A few days ago, I woke up looking forward to a day with
nothing pressing at work and a weekend with no plans, with pain in my chest and back and felt a
little short of breath. “Ugh, I better
not be getting bronchitis!” I thought.
Took some Robitussin and went on with my day, dropping my son off at
school and heading into the office.
Throughout the day, I started feeling worse, chest was very tight and I
started feeling like I could not breathe, though I did not feel sick. Took a shot from my asthma inhaler and it did
not help, so started worrying a little.
A short while later, I left to pick my son up from school,
and on our way home I started having unbearable pain with each breathe in. I had tears running down my eyes and I
actually screamed a couple of times.
“What is wrong, Mom?” my son worriedly asked?
“You know how my chest hurt this morning, it really hurts
now.”
I then did not take our usual turn to head home. “We are going to the hospital, aren’t we?”
“Yes, please get my phone from my purse and call your
stepdad and ask him to meet us.”
The grace of God was with me, and not only did I make it
there with no traffic lights, I got the last parking spot in the Emergency Room
parking lot. At that point though I
could hardly do anything.
“Please run inside and tell them your Mom might be having a
heart attack.”
His eyes filled with fear, and he raced out of the car.
And this is where the story starts making me mad.
I managed to stumble out of the car, crying and visibly in
pain, past the “Valet” for the ER who didn’t even blink an eye, and got through
the door of the hospital just as my son was running back out with the only
person he could find to help him…another patient in the ER who was in the
waiting room. She helped calm my son and
helped me to get to where I needed to for someone to check me in. When I was asked what brought me there, I
said I was having unbearable chest pain, tightness, shortness of breath, and
was afraid I might be having a heart attack.
“So, have you ever had an anxiety attack before.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact I have, that is not what this
is. I hurt.”
“Calm down, you are just having anxiety.”
“No, I am not.”
They did an EKG and I was not having a heart attack. This just reinforced to them that it was
anxiety, and that is actually what they wrote down on my official medical
record as my official complaint. “Anxiety.”
When the nurse finally came into see me, she looked at me
questioningly and said “Are you feeling better?”
“Not really.”
“It says here your complaint is anxiety, you don’t look
anxious.”
“I’m not, I’m in pain.”
To make a long story short, there is a tear in my diaphragm and
my stomach is protruding through it. I
have a bad hiatal hernia. Did I have
some anxiety? I’m sure I had the normal
amount anyone with some kind of unknown painful medical condition had,
especially considering it happened as I was driving down a busy city street
with my child in my car. But the fact
is, I had a true medical issue, one that was poo-pooed as anxiety. What if it had been something more severe,
and I got worse while I was sitting alone in a little room with only my child,
with no one checking on me for quite a while because they wrote me off as
having anxiety?
Trust me, I know stress.
I have it every day. I know what
anxiety feels like, and I sure as hell am not going to go to the ER and pay
over $1000 insurance copay to have people treat me like a crazy person if that is my only
issue.
My son was looking through the prescriptions they gave
me. One was for Xanax, because they
still had the “anxiety” complaint down.
I filled it, told my son I might need it to go on the plane to
Cooperstown in a couple of weeks, that will me make me anxious.
He replied, “Yeah, I might need one too.” Sorry kiddo, you are out of luck! Yes, we are a family who understands what
anxiety is.
And what it isn’t.
That’s why they have wine….even though I’m only supposed to
have limited amounts with my medical condition!
