My day in the ER

And, I *thought* Monday was a busy day. Boy, was I wrong. Last night when I was nursing Parker, I started having chest pain. It felt like a huge elephant was sitting on my chest. It was followed by a feeling of floating on a raft in the ocean & dizziness. This morning I got up and took Logen to school and had a nabbing stabbing pain in my chest. I also felt dizzy, shaky, and felt like I couldn't catch my breath. So, I called my Dr & she advised me to go to the ER. I called my mom (she's an RN) and she said the same thing. We have family history of heart problems. There's been 7 deaths heart related in the last 3 years- nobody my age though.

We got to the ER and my heart rate was going between 120 and 140, my BP was a bit elevated, & my O2 levels were low. I was taken to a trauma room quickly. I was having a difficult time walking back to the room. My legs kept feeling like they were going to collapse. It was scary thinking I was having a hard time walking. They immediately did an EKG, put me on oxygen, and put in an IV. They also drew blood for labs. They were testing for cardiac enzyme elevation. That test takes an hour and a half, so I knew I'd be there atleast that long.

The EKG came back perfect. My heart rate went down to normal once I layed down, they had also given me some medicine through the IV. We got my labs back and they were WNL. I have Costochondritis; imflammation around the heart/ribs on the left side. It was brought on by severe stress. (Hmm, me stressed?! Thats a new one...) I was discharged and told to take 600mg Motrin 3x/day for the next 10 days. Once I wean Parker completely I can start on an anxiety medication thats 'higher powered' and that should keep my heart from racing like it does. And, of course, I should try not to stress out so much.

So, now- How do I not stress out?!! Now that I think about ways to 'de-stress', I'm stressing about that. Let's just keep adding things to my "to-do" list. It's not long enough.