Ok, so I had me a weirdest little health scare this weekend.
Let me start at the beginning. I went on a reduced calorie diet this summer and lost 15 pounds. I’ve been sort of at a holding stage since then up and down 2-3 pounds. But not really putting too much effort in to it. See, I work full time and have a full time load at the university trying to graduate this summer. So, I’ve been just holding, trying not to gain anything thinking I will really pick up the pace after graduation, because I will have a lot less stress and more time to deal with it.
So, last Saturday I am home alone, going about my business when all of a sudden my heart starts going million miles a minute, I can’t catch my breath, I’m sweating like a horse, and feeling this weird pressure in my chest. So I totally freak out thinking “Heart attack”!!! Then there’s this internal dialogue in my head:
One says: “Heart attack”
The other says: “No way, you are only 31.”
One says: “31-year-olds have heart attacks”
The other says: “Not me.”
One says: “And why the **** not?”
Anyway, the denying part of me lost and the reasonable part won thinking “Better safe than sorry.” And that’s how I ended up in the emergency room.
To make long story short, they got my heart rate down on the way to the ER and the rest got normal after about an hour or so. They did an EKG, a blood clothing test, etc. etc. and didn’t find anything wrong with me, but it was the biggest and loudest wake up call I ever had.
What I realized is that It could have been a lot worse. It must have been some sort of an anxiety attack triggered by stress, but it sooooo could have been the dreaded heart attack. I can’t put this off any longer. The time is not after graduation, not a month, a week or a day from now, the time is “NOW!!!”
I am getting the heck off my big butt; I am starting to cook healthy meals, exercising even if slowly at first, but steadily increasing my pace, I am really starting to put ME first. Not school not work, not all the other thousand things I have to deal with every day.
I don’t know if this helps anyone, but it was my first time ever being in an ambulance and I don’t want to be in one ever again, well, at least not for the next 30-40 years. So I wanted to share my “AHA” moment and hope this inspires someone else to take a close look at this remarkably resilient yet oh so fragile thing called human body. What I figured was that mine was trying to tell me: “Guess what, I am sick and tired of you treating me like a peace of wood. I am flesh and blood and I need to get it through your thick head that I am vulnerable and totally dependent on what you put in to me and how you treat me.”
wow, that is a very inspirational story. thank you for sharing it with us. i am already on the road to a healthier me, but it definately is a good thing for me to use on my daughter when she wants to go somewhere instead of watching the younger ones while i go to the gym on my preset gym nights.
and it will help keep me on the path i am going on and hopefully even kick my workout up a notch. i've never been in an ambulance and hope i never am either. until they are driving my cold, lifeless, very OLD body to the morgue.
again, thanks so much for sharing your moment with us. keep up the good work and always try to find some time into your day for excersize.
I had my "aha!" moment this weekend. You really get to see what you look like when someone's video taping you. I deffinately didn't like what I saw. It's too bad that you had to go through such a scare.... but thankfully nothing was wrong.
Thanks for sharing.
Thank goodness that everything is okay. Your story was very inspiring for me. I am 33 and often get in mind set that I'm to young for any of those health issues to happen to me.
I see that it was a wake up call for you and by sharing I think it was also a wake up call to many of us that are in the same situation.
Wake up call, indeed. Thank goodness you listened to the rational Nina, the one who said, "Go to the ER now". Thank goodness it all worked out well. I'm so glad you're ok.
Thanks everyone for all your responses. Believe me, sharing like this doesn’t come easy to me, I am normally pretty reclusive and somewhat anti-social person. Nobody even in my own family knows about this except for my hubby, who by the way got totally freaked out. But I figured I had to share it with all the good people here on SFC, because it might serve as an inspiration for someone just like me.
The surprising and even somewhat amusing thing that came out of the whole episode was that it was quite easy for me to resist my usual “Breakfast Burrito” loaded with eggs, cheese and bacon or sausage this morning. All I had to do was to remember that feeling of helplessness and opting for oatmeal became totally easy. I even carry with me that plastic bracelet they give you in a hospital with your name, health insurance number, date and all that good stuff. I figured if I ever start to forget the feeling, this can serve as a much more tangible reminder that there can be no way back for me.
So glad to hear you are okay. Thank you for sharing this story, it really does help to stay focused when reading that. Scary! And glad that you are on your way to a more healthy you
Health scare
