Suffocating

This is not a fun time at all. As I look back at the past 2 years. It’s filled with a lot of emotion. A lot of fear, anger, and pain. With the clots those didn’t bug me much. Like last time.  When it started impacting my breathing and just moving in general became…. Hard. As this is supposed to be honest and unfiltered, I will be 2000000% in saying that that’s whole experience has… scarred the living fuck out of me. Both short term and long term. Going back to work and being in office is something that has happened way too soon. Yeah I’ve had a week off, but I can assure you I wasn’t off. 

It was excruciatingly painful to get out of bed. And no not the made up kind. Under my left shoulder blade and my right leg was absolute murder. It didn’t want to work at all. The more I moved it, the more numb it would become. I constantly just wrote it off as old age, or just another weird thing. As time progressed, my chest, neck, thighs, and face felt … swollen. But nothing you could easily see unless you were looking at the right spots.  Aggie would ask me every day how I felt, and as time went on my responses and tone evolved. 

My heart has always been doing weird things for the past year or so. Speeding up, slowing down. I would just go into full on sweat mode just sitting. As time went on the racy feelings with the come down mixed in with strange pains. I

started to get concerned when my heart rate was hitting 120-140 and just sitting there for 10-15 minutes. Then that’s when I start to notice the swelling getting worse along with numbness. 

I’ve felt worse and worse as time went on. The common theme was swelling. Again, you couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. Shit. Look at my stomach with all the stretch marks. That’s not from being fat. Same thing down my legs. I’m lucky to consume maybe 1500 calories a day. Which most of the time I just don’t want to eat. 

When my leg started to hurt, great. Something else. That’s how I felt about it.  As a few months went by, the pain got worse and worse. Going up stairs was starting to really not be easy. Out of breath. I counted it as just out of shape. I mean, I haven’t moved in months. As time went on, the leg pain felt like extreme cramps, and I could do nothing but limp. It was starting to fucking hurt. Following that path, let’s try muscle relaxers. What could go wrong?  Besides just sleeping. All it too was 1 Costco run to hint at what’s wrong. As I carried Coke up the stairs the lightheaded feeling slapped me right in the face, which was immediately followed by my heart racing and feeling skips. My shoulder started to hurt. As we got into the house, I would have to put my heart rate at 130+ bpm. Typical for how things have been but this was different. I told the wife that we should go. We did a simple clot check test and definitely got out the door. 

I started to notice stabbing pains around my lungs. The faster the heart rate the more I couldn’t breathe. Which spins up the anxiety. K just calmed myself down by laying down, and taking Ambien early. I mean that stuff does do an incredible job of shutting me down. The next day I woke up was weird in a lot of ways. It felt like someone was just sitting on my chest, and that my leg was starting to really hurt. I chalked it off to slept wrong. Today was important as I am teaching today. One of the things I love to do. 

As class neared my chest was starting to hurt, and with that the overall pain from my leg from before but it’s moving up my leg. My heart rate just started to take off doing its usual bipolar scene if you wanna call it that. Class started out great. Lots of great questions, lots of great comments. Sweet. Off to a great start. About 2 hours in my back started to clamp down. Left shoulder all the way to the cage. My heart stepped up the game of fast foreword rewind and the pain would just to incrementally higher. 

At this point I’m seeing flashing lights shooting stars. Crazy encrypted storms of it. I love ow I’m the only one seeing them too. So after that the lightheadedness hit. Then that’s when I realized I’m going to get hit by a car if I don’t sit down. 

I finished the remainder of the class in excruciating pain, and super uncomfortable I

Said goodbye to the students walked out.  At about mid panic I called Aggie and told her what was going on. I had to get to an MRI for my face thinking maybe I’ll just get this done. No more to the end of the parking lot, everything started tk hit me. Even my watch was fucking yelling at me. So instead I went to Swedish. No more I got in and I was off to Ct pretty quickly. When in minutes they returned with a small fluid bag, I knew that I was going to be admitted. Straight up heparin with a twist. A big blast dose followed by a bag of heparin. Followed by a “you are being admitted”. She then started to explain that I had bilateral saddled PE’s.  Definitely staying awhile. 

From this experience the lead up to it all, breathing was fucking hard. You’d take a breath and it didn’t freel that feeling you get when you breathe. Where you feel your lungs full. This wasn’t the case. It was almost like I was suffocating.  At time went on the suffocating and the swelling was just gripping me like Vader would force choke someone.  Every day/week went by as it slowly took me over. 

I look at my heart data over the past year and yes, you can clearly see it happening. Very subtle, but you can see it. 

I sat with my GP this week. He still can’t believe it but I think he’s starting to see what’s going on. He agreed to write me a letter that I can permanently bring with when I need help. It’s quite clear I get ignored. It’s taken it’s toll on me. I know why I’m rude when I go to the dr. Anxiety to its fullest. I know there will come a time where I’m in trouble again and they will just not care. It was pretty clear when they wheeled me into the hallway where sick people kept walking by. It’s tiring explaining to people they can’t do that.