January 15th, 2014
So I had won the argument with my mother to finally be able to see a doctor. The appointment was set for this day, and I was beyond ecstatic to finally make sure I was okay. We went to the doctor's office (my dad and I, as I was still too weak and tired to move on my own or walk on my own) and I waited to get called back. For those of you who have gone through a situation like this, when you have something scary happen to you that you don't understand, the The Waiting Room Destruction (as I like to call it) is horrible. You wait and wait for the doctor who is usually running behind, and during this time you are left alone with your thoughts! When you are like me, and tend to be worried about health issues, this is not a good time! You think of all the many possibilities you know of, telling yourself you have all these terrible things, then try to rationalize the situation by telling yourself that none of those things are true and you're probably just sick. I like to call it destruction because you are destroying your positive mindset at this point.
Finally, the nurse comes and you're able to jump up and run away from the tirade your mind had just gone through.
We went back with her, and did the usual routine: check my weight, ask about why I'm there, and then, we checked my vitals.
This is where things really started to get interesting. My heart rate was all the way up at 114 bpm. They marked this as slight tachycardia, as your heart rate shouldn't really be higher than 100 bpm, as said by the NIH (National Institute of Health). They didn't really think much of it, but the doctor came in and looked me over as well. Now, I was really lucky to get in to see her so soon. She's usually booked a few months out, but we decided after an incident with my pancreatitis (where her assistant we usually see, yelled at me for 'telling her how to do her job') that we were no longer going to see the other person... We just had to get in with her. Seeing as how this was rather severe, we were able to get in right away.
She didn't think anything of it, really, just thinking I had a case of pleurisy. I didn't know what this was, until I read about it online. Basically, your chest lining is swollen and it squishes all your organs there together which can cause the heart to beat a lot faster. Because of this and due to my headaches, she ran tests to check for any return of my pancreatitis as well as blood clots and regular CBC W Auto Differential testing. This is just when they do the basic screening of your blood, to check for abnormalities. All of this came back normal.
Of course, believing everything my doctor said at this point (not thinking that a doctor COULD be wrong, even though they're a human, not some God-like healer), I accepted this as the diagnosis and started to take Naproxen daily.
January 28th, 2014
As you can imagine, this did little to help me and a few days later, I ended up calling her again after realizing my heart was still pounding and my headaches weren't going away at all. Nothing I did would help these feelings, and I'd suffered from migraines and chronic tension headaches. This led her to be concerned there might be an issue with my heart, so she decided a Holter Monitor test would be needed. I ended up going to get it fit on to me soon after, and wore it around for 24 hours.
During this time, I had gone to hang out with friends and play Pathfinder (remember how I said I was a geek? Yeah, I really am, and dang proud!). We went out to eat that night and we went to this place I'd never been to before. The food was amazing, but I ended up getting a hair in my meal. As disgusting as that sounds, I really didn't care too much and didn't want to say anything. My friend, however, an aspiring chef in culinary school, decided we should let them know of this situation. This made me incredibly nervous, and I felt my heart starting to beat faster than normal. I marked it down on my handy-dandy sheet that I was supposed to use to keep track of what was going on at the time of symptoms, and hit the little button to mark this moment. This was a significant moment for me, however, when I realized that anxiety seemed to make this worse.
Well, we get the results about a few days later and guess what? It was NORMAL. This was the second time that our tests bore no fruit, just rotten and empty shells of nothingness. This was when things started to get rather discouraging, but I didn't know JUST how discouraging things were going to become. Really. S%&* hit the fan around the next doctor's visit, after the next round of testing.
But I already can tell this got super, super long despite me constantly saying I'm going to watch myself. I love to talk, if it's not that obvious, and I want to make sure I'm being mostly thorough with this to show others going through this or who did go through this, that YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
We'll pick up again tomorrow, after I get home from the new gym I'm trying out. Working on getting healthier so wish me luck~
Until next time, adios and well wishes to you!
- Rosie
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