It’s been an interesting couple of days…  I woke up about 3am Thursday with intense, throbbing pain in my jaw…not like tooth, pain (I know that pain), but an almost electrical, vibrating pain that took my breath away.  I’m not sure how long it went on, but after taking some deep breaths it passed;  I felt scared, felt my pulse but didn’t count it, and it seemed okay.  As I drifted back to sleep, I thought:  I wonder if that was a heart attack.  When I got up about 6:30, my neck and right shoulder were achey and my arm was heavy;  I told Casey that I thought I might have had a heart attack and was going to make an appointment with the doctor.   Off I went to work and after taking care of a couple of kids, I called and made an appointment to see the NP.   When I went up to the front office and told them what was going on, they just freaked out, insisting that I go to Emergency Room.  I said, nonono, but I’ll go on home.  They scared the shit out of me with some stories of silent heart attacks and sudden death and soon I found myself calling Casey to meet me at home and take me to ER.   School staff was serious…one of them even followed me home because they were afraid I’d drive off into a ravine or something…

So I officially became one of “those people”…  I was quickly hooked up to a heart monitor, an EKG was done, Chest x-ray taken, blood drawn, vitals checked hourly.  My cardiac enzymes were negative, EKG WNL, CXR clear, bloodwork and blood pressure darn-near perfect, but they still wanted to keep me overnight under observation and do a stress test the next morning.   See how having high deductible insurance makes you a more frugal consumer of healthcare:  I said, I’ll go home and come back tomorrow.  That really was okay with them.  This morning I talked with the cardiologist and we agreed that a stress test was really unnecessary;  I had just “stressed” myself on the treadmill at the Y Wednesday afternoon with no hint of chest pain.  I feel slightly foolish, but it was quite frightening when it was happening.

However, the Real stress test has been the news…I have been so upset over our government shutdown that I tried to stay completely away from news, but that was futile.  Even though I don’t let the talking heads get to me, I can’t help but scroll through the headlines on the internet—even when they say the same thing over and over…   I was almost glad to be in the ER watching HGTV and feeling far away from the craziness when I got home and sneaked a peak at some headlines….and oh, shit, they shot some lady…  It’s enough to give a person the Big One.  I’ve had enough… time for a newsfast.

At least for now…we’re running away tomorrow…  I’ll take plenty of photographs and deep breaths.