I’m not sure where this post belongs, but this forum (which I’ve only rarely checked in on) seems to be the place for personal stuff that isn’t necessarily a rant.
Over the last few days, I’ve had these… attacks. I’ve mostly working on the theory that they are panic attacks, but I’ve never had such things before, nothing happened to set them off at the start, and they seem to happen even when I’m perfectly calm. However, my vitals are normal when I can get them measured, and they do seem to “calm” away. However, there are also constant symptoms: my neck feels like there is a “pressure” inside, particularly on the left side (where, oddly enough) my blood vessels are.
I went to get this checked out in the ER on tuesday after a sleepless night of “rollercoaster” feelings. I basically got laughed at: nothing wrong that they could tell. They seemed to think I was faking, as if a person without medical insurance gets their kicks by pointlessly blowing hundreds on an ER visit.
They had no idea what my neck feeling could be (nothing out of the ordinary, though a bit hot). The resident listened to my heart and told my med student domestic partner that I had an s2 split: a reasonably normal rythmn where the two weaker valves don’t quite match pace with each other No big deal.
And aside from my continuing neck feeling and some jitters, I was mostly fine for Tuesday and Wednesday.
Today I had two huge attacks, out of the blue. I wasn’t expecting it: I was mostly just feeling stupid for wasting hundreds on what I assumed must have been a sore throat or something: maybe tosilitis?
Anyway, my pulse was suddendly nutty, and it felt like hot chocolate was spilling out inside my chest (I did not, and HAVE NOT felt pain, which is reassuring, just these feelings almost exactly like when I donated too much blood without eating enough beforehand). I splashed water on my face and felt a little better. I went back to work (my temp legal job where my master’s degree is put to work by copying and pasting serial numbers frmo one part of a scanned document to another).
Then, an hour later, it happened again. This time, it felt like the entire right side of my face, ear down to the neck, just went spastic: throbbing very powerfully. Never felt that before… and I felt awful in my chest again. By the time I got to the hospital, I was gasping, tearing, and dizzy. But then the nurse took my vitals, and they were perfectly normal. My panic quickly went away, and I quickly got to see the (much more competant seeming) attending (this was at a different ER).
He listened to my heart and immediately pointed out that I had a fixed s1 split, not a s2 split. This is not life threatening, but it could be a sign of any number of things that are not so good. My EKG was fine though, so no immediate danger. He said I needed a Hostler montior and one of those heart sonar things to look for various problems. Of course, I have no money, no health insurance. Even if I could have afforded some, I’m going to get through a physical and a background check without two ER visits within two days showing up. So anyway, my solution on that later.
First, does anyone have any theories?
The best one I have is that my throat is somehow mildly infected, and is refferring the feeling to my outer neck or otherwise causing swelling that can only be felt internally, by me. This infection is then perhaps responsible for my funky heart split: causing what’s known as mitral valve regurge.
But I have no experience with this. My med school student domestic partner girlfriend, etc. hasn’t done heart stuff in depth yet. Has anyone had experience with these sorts of diffuse symptoms? Anxiety attacks? Spastic rythmn (my mother had this: had to be surgically corrected). Could my blood sugar be messed up (lots of diabetes in my family, and the first attack came after a M&M gorge and a hard day of coffee) somehow? Am I low on potassium or something? I’m geniunely a little worried, especially since everything in my life is going really well now, and I feel just horrible: there’s nothing quite like the feeling that something is going wrong with parts of your body that you can’t control: crackling fingers of something cold crawling out from my chest towards my nice juicy brain. I doubt this feeling means I’m dying, but it’s nasty nasty to have it come and go without warning, and it’s basically making my life unlivable for the moment.
So what’s the surpise? Well, I just got married. We did that thing that is denied to gay couples: I’m getting health insurance through my partner’s med school by abusing the institution of marriage (they grant HI to same sex domestic partners, but not opposite sex). To us, it means paperwork that saves us money. We are already committed, and the funny thing was: this last sunday we just told our parents that we are having a commitment ceremony in a year and half to celebrate for both families and friends: just to celebrate a union that basically already exists. And that that’s as close to marriage as we’d be getting. We don’t need no paper from the city hall, keeping us tied and truuuuuee!
Well, now we have to go visit a justice of the peace tommorow (24 hour waiting period). Both, did that shut us up. My dad drove in from to be with me at the hospital, afraid I might die, and he ended up driving us to City Hall, me with those gooey EKG things still plastered all over under my shirt.
So, that was a pretty screwed up day.
