1. On a random Thursday night, I decided to have 1 glass of wine. I laid in the dark on my couch in the living room and watched the last half of Brokeback Mountain playing on TV. I have seen this movie 100 times, I own this movie on DVD. Yet I watched it again midway through and proceeded to cry so hard that snot was running down my face and that weird sound that happens when you are sobbing kept squeaking out of me. In the middle of this, my neighbors dog escaped and came into my house because our back door was open, because it was 180 degrees outside and we were trying to cool the place down. The dog stood in the dark in the living room and stared at me. I went silent as I heard my neighbors tentative voice call "Mason?" into our house from the back door, knowing the dog was in my house but not wanting to be rude by coming inside himself to collect his dog. A normal person may have turned the TV off and went to collect the dog and give it back to the neighbor, or even called to the neighbor to say "he's in here, I'll bring him to you". Not me. I went silent and prayed that our new neighbor would not cross our threshold and see me sobbing like a wild woman in the living room. "Mason?" I heard the voice call again. Mason wasn't gonna stick around for more Brokeback crying and would eventually find his way outside I figured, so I choked back my sobs until I heard the neighbor give up and go away. I then immediately returned to sobbing. Mason and I sat together for a while until he got up and ran down the hall and out the door to freedom. I came to the realization the next day that maybe it wasn't normal to: A) lay on the couch in the dark and cry about a movie I have seen a million times and B) completely disregard the fact that the neighbors dog was in my house watching me do this-but what do I know?
2. Recently I was laying again in the living room on the couch watching a movie with Husband when I felt my heart go thump....long pause...thump thump. The pause was too long for one to feel comfortable. I immediately knew that I was obviously dying. I also noticed that I had been feeling sorta congested lately in my chest, like a cold was coming on. The night after that it happened again while I was laying in bed. Husband had just turned the light out when I sat up and declared:
"There's something wrong with me!"
To which Husband responded: "OK".
"No I'm serious! Its like my heart or something! I am NOT WELL!"
Husband then rolled over to face away from me and said in a bored monotone:
"Do I need to take you to the emergency room?"
"I don't think so" I barked panicked.
"OK then, go to sleep and you'll be fine".
"I'm not kidding around here, something is wrong!".
"Then go to the doctor tomorrow, and go to sleep".
How could Husband sleep at a time like this?! Cold, horrible man. Luckily, I survived the night. I then panicked the whole next day and did the one thing one must never do- I looked it up on Web MD. It actually interrupted my symptom questionnaire that I was answering to give me an alert message that if I was having the symptoms I was claiming to have that I should immediately go to an emergency room right away. Discomfort in chest area? check. Happening at night (how did it know?) check! GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM RIGHT NOW! The alert message said with a red triangle indicating obvious horror. After consulting both best friend #1, #2 and Friend/Boss on this situation, my result was: I'm probably not dying, but I should go to the doctor reasonably soon to quell any anxiety driven panic I may be experiencing and or physical symptoms that may be happening and of course rule out anything serious. I made an appointment for the next morning and spent the rest of the day worrying that I was clearly having a "silent heart attack" as indicated on Web MD.
So I went to the Doctor the next morning even though that day I had continued with my normal Tuesday night Tri training and felt fine. I felt silly going to the Doctor since my fear had calmed, my cold like symptoms were feeling better, and I hadn't had the weird heart thudding experience again. Basically I was just gonna go ask the Doctor to tell me I'm crazy. I went anyway, at least ruling out anything serious would put my mind at ease and wasn't that worth something? Yes! It was the right thing to do, I was sure of it, even though on the way there I got lost and almost cancelled my appointment.
Here is what I learned: What I had experienced when my heart did its weird slow Mo thud was something called Flip Flopping. Its when your heart pauses while pumping blood from the large chamber to the smaller chamber taking a moment to pause before it pumps back again- similar to the second hand on a clock when it pauses a bit before hitting the next minute. Apparently it happens to everyone, just not everyone notices. Those that do notice often end up at the Doctors office -like me in a panic. Caffeine, large amounts of vitamin D, lack of sleep, chest colds, among other things (all of which I do/have/drink/don't get enough of) can seemly aggravate this and make it more pronounced then normal. Huh.
So what I realized about myself: is that I'm clearly crazy, but I'm very perceptive and accurate too! I can live with that.
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| When I wore this outfit I was asked if I would be having dinner later at the Haunted Mansion |
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