I'm broken.

I realize we're all "broken" and that I'm not actually physically broken - I still wake up in the morning and function, for the most part, as a human being throughout the day. But physically and personally, I do feel broken.

I started having health problems in January, 2008. I experienced intense radiating pain in my upper back and neck, that would spread around to my chest and down my arms. I didn't and still really don't know where it came from and I struggled to find physical comfort. After 2 trips to the ER, I was sufficiently freaked out. All of a sudden - within the span of a few days - I was no longer able to go about or enjoy my daily life.

My problems persisted, got better, got worse, went away and then came back without warning only to disappear again in a few days for much of the year. I started exercising again in the summer - mostly running and starting doing some yoga - and generally felt better in the fall. By this time I had relocated to Boston and was starting to get back to living life as I knew it. But then the cold, hard, long winter took me.

The bitterness of winter had little to do with the weather, though after living in the South for so long that was indeed an adjustment. No, instead, winter brought with it the return of my health problems and worse than before. This time there was not a pain in my back, but in my chest. I went home for winter break in late 2008, unsure of what was happening inside my body. I spent New Year's Eve alone watching a movie - the Dark Knight I think - and then on January 2, 2009, tests conducted at an outpatient heart center confirmed a diagnosis of dilated cardiomyopathy...

I've never written about my heart condition in this forum - at least not to my recollection and not at length - in part because I don't want this to come across as me retelling my sad story. But mostly, I've not written about it because I've not known how. Even now I hardly know what words I could use to express my thoughts and feelings, that is if I was able to accurately gauge my own thoughts and feelings, which is not always the case.

But I guess that's exactly why I should write about it. My heart condition has become an immense part of who I am, and I'm learning that that's only a bad thing if I allow it to be. Still, I do often feel very much alone confronting the physical and personal roadblocks that my life is now prone to present. And that is another reason to write about it. I know I'm not the only one living with such an ailment. In fact, dilated cardiomyopathy is not at all uncommon, and I'd like to reach others and be discovered by those who can relate and appreciate the somewhat unique experience that my life has become.

I still plan to write random entries about sports, music, movies and miscellany, but I'm excited to finally give my blog a new focus, and to focus on something that is so deeply personal to who I am. There are numerous friends and people in my life who support me in ways for which I'll never be able to adequately express my gratitude, whether they realize it or not, and I hope that they'll be able to appreciate the efforts I put forth, as this would not be possible without them.