graceland's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paging Dr. Carter Today was scary. It was my first day back from a whirlwind holiday season and I'm flying out of town for business tomorrow. I haven't been feeling right since Thursday, when I thought I was having a heart attack. I felt this tightness in my chest and feeling it kept making me more anxious. It would go away and then come back over the last few days. I stopped drinking and smoking, I even stayed home on New Years to rest. I've been really stressed about everything. Work, this upcoming trip, my financial state that was bordering on litigation, the mother living here, living out of a suitcase for 8 days, staying with my parents for 5 days and then a futon for three. Today I had to run home during lunch to get something I forgot and I guess my taxi driver cut off someone because a large black man jumped out of a van at the red light and started attacking the taxi. He opened his car door and kept banging it into the taxi door, screaming at the driver, and when I looked up from the back seat, he started screaming at me. "Whatchoo looking at bitch!?" and then he started to kick in the window in the backseat. He reached to open his puffy black coat and I thought he was going to pull a gun so I screamed "drive!" and the taxi pulled out and took off. The cray guy jumped back into his car and followed us. At one point he tried to roadblock us Dukes-Of-Hazzard style and the taxi had to go up on the sidewalk a bit to get down my street. Finally we were at my corner and the crazy guy, stopped behind us and came running out at the taxi. I crawled across the taxi to the side away from him, and crawled out of the car, bent down and ran to my apt. I ran inside, grabbed what I needed, in my hurry forgeting to grab my cell, came back out, looked both ways to make sure the crazy guy wasn't waiting for me, and hailed another taxi. As the taxi headed back to my work, suddenly the tightening in my chest turned into a racing heartbeat. Faster than I've ever felt and I raised my hands over my head and felt dizzy, like all of the blood was draining out of my body head first; I slowly started to lose consciousness. I think I was out for 1 second, maybe 2, and then I came too and remembered I had a bottle of aspirin in my bag. I took an aspirin immediately and was able to say to the driver, "take me to X address" (my doctor's). I looked at the highway signs and realized I wasn't going to make it, so I rerouted the cab to the local hospital. I got there and I felt stupid. I was feeling better and everyone just seemed so desperately sick there. But I thought, I'm here, I should just make sure I'm okay. The sign said to say if you are having chest pains, so I told the guard and he took my name and asked me if it was happening right then and I said no, I felt better, the pain was moments before. He told me to sit down until my name was called. About 15 minutes passed and I started to lose consciousness again. I didn't say anything because I thought it would pass, but the next thing I knew, I was explaining to a nurse that I was fine, but needed to see someone and I was being ushered into the ER ahead of the 30 some people there. My vitals were low. Blood pressure too low. Over the next 4.5 hours they gave me the works. EKG, Chest X-rays, blood tests, urine tests. It would appear that what I had was not a heart attack, but an anxiety attack. I lost my shit. I was really hoping that was the case. I thought that could be it but I sure felt better to get the test results from a full make up. I need to slow down. No caffeine for a few days according to the doctor. She said I need to stop internalizing. "Wow, how do u know I do that from those tests?" I asked. "because u lost consciousness in the waiting room and didn't even grab the person next to you for help," she said. Not big on asking for help. Not big on talking about problems. She may be onto something. According to me, I need to continue on the quitting smoking. Don't drink and get back to the gym. Eat more fish and veggies. Eat 3 meals, not 1 and a bag of Smart food. I'll tell you, after the doctor told me that all of my test results showed a healthy heart, suddenly the tightness went away. I think I had convinced myself I was having a heart attack and that was building the anxiety. That, compounded by all the stress, the holiday bender and the crazy person who tried to attack me today, led to a break down. I spoke with my mom later and it turns out the same thing happened to here when she was my age. Thought she was having a heart attack and went to the emergency room and everything. Same deal. They put her on valium. Oh that's the other thing. I told the nurse not to give me valium because I had to go back to work but them I looked down at the vein he was working on and saw him injecting some clear liquid. I tried to stop him and tell him again, no sedatives, and he said it was a saline flush but the next thing I knew I was nodding out on the chair. He doped me. Bastage. Don't worry, it wasn't enough for him to get me on the gurney. I fought that. "Listen mister," I said. "It's tragic enough that I am in this heinous gown, I'm not getting on that gurney. First of all, they are for sick people. Second of all, they are probably mite infected. Now way, buddy. Forget it." He sighed and the EMT's were laughing and the next thing everyone knew he came back with a chair for me. I distinctly heard him mutter the word princess as he walked away. The EMT's couldn't believe it. "Please, people. Watch and learn," I said to them. "Watch and learn." "Loving you!" I said with a smile when he returned. "And if you don't take this needle out of my vein, right now, I'm going to rip it out and pull a 'Girl Interrupted'" I whispered to the nurse. "Do that and you're going upstairs overnight, indefinitely," he replied with no expression. "Okay then," I said in equal monotone. "Just forget it then!" ::Big smile:: (He hearted me.) So I'm going on my trip and I am just going to relax. Not get stressed about it and try to work these crazy 20 hour days. Enough is enough. January is going to be a month of rest for the kid. 9:07 p.m. - 2005-01-03 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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