2022 is trying to kill me. I'm fine, I really am. I'm just *also* not fine.
I was getting pretty anemic throughout December, but felt okay until my heart started racing with the slightest exertion. Stood up and walked into the kitchen? 125. Made my kids lunch? 140. My usual resting heart rate is around 55-60, so this is a jump.
My skin really dried out. Honestly, no complaints there. Soft clear dry skin? Oh dang it. My coloring went pale. My lips faded out to almost nothing. But then my brown/green/hazel eyes stood out more, which is different. They're usually the most forgettable and boring.
January came around and I only felt crappier. Beyond the usual exhaustion and rapid heartbeat I'd been dealing with, the anemia brought a few extra things: my heartbeat whooshed in my ears all day, I developed TMJ and couldn't chew anything without having to basically manually move my jaw, I got random muscle spasms all day, I was absolutely freezing all the time. I also learned that iron deficiency can cause the darkening of eyelids -- my natural eyeshadow.
January 3rd I went to see my doctor because I had called to ask how much iron I should be taking, and they (smartly) said I needed to be seen. I had scheduled a haircut with my nephew, Parker, for that day. I asked Parker if he could keep an eye on my kids while I ran to the appointment, and then I'd come home and cut his hair, and he agreed.
The medical assistant pricked my finger and got other vitals before the doctor came in, so when he came strolling into the room he already knew the situation and immediately said, "Well, this is really bad." My hemoglobin was 6.4 -- in the "life-threatening" category. Oops.
The doctor said if we weren't in a global pandemic and a blood shortage, he would be sending me right down to the ER to be admitted and get a blood transfusion.
He asked if I'd fainted or anything like that, I said no. He gave me strict instructions to take it easy. He sent me down to the phlebotomist for a CBC blood panel and then set me up with a follow up appointment two days later.
I came home and cut Parker's hair, like I'd promised.
I walked him to the door, said my goodbyes, then fainted.
Oops.
I looked dead.
My blood panel came back a bit better than the quick finger prick test revealed, but still terrible.
My red blood cells were "panic critical low", my hemoglobin came up to 7.4 -- yay, up to the "severe" category from the "life-threatening", and it turned out my body was releasing immature red blood cells because I was in such trouble.
So I was put on not-quite-bed-rest and told to shut down my business for at least a month. January was long and short all at once. I couldn't lift the kids. I could only walk around for a few minutes at a time. Luckily Derrick was still working from home then, so he would do what he could to help me out with the kids when he was on breaks.
Very kind friends brought over meals and snacks, which were SO HELPFUL as well as morale-boosting.
The fun continues...
My son starting throwing up in mid-February. Then my daughter. Then my husband. I was the hold-out for a good day or two, and then I, too, succumbed.
We were worried about our little dude because he vomited 21 times over a few days, but the doctor's office said to just keep him hydrated.
After the week of catching vomit in my hands and cleaning up diarrhea puddles from leaky diapers, we all started with the sniffles, and soon we all had fevers and what felt like bad colds.
March 1st, I was having a hard time breathing, so I messaged my doctor's office and they said to do a Covid test, keep an eye on my oxygen with a pulse oximeter and if it got below 90, head down to the ER.
I asked my brother, Clarke, if he'd be willing to take me to the ER if I needed to go overnight, and he agreed. I got down to the high 80s when I was going to bed, but I was so not in the mood to deal with the embarrassment and second-guessing myself that would be involved with that.
Wednesday, March 2nd, I was feeling so rundown. Derrick was home from work because he was also still sick, and so we were all sitting in the living room first thing in the morning. I kept falling asleep and just couldn't stay awake, it was such a struggle.
Derrick kept asking me to check my oxygen and suggesting I go to the hospital. Mlehhhhhhhh. I told him that I was going to shower first, and then I'd think about it.
I was fine in the shower, but when I got dressed and walked into the kitchen, I plonked my head down against the refrigerator and declared that I was going to faint. Derrick made me sit down and close my eyes for a while and declared I needed to go to the hospital.
My sweet friend, Cirina, picked me up and took me down to the ER. When I checked in my oxygen was about 86, when they triaged me it was 81 when walking.
They tested for EVERYTHING.
They took 9 tubes of blood. They took a chest x-ray. They did a ct scan.
After a few hours, there was an answer! Human metapneumovirus pneumonia.
Apparently, like Covid, metapneumovirus is usually cold-like symptoms, we just lucked out to the be of the percentage of those who got the full-body response. Cool, cool.
I was admitted for the night. The ER doctor thought I'd be in the hospital for about 5 days, but the lung doctor was all sorts of not interested in my case -- he was pretty much decided that I was fine because my oxygen was 100 when I had an oxygen cannula, so he sent me home.
I was definitely not okay, despite the delightful lung doctor's assessment. I slept for the next five days.
(My parents came to town and my mom helped my still-sick husband care for our on-the-mend kids. Such a helpful relief. There is no way I would've been able to just sleep for days on days otherwise.)
And so it continues...
During the brouhaha in the hospital, it was found that my heart was enlarged. Cardiomegaly, according to the x-ray and ct scan.
During my follow up with my doctor, he did an EKG and set up an appointment for me to go down to a different clinic for a repeat chest x-ray, with instructions to not panic, but also take it easy.
Luckily, the new x-ray showed my heart was now at normal sizing. Hallelujah.
In May and June I became anemic again. Woohoo!
At the end of May we learned that Derrick's Grandma, or Oma, was declining in health. We had no idea she was doing so poorly, so it was a painful thing to learn. We decided to pack up the family and drive out to Colorado for the weekend.
On the evening of June 2nd, I had been shopping for road trip snacks and prizes and things to keep my small children occupied during this sudden long time in the car.
I took several trips back and forth between the car and house and came back out to close the hatch of the van. As I reached up I felt the familiar rush of the racing heart beat of heart palpitations. However, this time it just kept going. No stumble back to regular rhythm after a moment. For five solid minutes my heart just POUNDED, fast and furious.
202 beats per minute. Terrifying. Luckily I was wearing my Apple Watch and caught it on ECG.
I finally told my doctor about it a few weeks after our trip. He immediately had me come in and tried to drill into me the importance of taking it seriously.
He sent my ECG to a cardiologist/electrophysiologist, who immediately responded "I can see why you are so concerned." and asked my doctor to send over my information and they'd set me up with an appointment as soon as possible.
I was completely freaked out, and also stupidly embarrassed that all this was happening and now these guys had to take time out of their day to deal with me.
The electrophysiologist diagnosed it as sudden ventricular tachycardia and set me up with an echocardiogram, which went okay until the woman tried to put in an IV for contrast. Three attempts and then she said, "Well I'll tell them I tried." hahaha
The results showed that my heart is really strong, a great muscle. Except for this one little thing: a birth defect of the aorta. Cool, cool. So I have a mild coarctation, or my aorta is a little pinched.
In my research, I learned that the symptoms of that include exercise intolerance, chest tightness, difficulty breathing, etc. Um, hi. For most of my life I've been told I have exercise-induced asthma...which inclused chest tightness, difficulty breathing, etc... So I'm pretty convinced it has had more to do with my narrowed aorta than my lungs.
The cardiologist/electrophysiologist is pleased with the strength of my heart, but I'm still supposed to be taking it easy and "now is not the time" to add to my heart's workload. I am supposed to stay super hydrated and get a ton of sleep (hahahaha) and I have to remove outside stressors as much as I can and avoid caffeine for now, at least.
Because I have not had a history of high blood pressure, he is not concerned with my narrowed aorta at this time, but it's something I need to keep an eye on and get it rechecked every 6 months. Yay.
So overall, I've spent two-thirds of 2022 having to "take it easy" while struggling to breathe with a racing heart.
2023, I'm begging, please be gentle.
No comments:
Post a Comment