I woke up feeling fine - nothing out of the ordinary. Exhausted, as usual, but ready to get the day at work over so I could enjoy the weekend. However, after about an hour or so at work, my jaw started hurting. This was strange and random, but didn't seem to be anything besides a toothache. I kept wondering about it though, and at the same time started feeling a little funny. I decided that getting some water might help so got up and headed to the office kitchen. On the way there all of a sudden my heart started racing, I started feeling really faint and dizzy, short of breath, chilly but sweaty, and had to sit down as soon as I got to the kitchen so that I wouldn't faint. I was skaky afterwards and didn't quite know if I should be concerned at all. For about 15 minutes or so my heart kept beating fast, I was shaking and freezing but sweating, but was sitting at my desk thinking "I'm ok. This is nothing." Then my heart started racing again - so I called the office manager on my phone and she decided to take me somewhere to get checked out.
On the way we ended up getting a fire truck to pull over and check me out. They did an EKG, took my blood pressure and checked my blood sugar level. All seemed to be pretty normal (and of course, by this time my heart had started beating at a normal speed and I was feeling less shaky). So we drove back to the office and I was left to decide what I should do. So, since I have no idea when something might be serious and I hate to be one to overreact, I called my cardiologist. The doctor was out but a nurse was in, and after she consulted with a doctor, told me I should go to the ER to get it checked out because an EKG wouldn't necessarily pick up on anything going wrong. And she went ahead and made an appointment for me on Monday morning.
I called Kyle and he met me at the hospital. By the time I got there I was feeling mostly normal, just a little shaky still and a bit freaked out. I forget sometimes how bad it felt until I remember driving around in the car, praying to God to keep me safe and alive. I really felt that bad and that scared. Kyle got there and it was all I could do to hold back my tears from being scared and by myself - and he sat there with me for the couple of hours while they took blood and x-rays until we got a room. Once I got into a room they made me put on a hospital gown, hooked me up to oxygen, hooked me up to a heart rate monitor, and gave me a couple of blankets because I was freezing. We sat there for awhile watching TLC on the TV and just chatting. Kyle was such a good sport - even though I know it wasn't his idea of the perfect Friday afternoon. We watched my heart rate, but the more I laid there and relaxed, the more normal and consistent my heart rate became. The doctor came in and told me they believe it was a certain kind of palpitation that can often cause those symptoms and seem really scary - many people do faint, because they get really freaked out with what is happening. They sent me home with instructions of what to do if it happens again, told me to come back if it happened again and lasted longer than 15 minutes, and gave me a 24-hour heart monitor to wear:
Now, all I have to do is wait and see what the cardiologist says. I know it will be something along the lines of "well, everything seems fine now. If it happens again, let us know." It's good to hear that - and yet frustrating, because you know that the heart palpitations will never be recorded - they will be over before I would be able to get to any EKG monitor. And it's good to hear that - but also frustrating because of how SCARY what happened felt. If that is something that is just going to happen, isn't dangerous, and I just have to live with it - how will I ever know if I'm actually having some kind of cardiac arrest rather than just these palpitations? I'll just have to not worry about it.
The only thing I can think that caused this would be all the stress I have put myself under lately. I decided to take Saturday off and relax - which I did, for the most part, except for studying 4 hours because I simply could not take the day off of studying. And then today was back in the full swing of things - I've been going nonstop all day, getting things done I had to do. I don't know how to relax right now - it's just not possible. I just need prayer - and right now, I really pray the cardiologist can tell me something more.
On a very random note - my sister and her husband spent Friday afternoon in the exact same ER as Kyle and I did - and we never knew it. They got there probably right around the time we were moving to my own room, and by the time we left they had moved to a private room. My brother-in-law was really sick, and my sister was taking care of him. (You can read her account here) I had called her on my way to the hospital, but she didn't pick up, and when she called back they were already taking my blood at the hospital. So I decided not to worry her since I knew Kyle was on his way, and I would just call her if it was something serious. Now I wish I had - they were probably only a few feet away from us for several hours! Not a good day for our family... but praise God we are all OK!
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