dwindling

[jethrien]

I don't really post a lot besides book reviews at this point. It's a little sad. I don't really have the energy, honestly.

The quick round-up:
- SSRIs put me in the ER with chest pains, after a ramp up of increasing panic attacks. Then had to wait for two more weeks of panic attacks for it to clear my system.
- Yes, yes, I started therapy. Early to know whether it's particularly effective.
- Yes, yes, I'm looking for a new job. It sucks.
- Chuck has COVID. He's mostly ok, but isolating in hopes ARR and I don't get it (we don't have it yet). So I'm single-parenting for the most part at the moment. This also very much puts our plans next week to attend a wedding and then go on the first real vacation in two and a half years in jeopardy. This also sucks.
- These things really put a nice big focus on the stuff that was already making me depressed and anxious. Thanks, universe.

Comments

[redstapler]

ISTG, I feel like "I went to the ER for chest pains but it was a panic attack" has become a rite of passage for Millennials. Absolutely awful, I'm sorry you went through that. <3

[jethrien]

It's like, I knew it was almost certainly a panic attack. But when you google "panic attack vs heart attack symptoms" three times in an hour, it's time to just go to the ER.

[chuckro]

And it turns out that when you walk into the ER and say "I think I might be having a heart attack", they don't make you sit down and wait for three hours!

[jethrien]

Yeah, that part was actually a pleasant surprise. I mean, I'd mentally geared up to be sitting for longer unless I passed out or something, but my butt didn't touch a seat in the waiting room. Right on in to the blood pressure checker and then on to EKGlandia! I was one of the ones they were triaging for! (I wish I didn't know this information.)

[redstapler]

Heh, yeah, something about potential tachycardia really gets them to put their foot on the gas!

Very glad it was "just" a panic attack. <3

[fairest]

Some background: when women *do* have heart attacks, the symptoms tend to be very different from the classic chest/jaw/arm pain you get in men. Lots of heart attacks are missed in women because the primary complaint sounds like heartburn, or anxiety, or what have you, and the doctors work up accordingly. So if a lady comes in *saying* she thinks she's having a heart attack, the statement carries a lot of weight -- at least to my mind.

[jethrien]

Oh, I know! Which was a lot of why I got my butt to the hospital. It was like, well, I know I've been having increasing panic attacks for a month, and this is almost certainly a panic attack. BUT I also know that women are dramatically less likely to be appropriately diagnosed in time because our symptoms are less defined than dudes', and I know heart muscle doesn't really grow back once you've killed it. So EKG time!

[vshnayder]

Oof. Hugs to you and Chuck. But only after he's recovered! Wish we lived closer...