Last night as we sat down to dinner, I had a strange pain in my chest. Sort of chest pain, if you will. Odd, I thought. Whatever. I ate. It stayed there. It just kept staying there. I breathed and it stayed there. I moved around and it stayed there. It was a dull pressure inside my rib cage, just to the left of my sternum. I tried to ignore it and go on as if nothing was happening. We finished dinner. I started to feel very short of breath and sweaty, clammy, and finally scared.
I suppose the specter of uncle will dying so suddenly was with me, and the cumulative strain of now nearly six months of as-yet undiagnosed dizziness. (I had a really dizzy day yesterday all told, and felt horrible, and was so depressed to find myself back where I started!) I told Ben I was feeling really bad, and went into the other room to consult with Dr. Google. I took three different symptom quizzes at three different sites and in each case I got the same alarming answer: CALL 911 RIGHT NOW! Proceed to the nearest emergency room NOW!! Do not delay!! and that type of thing.
I sat there by myself for a few moments and then posed this question: would I rather, A) have an unpleasant evening, get needle sticks, be scared, be embarrassed because nothing is actually wrong with me, or would I rather B) die?
I decided that I would rather inconvenience everyone, be scared, be embarrassed and have a miserable evening, than be wrong and sit there quietly on the couch having a heart attack. And much as I told myself it was probably nothing, I have no risk factors, my cholesterol is admirable and my blood pressure if anything too low, and I was making a fuss for no reason, I still had this nagging fear of, well, DYING. So finally I went into the other room where Ben and kids were watching TV and I whispered to Ben "I'm really scared. My chest is hurting. I think I need help."
Ben was WONDERFUL. And the kids too. He just sprang up, announced that they had to get their stuff on because Mommy is sick and needs to go to the hospital. Elias had no pants or underpants on at the time, but amazingly he found them and got them on himself. Shoes too. In a twinkling we were in the car. In anther twinkling we were a the ER. Ben went to park the car and I walked in and announced the dreadful words, "I'm having chest pain and I'm really scared." At that point I started crying and the whole thing just took on a life of its own.
I hardly remember how it all happened so fast. In just a moment I was wearing a gown, little EEG sensors were stuck all over me, oxygen was flowing into my nose, and several vials of blood were coming out of my arm. Man, those people know what they're doing. THe nurse in charge told me, "DOn't be scared by anything that we're doing. We treat all chest pain the same."
A little while later Ben came in to check on my status (someone else was playing with the boys in the waiting area), and the nurse said, "She's scaring herself pretty good, but she's not scaring me." That made me feel better and I was able to sort of stop hyperventilating and grasp that whatever it was I was in the right place.
It kept hurting too, even as thing after thing was ruled out. "Our job is to determine whether this is going to kill you TONIGHT," the nurse explained. And once they determined that it wasn't everyone began to chill out, even me. For while there was the blood-clot-the-lung option on the table. I had to get chest x-rays and the dizziness was really bad while I was standing there by myself, in my little gown, with my trusty oxygen tank beside me. But someone brought me a chair when I started to visibly sway and everyone, of course, was incredibly nice and competent.
The kids came in and sat on my bed watching Phineas and Ferb for a while, drinking juice boxes. The dashing young ER doctor had this inky black wet-look hair slicked back. It was really working for him. Kind of a retro, DeNiro, Godfather vibe to it. Ultimately he said that he had no idea what was causing my pain, but that it was not cardiac, not pneumonia, and not a blood clot. Once those were all cleared, I was free to go.
There's a strange membrane between patient and regular person. It has to do with the gown I think. I came in at first and stripped to the waist and put it on, becoming a patient. Then did the process in reverse, passing back through the transformation and becoming myself again. We went home. It was about 10:00 at night by then. The whole thing took 2-3 hours or so. Baths and bedtime with kids high on oreos, but okay. Much better than being rushed in for some sort of surgery instead.
THis morning, of course, I'm drained and tired. So is Ben, but he has manfully agreed to take the kids to a birthday party at a place full of loud inflated jumping structures.
I've been looking around for some explanation as to what happened, and I think I have it. I've had reflux for about ten years now, and I think my esophagus is starting to feel some real wear and tear. One of the many doctors I've seen over the last six months has been pretty concerned about it, but with all the dizziness and whatnot it's just been on the back burner. Anyway, I found this sentence this morning, "chest pain from esophageal disorders can be an alarming symptom because it often mimics chest pain from a heart attack."
So that's my working hypothesis. Not that i have time for this, but I suppose I should go and check it out at some point in the not too distant future. I'll confess that I have been having trouble swallowing, which is a huge red flag. And I've been ignoring it, because I'm so damn dizzy all the time it's the least of my worries.
IN other news I went to the first of two neurologists on Thursday. He's a spine man, and basically the upshot was that he feels my dizziness has nothing to do with my spine. In fact, even though he didn't want to directly contradict the vestibular goddess and her wildly illogical diagnostic reversal, he said, "It really seems like an inner ear pathology to me." He also said, "I think you understand your condition very well, and you are on the right track with your vestibular therapy." So that was reassuring.
I'm seeing the real vertigo/dizziness neurologist in a month or so and then will have another opinion. Ironically I'm seeing a cardiologist around then too, for this tilt-table test. But last night makes it seem that I should be seeing a digestive disease person too and get this esphogus looked at, treated, whatever.
I just feel that I'm on this train to medical land. I want to get off, but I can't get off. Dear body, I would like my life back. Thanks.
Also I just turned 43. Whether this is young or old is a topic of hot debate.
Today, other than recouperating and staring at the wall for some lengthy period of time, I'm going to get working on Thanksgiving. Make cornbread for stuffing. Chop vegetables and freeze them (also a stuffing component). Make pie crusts.
We're hosting and there's a lot to do.