ER Visit

Thank you for all your kind and concerned words in the guest book concerning my recent dash to the ER. It's nice to have my very own Circle of Caring around me!

I still had some pain yesterday and was kind of "slow," to the extent where I took three naps. (Which is definitely not my usual speed of life.) So whatever is going on is still "there."

Some of you mentioned in the guest book that it might have been heartburn caused by the hot dogs. Hmmm. I've never before been bothered by a hot dog and was told by my ENT (after one of my happy throat scopes) that he saw no sign of reflux damage on my vocal cords.

Others of you wrote that a hot dog can trigger a gall bladder attack. I suppose that's a possibility although I know that gallbladder attacks are many times accompanied by nausea and vomiting which I haven't had. And I HATE the thought of spending more money on a gall bladder ultra sound unless all symptoms are pointing in that direction.

It's such a complex sort of decision to make. When you have chest/left arm/heart pain, the first temptation is to say, "It's heart related." And then the next thing is to think, "Oh, you're just over-reacting; it's probably nothing serious."

And that's what Steve and I did for twenty four hours, vascillated between the serious and the non-serious. But the bottom line is that so many people wait on going to the hospital and then it IS a heart attack and things are much worse for them because they waited so long.

But THEN you also hate to run to the ER for no reason and end up paying lots of money to be told, "You're fine."

Poor Steve. If I'd had a heart attack at the house and he'd said that I'd been having chest pains for a whole day, everyone would have said, "Well, why didn't you take her in earlier?"

But then to go into the ER and have it be nothing, I tend to think, "Well, why did we go in at all?"

Sigh.

I know heart and chest pains can be caused by stress and we've had stress of many varieties over the past months/years. (Some I've written about; some I haven't.)

The past eight months have been especially stressful for me personally, because of having so many things undecided. Everything is in the throes of change--Steve's job, my job, Sarah's school, our house, our neighborhood, our town, our church, our circle of friends, our financial situation, etc. The only thing that is remaining unchanged is Nathan's college.

And, people, that is STRESSFUL!

So I may just chalk this whole thing up to stress and kind of monitor things for a few days; if things stay the same or get worse, I'll take a few more medical steps. But at least I AM assured that I won't drop dead of a heart attack in the next ninety seconds.

And that's always nice to know! :-)

Again, thanks for your concern. I'll do a more "regular" update later in the day.