I walked to the top of the 3rd floor of my high school on the first day of my sophomore year and wondered how those few flights of stairs had made me so out of breath and why my heart was beating so fast. I just thought to myself that it must have been nervousness and excitement from looking at that cute boy sitting next to me in my new 1st hour. But still, I wondered why I had no problems running 2 miles, but four flights of stairs left me breathless. I continued my life as normal and thought nothing of this, not bothering to worry my mother over something so insignificant. I would rather tell her about how excited I was to see all my friends and every detail a

eant until they explained to me that if I had already been experiencing these attacks then I was at high risk for sudden death. This came as the biggest shock of my life to me.

As soon as I entered the hospital, I was slightly more nervous, but it wasn't until they started running extensive tests on me that I began to get worried. They hooked me up to several different types of monitors, gave me tests, then left my mother and I there to wonder what was going on. When the doctor came back into the room, he told me that I had something wrong with my heart. He told me that I had been born with a slightly uncommon heart disease called WPW but also that I had a double AV node. Either one of these things could be causing my episodes, but they really didn't want to wait and find out. They immediately scheduled me to have special heart surgery to correct this at a special hospital a lot farther away. I was told that I could not participate in any activities, including things as mild as a flute lesson, for three whole weeks. The only thing I was allowed to do was go to school. I still didn't understand what all of this doctor jargon and these medical terms m!

The day of and weeks following my surgery were the most frightening time of my life. I learned to accommodate new ways into my lifestyle and new concepts into my brain. I also became more aware of things occurring abnormally in my body after learning that either of my two major attacks could have caused me to die. My mind and my

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Approximate Word count = 1013
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)