Wake Up, Heidi!
Well, it's time to face the music.
There are going to have to be some changes in my life, though I'm not quite sure just what yet. Hopefully only minor ones. But yesterday in church I had what the doctor called an "episode." (What a term. Makes it sound like I had a schizophrenic moment or something.)
A little background:
If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I've been struggling with anxiety for a while now, and it's been getting worse, not better. I've tried various things to cope with it but haven't had much luck. The good thing was that it never interfered with living my life-- I've always been able to get my kids where they needed to be and more or less keep up with all my commitments. And those commitments have been pretty heavy (it's the stage of life I'm in, I guess).
This weekend was a little bit busier than normal. In an average week, I have a packed schedule and daily to-do lists a mile long, but on Saturday, I can crash and (mostly) relax a little more. This Saturday wasn't quite like that-- I went for my normal long run early, then to a self-defense class (which was awesome, I'll report on that later), then I loaded up the kids and raced down to the library, and then I had to scramble to be ready to go to the temple with a group of friends and neighbors. I made it home at about 8:30pm only to find that the kids had never finished their chores and everything was a disaster. Eh. It could have been worse, but it was definitely not a relaxing day by any definition.
Sunday was pretty normal. I subbed as pianist in Primary first and then I headed into Relief Society (the women's class) to teach a lesson. I had it all prepared and I really wasn't worried about teaching. I've done enough of it over the years that it shouldn't have been a problem.
But about five minutes in, as I was standing in front of the group of ladies, something went really, really wrong. Suddenly, I had a headache. It was immediate, and it was like NOTHING I have ever felt before. I've had some pretty bad ones in my days, but this . . . this felt like something was going to rupture in my head. It was like a giant hand gripping my skull and squeezing, and then relaxing for a second only to squeeze again. I tried to keep going with my lesson. I think I even finished the point I was trying to make. But then my chest constricted and I couldn't breathe and I got dizzy. At that point I thought I was literally going to collapse right there in the front of the room. I looked over at Lisa (the Relief Society President) and managed to say something along the lines of "Something's wrong."
I don't remember the next little bit so well. They had me sit. I was in agonizing pain, and I was crying (more from embarrassment than anything else) and someone went and got my husband. Terence and a couple of the other brothers gave me a priesthood blessing, and someone rounded up the kids. We dropped the kids off at home (me still sitting in the van) and then headed back out-- the plan was to visit urgent care.
Of course, at this point, having been sitting and not moving for a little while, I was starting to feel better. So I started arguing with Terence that I didn't need to go to urgent care, that I could wait and make an appointment with a regular doctor. Terence wasn't too pushy about it; instead, he drove around and kept talking me through it, until I agreed to go in anyway. (The man knows me too well.) So we made a trip to urgent care. By then I was feeling much better than I had been, though my head was still pounding. I was a little concerned we were going to be wasting our time and money.
That was until they hooked up the blood pressure machine. 177/105!!! Now, I'm no blood pressure expert, but the guy taking my numbers kind of got all serious after that. The physician's assistant on duty came in and talked to me about what had happened and my symptoms and my got my family history (including a father, grandfather and aunt who all had to have heart bypass surgery). Since my dad had his quintuple bypass at the chipper age of 52, he was concerned that I might have had a heart attack.
A heart attack! What????
So I got to experience my first EKG. Yeah. The good news was that it looked pretty normal, other than a low resting heart rate. The PA said that my number (55) isn't unheard of in women and athletes, but with my family history . . . still something that should be on the radar. Then he discussed my anxiety with me, and I could almost see the lightbulb over his head.
So official diagnosis? An episode brought on by high blood pressure. Hypertension and anxiety. He feels that treating the high blood pressure with drugs wouldn't really solve the problem because he feels that this is anxiety-induced hypertension. So the solution needs to be fixing the anxiety which will fix the high blood pressure.
So that's where we're at. I have a script for anti-anxiety meds that I'm still not sure I want to take. I have a blood pressure monitor ordered so I can keep a blood pressure diary. And I need to make some follow up doctor visits.
Never a dull moment, right?
There are going to have to be some changes in my life, though I'm not quite sure just what yet. Hopefully only minor ones. But yesterday in church I had what the doctor called an "episode." (What a term. Makes it sound like I had a schizophrenic moment or something.)
A little background:
If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I've been struggling with anxiety for a while now, and it's been getting worse, not better. I've tried various things to cope with it but haven't had much luck. The good thing was that it never interfered with living my life-- I've always been able to get my kids where they needed to be and more or less keep up with all my commitments. And those commitments have been pretty heavy (it's the stage of life I'm in, I guess).
This weekend was a little bit busier than normal. In an average week, I have a packed schedule and daily to-do lists a mile long, but on Saturday, I can crash and (mostly) relax a little more. This Saturday wasn't quite like that-- I went for my normal long run early, then to a self-defense class (which was awesome, I'll report on that later), then I loaded up the kids and raced down to the library, and then I had to scramble to be ready to go to the temple with a group of friends and neighbors. I made it home at about 8:30pm only to find that the kids had never finished their chores and everything was a disaster. Eh. It could have been worse, but it was definitely not a relaxing day by any definition.
Sunday was pretty normal. I subbed as pianist in Primary first and then I headed into Relief Society (the women's class) to teach a lesson. I had it all prepared and I really wasn't worried about teaching. I've done enough of it over the years that it shouldn't have been a problem.
But about five minutes in, as I was standing in front of the group of ladies, something went really, really wrong. Suddenly, I had a headache. It was immediate, and it was like NOTHING I have ever felt before. I've had some pretty bad ones in my days, but this . . . this felt like something was going to rupture in my head. It was like a giant hand gripping my skull and squeezing, and then relaxing for a second only to squeeze again. I tried to keep going with my lesson. I think I even finished the point I was trying to make. But then my chest constricted and I couldn't breathe and I got dizzy. At that point I thought I was literally going to collapse right there in the front of the room. I looked over at Lisa (the Relief Society President) and managed to say something along the lines of "Something's wrong."
I don't remember the next little bit so well. They had me sit. I was in agonizing pain, and I was crying (more from embarrassment than anything else) and someone went and got my husband. Terence and a couple of the other brothers gave me a priesthood blessing, and someone rounded up the kids. We dropped the kids off at home (me still sitting in the van) and then headed back out-- the plan was to visit urgent care.
Of course, at this point, having been sitting and not moving for a little while, I was starting to feel better. So I started arguing with Terence that I didn't need to go to urgent care, that I could wait and make an appointment with a regular doctor. Terence wasn't too pushy about it; instead, he drove around and kept talking me through it, until I agreed to go in anyway. (The man knows me too well.) So we made a trip to urgent care. By then I was feeling much better than I had been, though my head was still pounding. I was a little concerned we were going to be wasting our time and money.
That was until they hooked up the blood pressure machine. 177/105!!! Now, I'm no blood pressure expert, but the guy taking my numbers kind of got all serious after that. The physician's assistant on duty came in and talked to me about what had happened and my symptoms and my got my family history (including a father, grandfather and aunt who all had to have heart bypass surgery). Since my dad had his quintuple bypass at the chipper age of 52, he was concerned that I might have had a heart attack.
A heart attack! What????
So I got to experience my first EKG. Yeah. The good news was that it looked pretty normal, other than a low resting heart rate. The PA said that my number (55) isn't unheard of in women and athletes, but with my family history . . . still something that should be on the radar. Then he discussed my anxiety with me, and I could almost see the lightbulb over his head.
So official diagnosis? An episode brought on by high blood pressure. Hypertension and anxiety. He feels that treating the high blood pressure with drugs wouldn't really solve the problem because he feels that this is anxiety-induced hypertension. So the solution needs to be fixing the anxiety which will fix the high blood pressure.
So that's where we're at. I have a script for anti-anxiety meds that I'm still not sure I want to take. I have a blood pressure monitor ordered so I can keep a blood pressure diary. And I need to make some follow up doctor visits.
Never a dull moment, right?
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