Part I: Mayday

My body was not my own. Heart rate spikes, nausea, facial tingling, light-headedness, chest discomfort, limb pain. I tried to figure out every logical cause for these random physical maladies that had struck me on the eve of my entire family skipping town, leaving me with a gloriously quiet house. This particular week was supposed to be a highlight of my summer: space to breathe and recharge.

Instead, I found myself crouched on my closet floor, crying from these physical symptoms that were holding me hostage.

Not wanting Brent to cancel his trip with the kids to visit family, I dropped them off at the airport the following day and drove sixty minutes to my parents’ house. Sixty panicked minutes of wondering if I would pass out. Wondering if I were in some pre-heart attack state. Wondering if I would die behind the wheel before I even made it to them.

My brain likes for things to make sense, and I didn’t have a reasonable explanation for what was going on inside my body except this: I must be dying.

My dad, having experienced something similar around my age, immediately reassured me that it was anxiety. My parents, though they believed the symptoms I felt were indeed real, felt there was nothing devastatingly wrong with my health.

I tried to enjoy dinner at a restaurant with them that evening, but every time I took a bite of marsala, I felt a wave of nausea come over me, and my heart rate monitor showed that I was experiencing a spike. I had to fight back tears at the table. I made it through the night, but the next day I was an emotional wreck. This was more than anxiety. I had zero things in my life to even feel anxious about. That same day my brother called to let me know that he was available to help me with anything I needed while Brent was gone.

What I decided I needed was to go to the emergency room. My body was sending rapid fire distress signals. I drove back to my side of town, packed a bag, and let my brother come pick me up to take me to the hospital. He and my sister-in-law were by my side every step of the way, rearranging their schedules, reassuring me that everything was going to be fine, and helping me figure out the whole ER process, something I had never experienced before.

Other than high blood pressure (for the very first time in my life) and an elevated heart rate, my EKG came back normal, as did the chest x-ray and all my blood work. After some fluids and a referral to a cardiologist, I was discharged. Since I was still experiencing symptoms, I was too afraid to be home alone. What if something happened to me in the middle of the night? My brother offered to let me spend the night with his family, and I didn’t have to think twice about taking him up on that. That night was my first experience with a true migraine. I woke up in the middle of the night to what felt like a vice crushing the back left side of my skull while a blade was slicing through my eye.

I thought after being somewhat reassured by the physicians at the hospital, my symptoms would start to dissipate. Maybe it was just anxiety. Little did I know that the heart rate spikes, facial tingling, and chest discomfort would be the first of sixty days of physical and emotional torment. It would be the first of sixty days of a buffet of tests, labs and doctor’s appointments. My symptoms would not improve. They would play musical chairs in an attempt to drive me mad.

For those sixty days, every ailment would stamp my brain’s passport as it traveled through possibility land. Was this about my heart? My brain? My nervous system?

As it turned out, it was all of the above.

I was just looking in the wrong place.