You’re not alone, Scylla, ya big lug.
Last year, I started having tachycardian and arrhythmia without warning. Not much fun. Especially since I remembered during the middle of one attack that my high school band director had died of such a thing. Went to the doc, got meds, got told to quit caffeine. Thought all was good.
Then, during lunch one day, I got hit with the worst attack ever. First someone was playing bongo drums on my heart, and then, I couldn’t find my pulse. Not in my wrist, not in my throat. Logically, I should have known that if my heart had stopped, I wouldn’t be sitting there freaking out; I’d have been on the floor in limp heap. The logic circuitry was not working at that point, however.
Figuring that if I was going to die, I might as well do it in the presence of my principal, so there’d be no question of worker’s comp and such. I strode over to the office only to find the school nurse filing paperwork. I got her attention just as the arrhythmia faded out. She took my blood pressure and pulse, which was some ungodly number like 160/50 and 120, and just as the math teacher went to find the principal, the bell rang.
What did I do? I left, because I had to teach my art class. I made it back, I got the class started, I even managed to direct the discussion on the daily response while clutching my desk trying not to pass out. Five minutes into class, my prinicipal and the math teacher strode in. They had to pry me out of the classroom, make me go lie down in the nurse’s office, and then insist I call my doc. All I wanted to do was dig a hole in the ground, climb in, and pull it over my head.
So, yeah, I know how you feel. (And in the end, all I needed was a higher dose of the med my doc put me on. All’s been well since then.)
Go get that checkup and hug your wife and little ones.