A Heavy Heart
Where to start? For the better part of the last year, I've struggled with pretty significant anxiety. Crippling, hard, I'm having a hard time getting out of bed kind of anxiety. It's been days and day characterized by a lot of dread, but more than that it's been a very physical feeling - tightness in my chest, short of breath, butterflies in my chest, dizziness/lightheadedness, not much appetite.
I talked to the neurologist about it (a feat I'm sure to this day she doesn't realize was super hard for me) and she seemed pretty convinced that it wasn't a negative reaction to some medication I've been taking. So we decided to wean off that med and see if that improved how I was feeling. After a couple of months we started the long process of weaning, but nothing improved. I still felt horrible. Everyday my goal was pretty much to see how fast I could get back in bed. Lofty goal.
I saw the neurologist on August 14 and during the visit told her I'd been off the meds for 3 weeks and didn't feel any better. Give it three more weeks, she said. Then go see a primary care doctor about anxiety meds.
The morning of my birthday (Aug 21st) I woke up about 6:30 AM and my heart was beating out of my chest. It seemed scary fast. I even woke Chad up and had him put his hand on my heart to see if he could feel it. He could. So I sat on the edge of the bed, because it seemed so much worse when I laid down. The longer I sat the faster it beat.
At this point, I thought I was having a major panic attack. But no matter what I tried I couldn't get it under control, so Chad gave me a blessing. In the blessing he said that all the symptoms of my anxiety would go away. And as he said that, I felt an overwhelming sense of reassurance from the Spirit. All my anxiety was about to go away. Chad left for work, because I was sure that any minute I would have things under control. But still, as I sat, it seemed to get worse.
By 830 I had to take Brynn to school. How I made it to the school and back, I'm honestly not sure because I felt like I couldn't breath by that point. I remember pulling into the school and thinking "he said all the anxiety would go away." Followed by the distinct and clear thought "well then this isn't anxiety." And then I got scared.
As soon as Brynn was out of the car, I called my mom. A combination of crying and panting for air made me fairly hard to understand, but she responded with "Do you want us to take you in or do you want to call 911?"
My parents were at my house less than 10 mins later and despite my protests that it was nothing and I didn't want to go, they drove me to the ER.
It felt so stupid to go to the ER. Here I was having a panic attack I couldn't control, which left me feeling ridiculous. I hate anxiety. Even though I know it's more about brain chemistry than character, it always leaves me feeling weak and silly. But as I sat in the hospital bed and they hooked me up to oxygen and an IV it suddenly dawned on me that they thought something was legitimately wrong.
After some testing and observation the doctor decided to give me a shot of ativan. "If this is anxiety related," he said, "this should calm everything way down." So they gave me the shot and nothing. We watched on the monitor a my heart rate continued to spike and plummet. 80 beats one minute and 163 the next.
After a few hours, totally normal bloodtests, a crazy EKG result and no response to the ativan they decided to send me home on a heart monitor. The diagnosis? Nothing explains why but your heart is beating crazy and that crazy beating is making it race. You should be fine, unless it starts beating any faster and you should see a cardiology specialist tomorrow.
They hooked me up to the 24 hour heart monitor, gave me info for the specialist and told me to come back if I passed out or it beat any faster. Um, great??
After a less that thrilling doctor's appointment and some confusion over insurance I've finally been evaluated by a cardiologist who specializes in the electrical system of the heart. He looked at my heart monitor and gave me another EKG (which was also abnormal).
Here's the verdict: I have atrial fibrillation.
The more I say it the less awful it sounds. I feel like I should put the big grateful caveat out there, of all the things it could have been, atrial fibrillation is a pretty great option. It's not life threatening and there are some things that can do to try and keep it under control.
So what is atrial fibrillation? My posterity is accessing the mayo clinic through a chip implanted in their heads right now, but for the rest of us 21st century schleps, it is where the upper chambers of your heart don't beat, they just quiver, leaving the lower chambers of your heart to do all the work. It's very common in the elderly, especially in people with a history of heart disease. Many of them never know they have an issue, never have symptoms and often don't get treatment. (The chip heads are probably laughing right now about the major advances in medicine that have rendered atrial fibrillation irrelevant. Quiet down kids, grandma's got 21st century issues.)
In the young, like me, it's pretty unusual, though not unheard of. It tends to be very troubling and cause a lot of symptoms. You are usually very aware of the issue. Check and check. I'm both aware and troubled. Symptoms can be chest pain, tightness, shortness of breath, dizziness, lightheadedness, racing heart, etc. I've got all those. It can have triggers, just like migraines, which can set off an episode. Or like both my heart and my migraines, seem to have no trigger at all. It can come and go (which right now mine does) or kick on and never turn off. It increases your risk of blood clots and can weaken your heart muscle over time.
The good news is - I probably don't have anxiety. At least not the big, serious crippling anxiety I though I had.
All the "anxiety" I've been feeling over the last year of so has probably been my heart. My problem seems moderate. Mine currently comes and goes. When it comes it hangs on for several days, intermittently. The shortness of breath and the racing heart are my biggest challenges. When my heart gets going, it really gets going. My heart monitor showed that during my birthday episode my heart peaked at 213 bpm. Hello marathon I didn't train for. A heart that beats that fast and hard makes you very tired. Chad says the good news is I'm burning thousands of calories watching TV. #silverlining
The tightness in my chest makes it feel like I can't take a deep breath. It's like trying to get enough air with cinder blocks laying on your chest. It's a scary feeling, but I'm trying to battle it mentally. Know that I'm fine and not panic about the feeling of being short on air.
I've started a new medication (because I so needed one more) designed to keep my heart beating normally. So far it's going ok. The only side effects I seem to be feeling is fatigue. It makes me super sleepy, but ever time I take it the effects seems a little lessened, so hopefully I'm adjusting. It can't tell if it's having an effect. I've had a few episodes since I started, but from the EKGs, I'm clearly in a fib a lot more than I can really feel, so I'm not sure how I will really know if it is working.
The doctor told me I don't have to restrict my activities, other than listening to my body and trying to be sensitive to how it's feeling. If I'm too tired, don't push it, but otherwise I'm ok to do what I want. A tiny part of me just heard someone say "go to bed and don't get up for 50 years," but I'm pretty sure that's not what he meant.
So how am I feeling about all this? Honestly, I'm not sure. At first I was feeling really sad, because dealing with one more ongoing, crappy thing that isn't going to kill you sounds super hard. But the sadness passed pretty quickly and now I feel resigned and super conflicted.
I feel like this won't affect me much and in the same breath I'm scared about what it's going to do to my life. I'm worried about being dramatic, but equally worried about not taking it seriously enough and over doing it. I had a really bad day 2 days ago and felt so unsure how to handle it. Do I go back to the ER? Do I call the doctor? Am I'm complaining? Am I ignoring something serious? Has something changed or does everyone feel like this? Is is side effects of medication or a worsening symptom?
I feel like it's all in my head and at the same time know that it's really in my heart. I worry I won't know the difference and either act when it's not necessary or fail to act when it is.
I'm grateful to have a diagnosis, but really wish I would also have a cause. Being an anomaly is stupid. I don't want any more idiopathic diseases.
I feel alone and yet in the same breath I feel surrounded by people who would drop anything to help me.
I feel like a complainer and I hate being a complainer more than almost anything. I don't know how to find the balance of saying I feel like crap without complaining. I hate to burden people with details when there's nothing they can do. It just makes people feel bad and I don't want to be the reason people feel bad.
I'm not sure what on Earth the Lord wants me to learn from this. That said, while I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, I haven't spent much time at all praying about it. I'm not sure why. I guess I'm just not ready to talk to the Lord about this new curveball. I feel myself getting there, but I'm not there yet.
Mostly I want to wear this well, if that makes sense. I want to have faith, to be healed or not to be healed as the Lord sees fit. I was to do what the Lord expects me to do in this situation, especially manage it with grace and dignity. Learn what I'm supposed to learn.
So here I stand, at the start of another long journey, feeling a whole host of conflicted emotions and feeling nothing all at the same time. And all I can do is take it 1 12-hour block at a time. 1 dose to the next. 1 day to the next. It feels long and overwhelming, but I remind myself not to think too far ahead. (And to make my bed, so it's harder to get back in it.)
I talked to the neurologist about it (a feat I'm sure to this day she doesn't realize was super hard for me) and she seemed pretty convinced that it wasn't a negative reaction to some medication I've been taking. So we decided to wean off that med and see if that improved how I was feeling. After a couple of months we started the long process of weaning, but nothing improved. I still felt horrible. Everyday my goal was pretty much to see how fast I could get back in bed. Lofty goal.
I saw the neurologist on August 14 and during the visit told her I'd been off the meds for 3 weeks and didn't feel any better. Give it three more weeks, she said. Then go see a primary care doctor about anxiety meds.
The morning of my birthday (Aug 21st) I woke up about 6:30 AM and my heart was beating out of my chest. It seemed scary fast. I even woke Chad up and had him put his hand on my heart to see if he could feel it. He could. So I sat on the edge of the bed, because it seemed so much worse when I laid down. The longer I sat the faster it beat.
At this point, I thought I was having a major panic attack. But no matter what I tried I couldn't get it under control, so Chad gave me a blessing. In the blessing he said that all the symptoms of my anxiety would go away. And as he said that, I felt an overwhelming sense of reassurance from the Spirit. All my anxiety was about to go away. Chad left for work, because I was sure that any minute I would have things under control. But still, as I sat, it seemed to get worse.
By 830 I had to take Brynn to school. How I made it to the school and back, I'm honestly not sure because I felt like I couldn't breath by that point. I remember pulling into the school and thinking "he said all the anxiety would go away." Followed by the distinct and clear thought "well then this isn't anxiety." And then I got scared.
As soon as Brynn was out of the car, I called my mom. A combination of crying and panting for air made me fairly hard to understand, but she responded with "Do you want us to take you in or do you want to call 911?"
My parents were at my house less than 10 mins later and despite my protests that it was nothing and I didn't want to go, they drove me to the ER.
It felt so stupid to go to the ER. Here I was having a panic attack I couldn't control, which left me feeling ridiculous. I hate anxiety. Even though I know it's more about brain chemistry than character, it always leaves me feeling weak and silly. But as I sat in the hospital bed and they hooked me up to oxygen and an IV it suddenly dawned on me that they thought something was legitimately wrong.
After some testing and observation the doctor decided to give me a shot of ativan. "If this is anxiety related," he said, "this should calm everything way down." So they gave me the shot and nothing. We watched on the monitor a my heart rate continued to spike and plummet. 80 beats one minute and 163 the next.
After a few hours, totally normal bloodtests, a crazy EKG result and no response to the ativan they decided to send me home on a heart monitor. The diagnosis? Nothing explains why but your heart is beating crazy and that crazy beating is making it race. You should be fine, unless it starts beating any faster and you should see a cardiology specialist tomorrow.
They hooked me up to the 24 hour heart monitor, gave me info for the specialist and told me to come back if I passed out or it beat any faster. Um, great??
After a less that thrilling doctor's appointment and some confusion over insurance I've finally been evaluated by a cardiologist who specializes in the electrical system of the heart. He looked at my heart monitor and gave me another EKG (which was also abnormal).
Here's the verdict: I have atrial fibrillation.
The more I say it the less awful it sounds. I feel like I should put the big grateful caveat out there, of all the things it could have been, atrial fibrillation is a pretty great option. It's not life threatening and there are some things that can do to try and keep it under control.
So what is atrial fibrillation? My posterity is accessing the mayo clinic through a chip implanted in their heads right now, but for the rest of us 21st century schleps, it is where the upper chambers of your heart don't beat, they just quiver, leaving the lower chambers of your heart to do all the work. It's very common in the elderly, especially in people with a history of heart disease. Many of them never know they have an issue, never have symptoms and often don't get treatment. (The chip heads are probably laughing right now about the major advances in medicine that have rendered atrial fibrillation irrelevant. Quiet down kids, grandma's got 21st century issues.)
In the young, like me, it's pretty unusual, though not unheard of. It tends to be very troubling and cause a lot of symptoms. You are usually very aware of the issue. Check and check. I'm both aware and troubled. Symptoms can be chest pain, tightness, shortness of breath, dizziness, lightheadedness, racing heart, etc. I've got all those. It can have triggers, just like migraines, which can set off an episode. Or like both my heart and my migraines, seem to have no trigger at all. It can come and go (which right now mine does) or kick on and never turn off. It increases your risk of blood clots and can weaken your heart muscle over time.
The good news is - I probably don't have anxiety. At least not the big, serious crippling anxiety I though I had.
All the "anxiety" I've been feeling over the last year of so has probably been my heart. My problem seems moderate. Mine currently comes and goes. When it comes it hangs on for several days, intermittently. The shortness of breath and the racing heart are my biggest challenges. When my heart gets going, it really gets going. My heart monitor showed that during my birthday episode my heart peaked at 213 bpm. Hello marathon I didn't train for. A heart that beats that fast and hard makes you very tired. Chad says the good news is I'm burning thousands of calories watching TV. #silverlining
The tightness in my chest makes it feel like I can't take a deep breath. It's like trying to get enough air with cinder blocks laying on your chest. It's a scary feeling, but I'm trying to battle it mentally. Know that I'm fine and not panic about the feeling of being short on air.
I've started a new medication (because I so needed one more) designed to keep my heart beating normally. So far it's going ok. The only side effects I seem to be feeling is fatigue. It makes me super sleepy, but ever time I take it the effects seems a little lessened, so hopefully I'm adjusting. It can't tell if it's having an effect. I've had a few episodes since I started, but from the EKGs, I'm clearly in a fib a lot more than I can really feel, so I'm not sure how I will really know if it is working.
The doctor told me I don't have to restrict my activities, other than listening to my body and trying to be sensitive to how it's feeling. If I'm too tired, don't push it, but otherwise I'm ok to do what I want. A tiny part of me just heard someone say "go to bed and don't get up for 50 years," but I'm pretty sure that's not what he meant.
So how am I feeling about all this? Honestly, I'm not sure. At first I was feeling really sad, because dealing with one more ongoing, crappy thing that isn't going to kill you sounds super hard. But the sadness passed pretty quickly and now I feel resigned and super conflicted.
I feel like this won't affect me much and in the same breath I'm scared about what it's going to do to my life. I'm worried about being dramatic, but equally worried about not taking it seriously enough and over doing it. I had a really bad day 2 days ago and felt so unsure how to handle it. Do I go back to the ER? Do I call the doctor? Am I'm complaining? Am I ignoring something serious? Has something changed or does everyone feel like this? Is is side effects of medication or a worsening symptom?
I feel like it's all in my head and at the same time know that it's really in my heart. I worry I won't know the difference and either act when it's not necessary or fail to act when it is.
I'm grateful to have a diagnosis, but really wish I would also have a cause. Being an anomaly is stupid. I don't want any more idiopathic diseases.
I feel alone and yet in the same breath I feel surrounded by people who would drop anything to help me.
I feel like a complainer and I hate being a complainer more than almost anything. I don't know how to find the balance of saying I feel like crap without complaining. I hate to burden people with details when there's nothing they can do. It just makes people feel bad and I don't want to be the reason people feel bad.
I'm not sure what on Earth the Lord wants me to learn from this. That said, while I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, I haven't spent much time at all praying about it. I'm not sure why. I guess I'm just not ready to talk to the Lord about this new curveball. I feel myself getting there, but I'm not there yet.
Mostly I want to wear this well, if that makes sense. I want to have faith, to be healed or not to be healed as the Lord sees fit. I was to do what the Lord expects me to do in this situation, especially manage it with grace and dignity. Learn what I'm supposed to learn.
So here I stand, at the start of another long journey, feeling a whole host of conflicted emotions and feeling nothing all at the same time. And all I can do is take it 1 12-hour block at a time. 1 dose to the next. 1 day to the next. It feels long and overwhelming, but I remind myself not to think too far ahead. (And to make my bed, so it's harder to get back in it.)
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