The night is over and I’m getting ready for bed when I feel
this big heavy cloud of worry cover my entire body. My palms start to sweat, my
blood feels as though it’s rushing out of my body from my feet to my head. My
heart feels like it’s going so fast it could burst out of chest at any moment.
At this instant, my mind is overcome with fear as I feel like I’m dying. I
leave the room and tell my husband I have to use the restroom, hoping that
taking a seat on the toilet will help me to get over whatever is happening to
me. I pee, wipe, wash my hands, and still the feeling is overwhelming. I get a
cup of water to see if maybe I’m dehydrated, after all I do drink a ton of Coke
and coffee daily. I drink a full glass of water and I’m still feeling in a
panic.
I tell myself I’m going to be okay and lie down next to my
husband. He tries to cuddle me like he does every night, but I can’t handle it
at this moment. “No babe please, my stomach hurts,” is the lie I tell him. Lying
on my left side facing away from him I’m lost in my thoughts, what the heck is going on? Why does my left
arm feel tingly? Am I having a heart attack? “Ugh I have to go to the
bathroom again, it must’ve been something I ate,” I tell my husband. I must’ve
taken a while because by the time I came back to the bedroom he was asleep and
I was left with my thoughts. Five hours later my sleep finally takes over and I’m
able to fall asleep.
The next morning, I am feeling incredibly tired from only
getting four hours of sleep the night before and my left arm is still tingling.
I get to work at my normal start time of 7am and as I’m sitting at my desk I
just can’t shake the nervous feeling I have and the tingling in my arm hasn’t
gone away. As soon as my manager comes in I’ll ask her if I can go to a local
urgent care center.
Just to give you an idea of how critical this was for me, I am the worst when it comes to getting medical attention and faint when I see my blood. So for me to want to visit an urgent care center is quite a big deal.
My manager finally arrives and I explain my symptoms and of course agrees I should leave immediately to a local urgent care center. Once I arrive I am automatically struck with nerves again just from waiting to be seen. The doctor conducts an EKG on me, checks my vitals, and does a urine pregnancy test. Everything came out fine, nothing out of the ordinary according to the doctor. Before I leave he tells me, "you don't strike me as someone who is very stressed." As I walked out I responded, "I didn't think I was either." The remainder of the day I spent at home, scared of what could trigger another episode and decided to get some sleep.
The next day I get to work and start my daily routine as usual. In the middle of answering an email a sudden rush of fear strikes me and I begin to sweat. I feel trapped, my left arm is tingling, my heart is racing, I can't catch my breath. I stand up to take a walk to the restroom, but the fear at this point is so overwhelming I feel I might pass out. So I decide to step outside. It's about 45° out so it's a bit chilly, but in this moment it feels just right. I begin walking down the block and praying to God that He relieves me of whatever is happening to me. I prayed that God would help me to relax. As I crossed the street to continue my walk I began throwing up on random lawns of businesses. Embarrassed and scared at this point I called my manager and ask her to bring me water. It's truly a blessing to have a manager who is as caring as mine. She sees how shaken up I am and tells me to go see my doctor.
As I begin my nearly 2 hour drive home, I still can't shake the nervous feeling I have so I decide to google the nearest hospital and drive myself there. I pull up to the Emergency Room parking and as I'm walking in I am telling myself to try and remain calm so that I can properly explain my symptoms. A nurse takes my vitals as soon as I arrive and noticing how nervous I am makes small talk with me about the weather. At this point I am in no way shape or form interested in discussing the weather, but I play along as I know this is his attempt to distract my mind.
He tells me to sit in the waiting room until they call my name. I barely set my things down before I'm called and my heart begins to race. A nurse takes me to room 4 and instructs me to remove my clothing and put on the gown. "You can keep your socks on if you'd like, I know it's chilly in here. The doctor will be a few minutes." So I change and sit on the bed and when I turn on the TV Property Brothers is on. Automatically I think to myself, awesome, it's like God knew what I needed as a distraction (I absolutely love HGTV shows). The doctor walks in and is incredibly welcoming and asks me how I'm feeling. I begin to tell him the symptoms I had not even one hour ago at work. He explains that he wants to take an EKG test and that he'd have the nurse do some blood work to check my anemia, which I've had since I was 15 years old. The nurse begins to draw blood as the Doctor continues to explain that I've had a panic attack and the symptoms. At this point the nurse has drawn 6 tubes of blood and I'm already feeling as though I'm going to faint. I explain to them I feel incredibly uneasy and it's making me anxious again so the doctor instructs the nurse to remove the needle and tells her that will be enough. With the needle out of my arm the doctor says, "you realize I now cannot give you medication to relax." I tell him that it's fine and he leaves to review the EKG results.
One episode of Property Brothers later, the doctor returns, "your EKG results are beautiful, your heart rate is faster than the average for people your age, but otherwise all is good. You will need to find an outlet to release stress to avoid these anxiety attacks, but I do suggest you visit your primary care physician. I'll have the nurse draw up the documents to have you released." Immediately after I leave I call my primary care doctor and set up an appointment for the following day and as soon as I hang up I begin to cry for the one hour long drive home.
My primary care physician, who is the absolute best, explains that I have an anxiety disorder and prescribed me the lowest dosage of Xanax. Before leaving he strongly suggests I make an appointment with a cardiologist, which I make for that weekend so as not to miss another work day.
The cardiologist tells me the sudden anxiety attacks may be a cause of an atrial septal defect, better known as a hole in the heart. He explains that he will have me on a heart monitor for 48 hours and schedules a bubble test. I was no stranger to the heart monitor as I've had 3 during my high school years, but since it hasn't evolved much it was just a tad bit uncomfortable and caused a few rashes. Luckily the monitor didn't find any irregularities in my heart.
Then came the bubble test, which was beyond uncomfortable as I had to have a needle in my arm throughout the entire exam where 3 nurses had to be involved. First it started with the ultrasound technician setting me up for an ultrasound on my heart. Then another nurse came in to draw the needle and left it there ready for the bubble test. At this point I'm already in tears because I feel myself growing more anxious knowing the needle is just dangling on my arm. Finally after what seemed like an eternity, 2 nurses come in and begin to set up for their part in the bubble test. They fill one syringe with air and the other with saline. The ultrasound technician instructed them to wait on her count to 3 to begin.
1....2.....3, Go. The nurse begins to infuse the air and saline together to agitate it and then released it into my veins. The ultrasound technician then tells them to stop and instructs me to crouch as if rolling into a ball. 1....2....3, GO. The nurses begin to inject more of the agitated saline into my veins and the ultrasound technician tells me to stop crouching. Each time the agitated saline was injected I felt it more than I had ever felt any injection before. It felt like a super cold rush of air going through my veins and into my chest. "The test is over sweety," the ultrasound technician tells me as I'm still quietly crying. "Please quickly remove the needle so she can begin to relax," she tells the nurses.
I don't even know if I hooked my bra on properly because I was so eager to get out of there and just go to my car to bawl like a baby the way I wanted to during the exam. Thanks to God that the bubble test confirmed there aren't any holes in my heart, but as much as I was happy, I wanted to know what was causing my sudden anxiety attacks.
The stresses I have dealt with at work are nothing compared to what I've dealt with during my college years when I had school, my full time job, and my internship. For now I guess I won't know the exact cause, but I am sure am grateful that I have not had another anxiety attack since that week and I pray that I won't have another again.
Having dealt with this recently has truly given me such a deep understand and compassion for those who deal with this on a daily basis. After my first attack all I wanted to do was hug and hold tight those who I've known to have this problem in the past and tell them how sorry I am that they've had to go through it. I now truly understand the frustration people feel when told to "just calm down" or "you're over exaggerating you just need to relax." The last thing a person can do during an attack is relax or keep calm, and until you go through it you may never understand.
The next day I get to work and start my daily routine as usual. In the middle of answering an email a sudden rush of fear strikes me and I begin to sweat. I feel trapped, my left arm is tingling, my heart is racing, I can't catch my breath. I stand up to take a walk to the restroom, but the fear at this point is so overwhelming I feel I might pass out. So I decide to step outside. It's about 45° out so it's a bit chilly, but in this moment it feels just right. I begin walking down the block and praying to God that He relieves me of whatever is happening to me. I prayed that God would help me to relax. As I crossed the street to continue my walk I began throwing up on random lawns of businesses. Embarrassed and scared at this point I called my manager and ask her to bring me water. It's truly a blessing to have a manager who is as caring as mine. She sees how shaken up I am and tells me to go see my doctor.
As I begin my nearly 2 hour drive home, I still can't shake the nervous feeling I have so I decide to google the nearest hospital and drive myself there. I pull up to the Emergency Room parking and as I'm walking in I am telling myself to try and remain calm so that I can properly explain my symptoms. A nurse takes my vitals as soon as I arrive and noticing how nervous I am makes small talk with me about the weather. At this point I am in no way shape or form interested in discussing the weather, but I play along as I know this is his attempt to distract my mind.
He tells me to sit in the waiting room until they call my name. I barely set my things down before I'm called and my heart begins to race. A nurse takes me to room 4 and instructs me to remove my clothing and put on the gown. "You can keep your socks on if you'd like, I know it's chilly in here. The doctor will be a few minutes." So I change and sit on the bed and when I turn on the TV Property Brothers is on. Automatically I think to myself, awesome, it's like God knew what I needed as a distraction (I absolutely love HGTV shows). The doctor walks in and is incredibly welcoming and asks me how I'm feeling. I begin to tell him the symptoms I had not even one hour ago at work. He explains that he wants to take an EKG test and that he'd have the nurse do some blood work to check my anemia, which I've had since I was 15 years old. The nurse begins to draw blood as the Doctor continues to explain that I've had a panic attack and the symptoms. At this point the nurse has drawn 6 tubes of blood and I'm already feeling as though I'm going to faint. I explain to them I feel incredibly uneasy and it's making me anxious again so the doctor instructs the nurse to remove the needle and tells her that will be enough. With the needle out of my arm the doctor says, "you realize I now cannot give you medication to relax." I tell him that it's fine and he leaves to review the EKG results.
One episode of Property Brothers later, the doctor returns, "your EKG results are beautiful, your heart rate is faster than the average for people your age, but otherwise all is good. You will need to find an outlet to release stress to avoid these anxiety attacks, but I do suggest you visit your primary care physician. I'll have the nurse draw up the documents to have you released." Immediately after I leave I call my primary care doctor and set up an appointment for the following day and as soon as I hang up I begin to cry for the one hour long drive home.
My primary care physician, who is the absolute best, explains that I have an anxiety disorder and prescribed me the lowest dosage of Xanax. Before leaving he strongly suggests I make an appointment with a cardiologist, which I make for that weekend so as not to miss another work day.
The cardiologist tells me the sudden anxiety attacks may be a cause of an atrial septal defect, better known as a hole in the heart. He explains that he will have me on a heart monitor for 48 hours and schedules a bubble test. I was no stranger to the heart monitor as I've had 3 during my high school years, but since it hasn't evolved much it was just a tad bit uncomfortable and caused a few rashes. Luckily the monitor didn't find any irregularities in my heart.
Then came the bubble test, which was beyond uncomfortable as I had to have a needle in my arm throughout the entire exam where 3 nurses had to be involved. First it started with the ultrasound technician setting me up for an ultrasound on my heart. Then another nurse came in to draw the needle and left it there ready for the bubble test. At this point I'm already in tears because I feel myself growing more anxious knowing the needle is just dangling on my arm. Finally after what seemed like an eternity, 2 nurses come in and begin to set up for their part in the bubble test. They fill one syringe with air and the other with saline. The ultrasound technician instructed them to wait on her count to 3 to begin.
1....2.....3, Go. The nurse begins to infuse the air and saline together to agitate it and then released it into my veins. The ultrasound technician then tells them to stop and instructs me to crouch as if rolling into a ball. 1....2....3, GO. The nurses begin to inject more of the agitated saline into my veins and the ultrasound technician tells me to stop crouching. Each time the agitated saline was injected I felt it more than I had ever felt any injection before. It felt like a super cold rush of air going through my veins and into my chest. "The test is over sweety," the ultrasound technician tells me as I'm still quietly crying. "Please quickly remove the needle so she can begin to relax," she tells the nurses.
I don't even know if I hooked my bra on properly because I was so eager to get out of there and just go to my car to bawl like a baby the way I wanted to during the exam. Thanks to God that the bubble test confirmed there aren't any holes in my heart, but as much as I was happy, I wanted to know what was causing my sudden anxiety attacks.
The stresses I have dealt with at work are nothing compared to what I've dealt with during my college years when I had school, my full time job, and my internship. For now I guess I won't know the exact cause, but I am sure am grateful that I have not had another anxiety attack since that week and I pray that I won't have another again.
Having dealt with this recently has truly given me such a deep understand and compassion for those who deal with this on a daily basis. After my first attack all I wanted to do was hug and hold tight those who I've known to have this problem in the past and tell them how sorry I am that they've had to go through it. I now truly understand the frustration people feel when told to "just calm down" or "you're over exaggerating you just need to relax." The last thing a person can do during an attack is relax or keep calm, and until you go through it you may never understand.
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