A couple months ago it seemed like my panic attacks had come to a peak. I would wake up in the middle of the night with my heart beating out of my chest and finding it difficult to breathe. I would lay awake for hours just trying to breathe deeply and calm myself as I tried to sleep whatever hours that I could because I knew that my kids would wake up soon and it would be go time from there until they fell asleep at night. The mornings would begin and I would usually have a debilitating headache and a feeling of impending doom. Why? I don’t know but it was getting unbearable. I always felt like when you are about neck deep in a cold pool and you feel like the breath is being taken out of you, or when you are about to do something bad that you know aren’t supposed to be doing; that loud and pounding heart feeling. Sometimes it would get so bad that all I could manage to do in an entire day was make some grilled cheese for the kids and then curl up in a ball on the carpet on the living room floor, wrapped up in my favorite blanket to keep the panic levels down. I was really getting concerned about my health and convinced myself that something must be terribly wrong with me if I was feeling like that every single day and I finally worked up the courage to make an appointment with my doctor so they could take blood out and check all my levels.
I asked my mom to come over and watch the kids so I could go get myself checked out and she agreed right away because apparently my whole family was getting worried about my situation. My biggest fear was that something terrible would happen to me and nobody would even know for hours, since my husband has been working out of state, I was horrified at the thought of my babies being left alone and scared because something happened to me. Anyway, I went to the doctor and they took out five vials of blood to check my hormones, my thyroid, my white blood cell count, if I was anemic, etc. A week later they called me in to go over my results and the doctor informed me that I was absolutely, perfectly healthy. There was nothing wrong with me physically and all of my levels were off the chart amazing. Relieved, yet confused I slumped in my chair and asked the doctor what she recommended next. She said that it seemed as if everything might be in my head, she asked me if I suffered from anxiety or depression and I told her all about my first panic attack that sent me to the emergency room only because I was convinced I was going into cardiac arrest. In the emergency room, embarrassingly, they told me that I was just having a panic attack and I needed to hydrate more and they just shrugged me off. It had been two years since that first panic attack, and there I was still trying to figure out what to do. The doctor referred me to a cardiologist so that they can run some tests and see if the heart palpitations were because of an actual problem with my heart or if it was ‘all in my head’. My doctor seemed convinced that I am suffering from depression and that is what is bringing on these random panic attacks…depressed? I have never been happier or in a better place in my life…I do miss my husband terribly but he will coming home soon and the kids and I will most likely be traveling up with him on his next assignment. Which is cool because we will be able to explore the country a little bit and the kids will get to see places they otherwise never would. It will be an adventure! Sure, the world is going to shit and we are probably about to go into our Third World War, but other than that I feel ‘normal’?
I recently went to the cardiologist, waited FOUR hours to be seen and there they performed an EKG on me and said that everything looked relatively normal. There were a couple spikes that they want to look further into, but for the most part the cardiologist said I seemed to be healthy. He set me up for another appointment to perform an ultrasound of my heart and a stress test, not too excited about that. Those results will determine whether the palpitations are being caused by one of the valves in my heart not opening and closing properly or if it really is just ‘all in my head’. Gosh, I am so tired of hearing that. He even recommended me smoking a joint, which made me giggle to myself because if only he knew that in my past that was always my go to medication. However, he said since it is not legal here, he could not legally advise me to do that. I am not comfortable with taking prescription medications, personally, because in my past I had a problem with that…I definitely do not want to play with fire and mess around with prescription medications for anxiety and/or depression. I am going to get those tests done and see what the results are and then go on from there. If it is all in my head how they all seem to keep telling me, then I am just going to stay strong and ride the waves of my panic attacks as they come. Mind over matter. Knowing that my body is perfectly healthy and that I am not going to go into cardiac arrest is highly reassuring and I think I will be able to calm myself through the storms on my own… wish me luck guys!
Truths from a Mommy 