Wednesday was a day I'll never forget. Late in the afternoon I was speaking to a coworker. Just a conversation we have many times every day. Just before we finished my heart fluttered, flip-flopped, beat weird, whatever you want to call it. All of sudden I could see but couldn't focus. I started to see stars as I felt light headed on my way to passing out. Then it passed. In all it lasted less than 30 seconds.
My coworker noticed what happened immediately and was concerned. I was able to get past what happened and finished out the day, concerned but pressing forward. I had quite a bit on my plate to include a trip that was to start yesterday. I couldn't worry too much about this. It was prevalent in my thinking the rest of the day and on the way home. Just before I got into town I felt sick and light headed. Wasn't even sure I'd make it into town. Nothing going on with my heart but I felt bad. I knew immediately I had to go to the emergency room. I called the wife, and stopped out the house but we were on the way to the hospital within minutes.
The emergency room got me right in to a room and started a flurry of tests. I can't name them all but they were pretty extensive. Nothing obvious from the results but with me having two episodes they decided to keep me overnight. I feel better as the evening goes on. I think having the good test results helped as much as just getting over whatever happened. The night went well and more tests were completed the next morning and again the results all came back well. The bottom line is the heart palpitations I had, which are common to everyone, lasted longer than is common. This led to not enough oxygen getting to my brain causing the light headedness. What caused my heart to do that? That they couldn't answer. So they sent me home and tell me to rest. If it happens again then they'll look at it differently with more tests on a different level.
So on the surface it seems pretty benign and it probably is. So why do I write about it? Not sure but I felt compelled to. For me is was a pretty major occurance. When that first episode occurred I lost control. I couldn't move and was left to wonder what was happening. Was this a heart attack? Would my last moments be this...me at work? Sounds overly dramatic I know but in those seconds I really had no idea what was happening. I want to use words like concerned or worried when I speak about how I felt immediately afterwards but they aren't true. I was scared. That is a word I don't use lightly. To that point I don't know what writing about the episode does for me but here I am. I know that over time I will become less concerned but I definitely won't forget what happened. Thankfully life goes on.
No comments:
Post a Comment