Friday. March 18, 2022.
Driving home from work and there’s this pressure in my left armpit and breast. It’s almost constant but then it stops.
We go to dinner. Sitting across the table I feel the pain but now it’s in my chest. Dead center. Can’t be a heart attack. It’s not pressure this time. Just sharp pain. Every few minutes. Like labor pains but not nearly as painful.
Pain is gone again. Must have been a fluke. I’m playing a game on my computer when the pain in my chest returns. I’m so alarmed I close my game and all of the programs I’m running (mostly email and a browser) and come downstairs to let my husband know. He agrees that maybe I should go to the ER and get checked out. I put on my sweater and start to put on my shoes but the pain has abruptly stopped. False alarm I think. Nope. It’s back. Sigh.
Driving to the ER the pain comes and goes. By the time we get to the ER I feel much better. We go in anyway and I am hustled back to a room (the one they had been using for negative pressure – COVID cases – for the last two years.) COVID has finally died down in our county. There’s a feeling of jubilation, almost.
Friday into Saturday (early morning.) March 22, 2022.
The usual scenario – EKG, blood draw (to check the enzymes that signal trouble) and steady blood-pressure monitoring. At one point I’m finally sleepy enough to have the lights turned down. Brian goes to the lobby to read his magazine. There’s a second blood draw, of course. Doctor says angina. Again. I knew it. I’m a hypochondriac plain and simple. I’m sent home with instructions to contact my doctor. We get home at exactly 3 a.m. so we just go to bed.
Monday. March 21, 2022
I call the VA to confirm. I leave a message with my doctor and I finally have a telehealth with her on
Thursday. March 24, 2022.
While there, the nurse takes another EKG because I’m going to be ordered a stress test and they want a current EKG. Really? The one at the ER wasn’t current enough? Turns out it shows a minor infarct – age undetermined. Never heard that before. Curious I do some “research.” Google is my friend, after all! Still not sure what I’ve read so I’ll just wait for my stress test.
I’m called to schedule my nuclear stress test (gonna shoot me full of radiation or something similar) which will happen on April 6th. So much for “current.” I’ll get a new EKG then – more than one, it looks like (from the instructions I’ve been given.)
Monday. March 28, 2022.
I think I came down with mild food poisoning. I had breakfast at work and by noon I was unable to work – much less think or process any useful information. As a tech support person, not having my brain work well leaves me unable to provide excellent customer service – and I’m actually known for my mad customer service skills. I drove home (quite uncomfortably) and after emptying my whole being, I napped.
Today. March 29, 2022.
On the drive to work this morning I felt a weird pressure in my chest and I was filled with an uneasy sense of dread. I was also slightly distanced and my mouth felt funny. I almost turned around and came home but the feeling passed so I just kept going. I’ve been feeling “wrong” all day but – like the chest pains from that Friday – it comes and goes. When it goes I feel just fine.
Why can’t life just go back to the way it was?
I want the heart thing to be diagnosed and, if necessary, treated, but I also want to feel “normal.” I wish I knew what “normal” is supposed to feel like. I think I’ve forgotten. It’s quite possible that it’s all just stress manifesting itself in physical discomfort. I would feel foolish, I know, but I think I would also feel relieved. The world turned upside down when I was fired and then again when the pandemic swept through. I would like some “right side up” now, please.