My last post (Friday) found me in the throes of food obsession. I was feeling anxious, not quite right physically (but not really wrong, either), and contemplating the ingestion of mass quantities of crap for the purpose of numbing the vague disquiet that was permeating my being. I felt off enough that I actually called and made an appointment for a brief visit with my primary doc for Monday morning. I think I noted in the post that I'd been thinking all day that if I got into a dedicated eating forage, I'd feel less anxious.
I held out for quite awhile. I went to the gym after work, and when I got on the treadmill, my heartrate was at the top of my fat-burning zone before I took a step. Hmmm, more anxiety, this time of the health variety..."what's wrong? something's wrong, I'm terminal..." Health anxiety is a biggie of mine, and I know had been at the core of my angest all day, and actually the day prior as well. But I started walking, and my pulse just crept up more and more even as I notched down the speed, to the point where walking at 2.5 mph had my heart rate at 120. It felt like I was standing still! So I gave up and decided to see if I could get my B/P checked by a trainer. It was 140/80 - the 80 was fine, but the 140 up some, which I attributed to my ever increasing nerves about my well-being. S-i-i-i-gh.
I went home and had my protein bar snack...still thinking I was going to stay the course with not overeating. Until...I had another bar 5 minutes later, and then a half bag of BBQ potato chips, and off to the races. I did feel better, or at least noticed the cessation of anxiety, so for the next few hours I did my usual stuff. Went to an AA meeting with friends, out to dinner after (BIG DINNER WITH BINGE WRITTEN ALL OVER IT) and finally home. Hubby was upstairs watching the Phillies, so I stayed downstairs and watched mindless fluff until I fell asleep. And then, maybe 20 minutes after dozing, I woke up feeling like I was pulsating all over. Very anxious, extremely rapid heart beat, and ready to jump out of my skin. I thought it must be a panic attack (I've had maybe 2 in my life, one upon waking up like had just happened), so I kept trying to calm myself, but it wasn't happening. I was so nervous and freaked out I felt like my legs were jumping.
After 10 minutes of not being able to calm and get my heart rate to slow, I went upstairs and told my husband I thought something was going on and I needed to go to the ER. UGH! So off we went...me vibrating and talking 90 miles/minute, him just dutifully listening and being his dear sweet self.
Now this could be a very long story, but I'm going to try to cut to the chase and drop the 2 zillion details my tangible friends (vs. my virtual ones;)) have had to endure, with all the minutiae. My heart rate was in fact very fast, 133 when the leads were first placed, slowing fairly quickly to between 112 and 120 once I got settled onto the ER stretcher and hooked up. They quickly drew a ton a blood, asked a ton of questions, did an EKG, chest x-ray, urine culture and dripped in a bag of IV fluid. I felt calmer almost immediately and stopped vibrating visibly, but I stayed on edge, wondering WTF was going on. Finally, the doc came back in and told me I have a pretty substantial UTI! A urinary track infection! I was pretty stunned and pretty relieved. Last I heard, you don't kick the bucket from a garden variety UTI. And no kidding - my heart rate dropped 10 beats per minute just finding that out. He said everything else (EKG, x ray, blood work) were fine, except a slightly elevated white cell count indicating the infection. A couple more tests were run to make sure I didn't have systemic infection, a first dose of Cipro given and I was released on my own recognizance (and hubby's) around 3 a.m. The doc thought the infection had been with me for awhile (thinking back I recall a couple weeks' worth of subtle symptoms I blew off), and felt that my heart rate was related, but increased by my anxiety level, given the ceiling clinging nature of it. He gave me no restrictions and advised I see my primary early in the week. See how smart I was to make that Monday morning appointment last Friday?
I felt fine Saturday. No anxiety, a nice slow heart rate, decent energy, and wouldn't you know - a hearty appetite! I decided on no exercise, lots of rest, and eating what I wanted. No desire to binge. Ate things like an amazing cranberry walnut bagel I'd never otherwise have had. Lots of other yummy stuff too. No bingeing at all. Enjoyed it and figured I'd face the music Sunday morning. I spent the afternoon at the local knitting shop, knitting with friends and enjoying an on-the-fly therapy session among the women prompted by my recounting of the ER visit. It was a very therapeutic, warm and fuzzy wrap up to the experience. I think I'm gonna make it!
More on Sunday later...
No comments:
Post a Comment