these feeties of mine are now firmly planted once again on the terra firma at the farmer family estateyesterday started out as a typical day here, with the boys off to school i turned our little space heater on in the bedroom then curled back up under the covers to finish the rest of my 8 hours that had now 3 times been disturbed. later in the day with housework done and birds fed and their cages changed i announced to my daughter i was off for the shower and then we had alot of work to do to get ready to open our etsy shops by february first.
shower time is usually my time to meditate, relax, and remind myself to breathe. feeling a little frazzled and overwhelmed i decided to change things up a bit and i turned the radio on full blast.
once in the shower i danced and shampoo-ed to the music and within minutes realized i was shaking violently and not to the beat. ugh....i knew what this meant, and quickly checked my pulse to find i was having one of the icky kind of svt attacks.
10 years ago out of the blue i began having heart palpitations and svt attacks. we have no idea why or what caused it. i was told by an e.r. doc this just seems to happen to women your age and we don't know why. my first thought was ' i bet if affected multi million dollar athletes at the same rate is does women y'all would know why.' the doctor was an arrogant jerk who seemed more concerned with the fact that the e.r. nurse had to wake him up to give me this news rather than some petrified housewife that was scared to death she was dying.
so, through the years i have discovered that i seem to have 2 kinds of svt attacks. the plain old ones that, well, for lack of a better word at the moment just plain ol' suck! and the icky ones i hate because they tend to put me down for the rest of the day. the icky ones make me shake violently, and i have to come to discover that these are the ones caused from adrenaline being released to induce the flight or fight mode. once i get through this part i feel worn out as though i have run a short marathon. a bit later i get the worst case of chills. not flu like chills. these chills make me spasm and shake and usually i end up sore all over. it does not matter if it is a hundred degrees i feel like i am freezing in the oddest way. these chills are so much different from ordinary chills and yet i am not even able to describe them. once the chills are done then my hear rate returns to normal, the palpitations reduce in number or become non existent, and then i am exhausted as though i had run several marathons.
it took all day before the chills hit, but i was relieved once they did. later i found that the chills did not bring the relief i normally experienced and i found myself scared. my blood pressure was shooting up so high my monitor would not register. bad bad bad. i had almost passed out in the shower which is not normal even with the icky kind of svt. i was having sets of mini chills, almost like tremors after a big quake.
in the back of my mind all i could keep thinking about was, what if. what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if.
what if something else is wrong with my heart
what if this is some warning of an aortic aneurysm, it runs in the family
what if it is something i can't even imagine
what if that huge bump on my leg caused from running into a post on my daughters bed in july that is just now finally starting to go down has caused me to have another dvt, what if i have another p.e.
what if these are signs of a heart attack, after all this is the 3rd time in two weeks now this has happened
what if the pains shooting up the side of my neck are a sign of an impending stroke like grandpa had
what if my time here is up
what if this is just my increased dose of thyroid meds
what if this is just stress, just too,too, too much stress. how embarrassing would that be
what if it is another dvt/pe and you don't make the right call. last time you made the right call at just the right time.
what if you don't this time
what if you say this is just stress, it is just stress and its not
what if tomorrow you wake up dead.
what if God has decided you have not been worthy of Him saving your life 7 years ago and now time is up.
what if
what if
what if
what if
what if
several times throughout the day my hubby called. he called to say hi and that he loved me, he called to tell me he was staying over for a bit at work. he called again to say he was still at work....13 hours now. he called to let me know he was leaving, at 10:30. he was due off at 3:30.
he said he was coming home, taking a shower, eating a bowl of cereal and going to bed
he said he had to be back at 8:00 the next day.
i had not mentioned what had been going on all day to him
we needed the overtime pay
i was sure i was going to be fine
what if
what if i wasn't
what if i should have gone to the e.r. earlier
what if i just try to make it through until tomorrow afternoon.
what if it is too late
while my hubby was driving home i got up and went to the bathroom and my hands looked almost blue.
that was enough for me
as soon as my hubby got home we headed off to the hospital.
after i was settled in my room the iv line was in and blood taken. i was hooked up to monitors
i was scared
my poor sweet hubby was trying hard to sleep in a very uncomfortable chair.
our daughter and i texted back and forth a few times
i thought how i wish i could get up and sit in the chair and give my hubby the bed
a chest xray was taken. i later found out i have a 100 degree temperature. i did not feel 'sick' so that came as a surprise
my bad ear that usually causes so many problems was doing fine so that was good news.
after a couple of hours i sent the hubs out to the waiting room to get comfortable and my oldest and youngest came in the room to keep me company.
before my hubby had left i told him for the nth time how sorry i was for this and he told me for the nth time so sweetly to stop saying that
i told him i felt stupid. all of my stats were looking completely normal.
he said i felt safe here at the hospital.
he was so right.
this man who is about as deep as a puddle caused by an over due quick spring shower spoke from a depth that made so much sense.i felt safe here. if i was at deaths door this was the best place to be.
another hour later the doctor came to tell me the labs all looked great, but as a precaution i was sent for a cat scan just to make sure that nasty 'what if' i had a dvt/pe was just a worry and not a fact.
relief washed over me again, until i realized i had to have the contrast. that causes my heart rate to go up everytime. i hate it.
ativan to the rescue.
what wonderful stuff.
i was able to relax during the cat scan and not worry when my heart rate increased from the contrast.
i did express concern that i had quite a full bladder and hoped that warm sensation caused by the contrast, which makes you feel like you have peed yourself, would not actually cause me to pee.
ah, no worries she said.
ativan to the rescue....no worries. oh well if i do. i will go home in cognito under the sweat pants.
that ativan is good stuff. did i mention? they should serve it at parties instead of jello shots
that recorded male voice was a little bossy i thought and giggled as he ordered me to 'stop breathing now'
as i had done what he demanded i began to feel like a fish out of water and just about the time i could not 'stop breathing now' any longer, old cranky pants in the cat scan machine said i could take a breath again.
i loved talking to the tech who ran the cat scan. how much fun she was.
back to e.r. room number 5 i was wheeled to await the results.
good stuff that ativan. i did not worry. i knew at this point i had to just let go and let God as they say
an hour later the results were in and no p.e.
the e.r. doc, who was the nicest man on the planet, besides the hubs, and the most understanding man
and i talked and the most likely cause of my svt was stress and a 100 degree fever. for every 1 degree of fever your heart rate goes up about 10 beats a minute he informed me. my normal body temperature is 97.4.
so that could explain all of the extra ickiness added to the icky kind of svt attack.
i told him how stupid i felt for coming in.
he told me i had every right to come in because of my history and symptoms.
he was genuine
he said it with a smile that made me feel a lot less stupid.
i was sent home with a small prescription for xanax, just in case i feel i need it. and orders not to take my metformin for my insulin resistance until tuesday. it does something nasty, something that kind of kills you, when you take it within so manyh days of having contrast injected into your body. can't remember what. ativan.
so here i am so thankful for all that i have
be it easy or hard at the moment
i am thankful
because i am alive and healthy
i am at home and not the hospital
(or 6 feet under)
i am thankful that i still have meaning and purpose here
i am thankful that my second chance is still ongoing
i am thankful that i am sitting here in the kitchen watching the chaos that happens with 2 chihuahuas that are excited to see their kitty friend brought into the kitchen after a bath to be dried off.
i am thankful that as all of this is going on and i am trying to finish this post that my youngest is telling me a story about what happened at school this week.
i am thankful.
now i am off to test drive a half of one of those xanax just to see if they are as wonderful as ativan.
just in case i ever have one of those days like yesterday again and need to take one.
sleep tight.
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