the kids are good and have normal valves. But the doctor turns to me and says, “you need surgery.”
On our drive home from Mayo, the surgeon calls us and tells us that he believes there is a 70% chance that he can repair my valve. The best option for valve surgery is ALWAYS to keep your original valve if possible.
The repair option for me involved a full sternotomy, they stop my heart, tighten up the valve and repair my ascending aorta. Or they could replace it with a mechanical valve, which means I would be on blood thinners and tick like a clock the rest of my life.
Sep 2025 - Open heart valve repair surgery
We get to Mayo and meet with the surgeon, and he tells us that possibly he was too aggressive in his assessment that he could repair the valve. It might be better to plan for a replacement. A little discouraging, but we knew that I had to have the surgery either way if I wanted to continue this life with my wife & kids.
A few weeks before surgery, my Uncle Rick came up to pray with me, and he gave me another verse for this surgery, Psalm 3:5. Then the night before my surgery, I receive a text from Rick Mann…
So, Psalm 3:5 became my prayer verse for my stay at Mayo this time.
I don’t remember much from my time in ICU after the surgery, but Jennifer said that she could tell I was praying a lot. I can’t say for certain that I was praying this verse in ICU, but I do know I repeated it several times during my post op scans.
After my post op CT scan, a fellow doctor comes into my room and says, “it looks BEAUTIFUL!” He asks us where we’re from and how I got connected with the surgeon there at Mayo. So, I tell him briefly how my journey led me to the Mayo Clinic.
It hit me later… that my journey had to have the failures and setbacks that it did, to lead me to the Mayo Clinic. God used the Mayo Clinic to not only heal me of Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, but they also discovered and repaired my bicuspid valve, which saved my life!
My surgeon that the fellow asked how I got connected to, he is one of less than 50 in the country that can perform the exact surgery I needed. So, sometimes the hard things and struggles must happen to lead us to the best things for us.
It took a few months, but I’m finally progressing as I should be in the recovery process now. They tell me to give it a full year before I consider myself “fully recovered”. My hope is that I feel like a brand new me in September of this year!
Towards the end of Louie’s message, he talks about training our thoughts to focus on what our Shepherd says about us, not what the enemy says. He turns to the audience and asks, “Does anybody have any scars?”
Then he says, “but God has brought me through every situation & every season, and I believe he is going to bring me through THIS!”
I don’t know what your “THIS” is, but I do know He’ll bring you through it. I’m so thankful for this church and all your prayers and support. I could not have traveled this road without you all.
I hope my story encourages someone here today, especially those who have experienced failures, setbacks and suffering. Sometimes we have to go through hard things, but God is always working all things together for our good!