ebbecor101

My life has literally reached an all-time low. I have no idea what to do, except to try and find a way through this. A lot of this is my fault, because I had VERY poor health habits during my college life. That being said, I feel like I’m being administered punishment from everyone and everything that is around me right now for this. I have no idea what to do, and I don’t see a good end in sight (any time soon anyway)

It all started getting worse about two weeks ago. I had just gotten back from journeying my broken car to San Marcos to deposit my check in the bank, when all of a sudden, when I walked in the door, I felt a sudden sharp pain in my chest. I had been having these for a good while now, starting as far back as freshman year of college. These pains started becoming more frequent as these summer months rolled by, but I thought nothing of them, so I dismissed them entirely. When June came and went, I started to feel these pains a little more, but I always dismissed them as something else, the pains of work and the like. I noticed I started getting winded even faster, I felt really heavy, and my back began to hurt like crazy when I stood up for extended periods of time. I finally looked on the computer for what it might be, as the symptoms were piling up. I knew absolutely where to look first, but it was the thing I had been dreading the longest. Coronary Artery Disease (or CAD) is a condition where your heart is being starved of oxygen and other nutrients due to the narrowing of the coronary arteries (the ones that feed the heart). Our blood contains cholesterol, sodium, and other things in it that can stick to the walls or your arteries. Over time, if you have bad health habits, or if heart problems run in the family, this matter starts to stick to the walls of your arteries. As this stuff hardens, it damages the wall of the arteries, and it will try to heal itself by clotting. This mass of junk that accrues is known as plaque, and if too much of it builds up in the coronary arteries, your heart has to work harder to supply itself with nutrients. Eventually, heart cells begin to die, and this is the start of CAD. Once that happens, the risk for Heart Attack and/or Cardiac Arrest greatly increases. A heart attack, depending on how bad it is, can result in the death of a large majority of heart tissue, increasing the chances of more fatal heart problems including cardiac arrest. A cardiac arrest is the instant death or cessation of the heart, in which, if CPR and a Defibrillator aren’t applied with in the first five minutes, your pretty much a gonner.

Tuesday night, I started to feel really dizzy, nauseous, and my heart rate felt abnormally high. I told my parents about this, and that I thought it was time to go to the emergency room. My parents agreed, but were very reluctant. This is due to my not having health insurance and the barrage of bills that I’d be receiving if I decided to go. Thinking that this would be better than dancing with uncertain death, I urged my parents to take me, and after a few minutes, we went. The wait took forever, and it was even longer before I was assigned a bed, but I was finally seen. They gave me an ECG (Electrocardiogram, in which they strap electric nodes to your body, and monitor things like, speed of heart beat, distribution of electrical pulses from your pacemaker, and if there are any irregular or skipped heart beats). They told me that my heart was beating normally, and that it seemed fine to them. They then commenced to take blood and urine samples, and a quick chest X-Ray. I never heard the results of any of these things the first time, except for the ECG, but they told me that the increased heart rate was due to anxiety (I’ll admit, I was freaking out a lot. My body was shaking uncontrollably, and I was breathing really fast. I don’t know whether that was due to the temperature in the room, or their prediction, but I was happy to take an IV of a relaxing medicine designed to sedate and lower blood pressure). They deemed that the chest pain was due to an uncertain cause, and that it didn’t appear to be coming from my heart, although they mentioned that serious problems sometimes took more time to appear. They wrote me a prescription for the relaxer medicine they gave me, gave me my discharge papers, and sent me on my jolly way at about midnight the following day.

I went home and felt alleviated, and very loopy due to the pain medication, but after waking up from a long sleep the next couple of days, I began to feel the symptoms again, (they even got worse sometimes). I felt the chest pain, the heard breathing, dehydration, and the irregular heartbeats. Finally, I went to a follow-up exam at one of the branch-off clinics of the hospital I visited, and after I told the physician my symptoms, having him listen to my heart rate, and the review of my ER exams and other files, he gave me his take on what was happening. The said he doubted the problems were stress related, and that it was just my heart going nuts on me. Tachycardia, is a condition in which the pace making nodes are given the signal to make the heart beat even faster. This is due to the lack of oxygen that is reaching it, which happens when you are exercising or exerting yourself. Basically, your body thinks it’s exerting itself, and thus commands the heart to beat even faster so that oxygen rich blood can be distributed at a more efficient rate. He told me that when this happens though, your heard isn’t drawing in as much blood as it does when it’s beating slower, and thus not letting the lungs fill the blood with as much oxygen. This can be problematic due to the fact that your body isn’t getting enough oxygen, so you start feeling weak, lightheaded (especially because the brain needs the most oxygen), and (this was/is true for me anyway, you start getting cramps or feeling numbness). The doctor then wrote me a prescription for a calcium blocker called Diltiazem. This slows the heart rate down to a (supposedly) normal speed, and your heart is thus more efficient. I thanked the doctor, got the prescription, went to wally-world to fill it, and took my first dose at about 1pm, Thursday. As predicted, I felt my heart start to beat more slowly, and I took a long nap. When I woke up, I decided to take a walk to stretch my legs, and exercise. It started out alright, but as I kept walking, I noticed that I was feeling dizzy, and cramped. It seemed like my heart would not keep up with me, even when I put on some music that usually gets me pumped. This feeling lasted for a couple more hours, but then it started to wear off and I was starting to feel chest pains again. Thinking that it felt too weird the first time, I almost decided not to take the second dose of the day, but I read that your condition can worsen if you just stop cold turkey. So I took the dose after being sleepless for a couple of hours, and that’s when the real hell started.

I was starting to feel the effects of the drug, and sleepiness was creeping upon me. Unfortunately, I started feeling a little too sleepy, and felt more like I was going to faint and become unconscious, rather than drift off into a peaceful sleep, I felt my heart skip a few times, and when it did, a rush of numbness went through my body followed by adrenaline to suddenly spike my heart rate. I let this go on for about three more hours before deciding that I might be having a bad reaction to the medicine, and that another trip to the ER, was inevitable. I woke my VERY groggy parents and told them what was happening. They began to tell me that it was just a side-effect of the drug, and that I would just have to wait it out. Unconvinced that it was safe to sleep unmonitored, due to the fact that you can have cardiac arrest when you take heart altering meds, I pleaded with mom and dad. After arguing with my dad for at least 30 minutes, I finally convinced my mother to take me, though she (and my father) were convinced that this was very unwise (in which I agreed with them letting them know that I was aware of the costs of ER visits, especially to the uninsured, but that I had read up on cardiac arrest and found out that it was a quick, and silent death, where if resuscitation is not performed within the first five minutes, then the brain damage would start to happen, and death was more likely (this is what killed MJ). I also told them that I would rather be safe than sorry and that the debt was something I’d be glad to be around to pay off). My father does not like to be argued with, and I felt like instead of supplying helpful advice, he was giving grilling me about not having listened to him in the first place about checking with my mom about taking the pills first (it might be just me, but I give more weight to a doctor than to anyone else, I don’t know, maybe I’m being too paranoid). I’ll concede that it was unwise to do this, but I honestly didn’t know what she could tell me about this, if anything, besides elaborate on the merit of the clinic that I visited due to her own experiences. After all of this, I arrived at the hospital, and waited a LONG time to get a bed (I suspect this was because of their last diagnosis of me, and the fact that I was, indeed, without insurance). I was really weak, and hyperventilating so I felt my face buzz with the rushing of the blood, after what seemed like a lifetime. I was finally hooked up to the machines and observed. Again, my pulse ox (the percent of oxygen in the blood) was 100%, although my BPM’s were in the 60’s (even the fifties, anything below 60 is considered lower than the average adult BPM at rest, this along with anything over 100. After another urine/ECG/X-Ray (although this one was more elaborate as they made me actually go to the X-ray room). The doctor showed up and said everything was normal, only that I was having heart palpitations, which are skipped beats. After about an hour of napping under the influence of relaxer drugs, I was discharged once again. This pretty much brings me to right now. It’s Monday July 13, 2009, and about 1:45am.

I’ve applied for health insurance, but am waiting for a response (I understand it takes them a little while due to all of the background checks they must perform. If I get insurance, however, this will be a huge breakthrough for me, and one giant step toward granting me the peace of mind I’ve craved for weeks now.  Later today, probably in the waking morning, I’m going to schedule an appointment with a cardiologist, and have him take a look at me. I really hope the problem is either minor or non-existent, but my better sense tells me that it’s something I’m going to need to monitor.  I just had a talk with my mom, and we agreed that it would be better for me not to worry so much about it at present, and try to get back into a routine (dad added a little to that). That being said, I’m going to try my best to ignore the spasms in my calf muscle, and go to sleep. I guess anyone reading this, who wants to pray, or do anything like that, is more than welcome. Just knowing that I have people who care for me, brings me comfort in this trialing time of my life. I really appreciate you reading this, if you have indeed come this far, and I want you to know that I care for you too, although I’m shitty at expressing feelings. Well, now to proofread this bad boy, and try and get some sleep. Goodnight and good luck. Lol.

Is retarded, I really want the semester to fire back up. That's all for now.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Last night was pretty freaking crazy, to say the least.

I don't know if it was me overreacting from some obscure side effect of the Tylenol PM I took, or my fears manifesting, but I all of a sudden felt a fluttering in my heart while i was trying to go to sleep. Thinking very quickly, I hopped up out of my sleeping quarters, and entered the living room, adrenaline coursing through my veins, to find that my dad was up getting ready for work (this was at around 5:00a.m.). I felt my chest to find, to my relief that my pulse either stabilized, or there was nothing wrong with it at all. After telling my parents about what has been going on with me for the past couple of weeks, I stayed up for an additional hour reading up on what could possibly be ailing me. Let me say that the outlook doesn’t look good as I have many of the symptoms that are outlined under some of the more common heart conditions including CAD, heart failure, and Cardiac Arrest. Needless to say, once Friday rolls around I will request an immediate checkup, and see once and for all what the heck has been going on with me. In the meantime, I’ll try and avoid very strenuous activities, and keep reading up on what might be wrong. If your reading this, I’m writing this, solely for the purpose of getting my complete thoughts out, and while the public forum might not be the BEST place for this, to me it’s a necessary method of being completely honest with myself, and dodging all denial of what’s going on. Anyway, I’ll not send an update on face book telling you to read this one, but if you come across it, hopefully (for me), things became more clear and turned out for the better, whatever that means.    

Well, lately my chest has been hurting, which is really not a good sign for me. My families on BOTH sides, namely the men, have had TERRIBLE heart issues. These, combined with my utter lack of exercise, have likely served to exacerbate this situation. I'm gunna see if I can see a doc, and have tests done, so that if I do have a heart condition, I can start doing things to reduce my risk of major problems arising, namely acute myocardial infarction. The problem, of course, is that I do not have insurance, and my job is just plain too shitty to offer an insurance plan. So I'll either have to find some, or try to pay out of pocket, which is very bleak considering my financial situation. In the meantime, I'm just trying to stay away from high cholesterol foods, and other things that might increase the risk, a good way to get out of a shit deep hole, is to stop digging. I'm this case, I've been drilling. I've practiced the absolute WORST eating habits in the past 4 years, simply because I thought myself invulnerable to the possibility of death, in my child-like thinking. I'm also gunna try more cardiovascular exercises to try and get my heart rate stronger.

Well,
I haveno idea why I am working, other thanthe need to make money. I feel like I have no goal I can feasably meet by the end if this summer, while still doing what I'm doing. Don't get mewrong, I enjoy the money, but virtually all of it either goes to bills or screw ups, like this ticket I got because I didn't register my car. I mean, I've been neglecting my car because it's broken, and to fix it in a shop would cost almost as much money that the whole car cost. Basically, my only hope is to either try and fix it myself, or it and hope I can get financed for a better one, which will likely, inevidably force me to pick up more hours or another job, and in turn, cut back on school. This of coure, to me, is out of the question. I would rather suffer all my problems now, than to quit on my education.

Well I'm done venting for now, peace out.

Me sitting here through TABC. Certification D:<

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What's up people?
Me? Not much. I just created this account, and I hope to start blogging on it soon about something or another. Since I don't know what that will be yet, I’ve decided to just go on about what's happening to me lately. Last summer, I bought a car, and it worked just fine for about three months, until one day back in November, while I was driving home from work, smoke started coming from the vents. I was like wtf? I later realized that the entire coolant system was rusted out, and the extent of the damage was so bad, it rusted a hole in the heater core, which leaks a good amount of coolant out every time I drive it. So that is one thing on the laundry list of things I have to resolve in my life, it's been driving me ape shit for the past six months, and by the end of the summer, I’ll either see it fixed, or junked.

I go to Texas State University, and while I'd like to think I'm pretty intelligent, I was very unsatisfied with the performance last semester in my classes. Although I can comprehend the material with very little problems (calculus might be the exception, but oh well), I must admit that I am VERY lazy. I lived in a dorm last semester, and it was VERY easy to get distracted. The combination of that, and skipping constantly, made very easy A’s, turns into Bs and even Cs.  You can see how this can have severe ramifications in my studies as there is a lack of overall studying period!!! I resolve to reform my habits starting next semester, and start doing my best to graduate with the best grades I can possibly get. My goal is either to go to Medical school to become a physician, (or something else I haven’t decided), or to teach High School Biology, because god knows we need science teachers who will actually teach SCIENCE in Texas high schools, and not religion. I’ll get to that in another blog….

I’m currently living at home, but am trying to look for a place, perhaps an apartment, so I can finally stop the whole dorm/home routine. I work at Rudy’s, and while it pays shit, it’s at least SOMETHING, plus some days are pretty enjoyable there. The family is pretty annoying, but I’ve found a good way to stay sane, at least until I get the hell out of the house. I live in New Braunfels, which I must say, although Round Rock will always have a special place in my heart, this town is pretty neat.

I think that’s all for now. I’ll find something to rant about later, and you can read if you have nothing better to do. Anyway, peace out.