Squanch and Vodka

On the Outside of Being Inside-Out

It's been 10 days since you looked at me... Remember that song?  That's not how it starts, but you're singing it in your head right now, so that's okay enough.  I've had a good/bad, up/down last few days.  Some wins, some losses, some disappointments, some shame, one superb night of rest, and an almost nocturnal emission with a Brazilian actress whom was so gullible, she thought I was teaching her how to do "excited" better.

From my last post, I had talked about weight loss; and I didn't want to follow up on the 8th because when I weighed-in, I had gained 2 lbs.  What had changed from the previous week?  I didn't go to the gym as much, but I was still fairly active.  I got a new couch, and moved that in, and spent several days hanging out with my nephew.  And anyone who has entertained a 6-month-old whom loves to jump will tell you, your shoulders get REALLY sore after just a few hours of playing, "look what I can do" with the bundle of joy.  But I love the goober, so I push through the pain and soreness so he can keep smiling that awesome smile.

So I played a lot, exercised via life, and weighed-in, and gained 2 lbs.  I didn't get a BF% measurement, and maybe it went that way, but it didn't feel very good.

Ready for the good news?  Not yet.

That same Monday, I went into work, drank my obligatory energy drink, and worked until about 2 PM.  Then grabbed another energy drink, and started to eat around 5 PM.  I swallowed an especially large piece of beef jerky just as I felt I was coming down and crashing hard from the energy drinks, and the piece of meat started a slow-crawl over the bump in my throat caused by a benign growth on my thyroid, pressing against my esophagus.  I felt anxiety, even though I could breathe, and felt my heart rate increase.

The meat cleared, but my heart rate continued to thump away.  Before I knew it, I was laying down in a peer's office, talking to them, trying to get my heart to calm down, and it just wasn't budging.  I was having a full-fledged anxiety attack at work, and couldn't understand why it was lasting for so long.  I had one a month ago and called Jack to talk to me and keep my distracted, and eventually felt better.  But this one wasn't going away, and didn't.  I went home and tried to sleep, but couldn't.  It felt like my breathing didn't match my heartbeat, and that kept me awake.  Eventually spoke to a physician, who recommended a sleep aid to calm my heart and help me sleep, which I did around midnight, waking up a few times, and feeling a little better in the morning.

As soon as I got into my groove at work, the thumping starting again, and found myself in a bit of a tight spot.  I took the afternoon off, hung out with my Pop, sister, and bouncing nephew, and observed random times it spiked from "on the edge" to "falling to my doom."  I went to dinner with the aforementioned party, and got in my car to drive home when I realized the shallow breath and tightening in my chest wasn't because of my anxiety -- it was because of my asthma.

I began to think of the timeline, and how things played out, and realized that if I started having an asthma attack on Monday morning, and the energy drinks, with their caffeine, helped improve my airways, so I didn't notice the attack, and then suddenly didn't have that with the crash when my heart started bumping harder.  And if my heart needed more oxygen, but couldn't get it from the asthma attack, it would likely pump harder, but certainly not slow down.  So the persistence of the heart's demeanor in conjunction with the asthma attack led me to believe I was about to go into cardiac arrest, or have a heart attack.

I realized this all while driving home, and then making a big decision then.  I took some anxiety meds from a few years ago that hadn't expired, and took them with some Prednisone -- the drug they give in ER's when having an asthma attack, remembering a doctor telling me that mixing the steroid with a muscle relaxer was fine, since they targeted different parts of the body, and waited.

After 40 minutes of waiting, I felt my heart thump HARD 3 times, and my lungs suddenly open up.  I jumped up out of my chair in panic, took several very deep breaths, and walked around a bit.  My heart began to slow down, and breathing became enriched with delicious oxygen.  And finally my heart calmed down.

I legit felt like I was going to die by taking steroids to calm my heart down.  Typically it's thought that steroids will increase heart rate.  But since my heart needed oxygen, which it couldn't get, the steroids opened the airways, and improved O2 potency, thus calming my heart.  After about 30 minutes of that, I felt the anxiety pill kick in and went to sleep.

So the good news was I was able to figure out what the problem was, and why it was being exacerbated.  Also, since it was going on, I decided I should still have my anxiety checked into because attacks have been happening with more and more frequency lately.  I've called a psychiatrist, psychologist, nutritionist, and family doctor for appointments in the next few weeks to get some things back in order that I've been intentionally avoiding.

I'm rather excited for each meeting, and for them to start helping me get things back together.

Also, when I weighed in this morning, 2 days after the 2 lb gain discovery, I had lost 7.4 lbs from Monday to Wednesday.  I'm guessing that my body being in a constant aerobic state had something to do with that.  We'll see how it looks tomorrow.

While I'm concerned about the increased rate of anxiety attacks, and migraines as well, I'm happy to be going to see professionals whom can help with those issues, and get me going on a better track.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend