Caught up. Whew.

So, hospital stay #2. Oh, what an annoying evening this was. In my entire life, I have never had to be in the hospital, outside of giving birth, and having knee surgery in the summer after 9th grade. The fact that I have now been three times in the last six months (concussion, Christmas night ovary explosion, and this) really pissed me off. I'm sincerely hoping this was the last trip there for a long, long time.

I had gone for a run around 4:30pm, and got back about an hour later. I drank water, calmed down, and then changed to go out to dinner and some light shopping with my boys. We went and picked up a sandwich at Jimmy John's, enjoyed every bite, then headed over to pick up a few things at Target. While at Target, I had a sudden, intense on-set of nausea, light-headedness, chest tightness, and left arm pain. It hit me like a mack truck while we were getting Z a new pair of pants (about his 34th pair this year - grrrr) for school. I couldn't focus, I felt like I was going to puke, and I couldn't breathe well, all at once. I asked Aaron if we could go home (we had more shopping to do, but I clearly wasn't up for it), and he took one look at me and asked if I was alright. I told him what was going on, but not what my fears were about what was happening. We checked out, headed home, and I went straight to my room to lie down. I laid there about 30 minutes, and none of the symptoms were easing up, which scared me. I called my Dad to see what his physical symptoms were when he had his heart attack, because though I know the symptoms differ between men & women, several are pretty common ground. My Mom quickly became involved in the conversation, and they were both urging me to go to the ER. Ugh, yes, again.

I was afraid of what might happen if I ignored these symptoms, but I also did not want to make a big deal out of nothing, so I was hesitant to go. To make things worse, Z had just had his two buddies from across the street come over for a sleep-over at our house. (They were already in their jammies!) Now I had to call their mom and see if we could move the party over to her house, and then tell the boys they needed to leave, without worrying anyone. After all that was done, Aaron drove me over to Round Rock Hospital, and once I told the triage nurse what my symptoms were, they had somebody out in the waiting room putting me in a wheelchair within mere seconds. I was wheeled back to a room where about six people jumped on me like a Nascar pit crew - one firing questions at me, another putting sticky circles all over my chest, another hooking me up to an IV, another putting me on the blood pressure machine, etc. After an EKG and giving them my life story & family history, the ER doctor came in and told me though my EKG levels seemed normal, he was not comfortable letting me go home. They wanted to keep me overnight. ARGH!! I almost cried. He said had I come from any other family, he would've let me go home, but he didn't want to risk it after knowing my Dad had had a heart attack & a quintuple bypass, and my Dad's father and siblings had died from heart-related issues.

The doctor wanted me to stay overnight so they could monitor my enzymes, and then do a stress-test in the morning. Aaron wanted to stay with me, since Z would be over at his friend's house, but I made him go home and sleep. There was no reason for him to attempt to sleep sitting up in a chair next to me, when all that would be happening was me trying to sleep and watching tv. He finally went home around 1:00am, and I then napped through the night. I say napped, because a nurse came in about every 90 minutes to either poke me, prod me, or ask me something. This was what I watched while I was awake through the night:


Yes, the color on the tv was that bad. After the sun rose, I finally just had to let go of any attempts to sleep and just focus on getting that stress-test done. My view in the morning:


They starved me until about 10:45am, then took me down to the bowels of the hospital to hop on a treadmill. Well, after they hooked me up to a million machines again, of course.

I exercised for 12 minutes in my mostly-closed hospital gown and running shoes, at the highest intensity they could throw at me, while a technician and a cardiologist watched me. Can I tell you how awkward that is? Two grown men are watching you fight through this horrid uphill climb, fully expecting you to pass out or collapse? Good times. Granted, they chit-chatted as they stared at me, but their eyes never left me once. I'll just say I learned something about myself in that moment - I could never be an actress, a stripper, or any other occupation that requires you to be stared at while partially clothed.

Turns out all is well. There is no brilliant diagnosis or answer as to why I had these heart attack-like symptoms the night before. They ran every test imaginable, drew more blood than a vampire, but I still went home with a big, fat question mark. Only good thing to come from this was getting a full cholesterol, heart, & blood-sugar screening done. My levels are all within normal range, but the numbers could all stand to lower a bit, given my crappy family history. At least now, I know where I stand as I approach my 40's, and what I need to do to maintain a healthy heart. Which, sadly, is more than several of my relatives before me were given the opportunity to do.

That gets us caught up to present day. I apologize again for the giant lapse in writing, but as you can see, I've been pretty busy. Now that we're in a rhythm, I have a feeling I'll be able to be more consistent with my entries. Five days ago, Aaron and I took on the challenge of completing the P90X system, so I think I'll start blogging about that. I've had several friends text me or email me, asking what I think and how it's going. Stay tuned, because I can tell already, these 90 days are going to be a helluva ride!