Lunatic Ramblings...

This is a story I have been working on for a long time. I was not sure where else to write it so am using a blog site. If you are reading this, I have either invited you to see it so consider yourself a person I feel comfortable sharing with, or you have stumbled upon this blog while surfing the internet. Either way...here it is. Some of this is pieced together and copy and pasted from journal entrys I was keeping as I went along...
If some of these does not make sense I guess it is because it was not meant to...or maybe I just dont make sense..
A bit of background...I was always very active, very funny, outgoing. I was a very hardworker. I worked my way up from not even graduating high school and being a teen mom to 2 kids to having 2 degrees, working as a nurse and respiratory therapist. Completing advanced cardiac life support courses, taking classes to teach acls and more. I was very ambitious and never quite thought I would be done with school. There was always *something more* I wanted to do.
I worked for a certain hospital for about 5 years and enjoyed that job very much. I had lots of friends and knew what I was doing. Due to budgets and hospital cutbacks I was laid off. Around this time I also started not wanting to go out and do things. I turned down invitations to parties, weddings etc...I always had an excuse.
I applied for other jobs and was hired right away...but I just could not feel comfortable at a new job. I worked at one medical job for a few weeks but I could not sleep and was sick and a mess. The job was very stressful and I just could no handle it. I quit. I then sort of wandered from one job to the next over the matter of a few months. I FINALLY found one that was perfect for me. I did not have tons of patients to care for at one time. The other nurses and staff were great and I felt like I fit right in. Again, after a few months due to budgets the facility closed and I was left looking for another job.
At this point I just did not want to work anymore. This was odd for me because I loved to work. But we did not think much of it. We wanted another baby and I wanted to stay home anyways. I was also having issues at this time with pain. I had lots of pain in my neck, back, shoulders, actually I hurt just about all over..I had various tests and it was found that I had fibromyalgia. I was given a few medications to take. I also had a few other health issues that co-exist with the fibro..IBS, interstitial cystitis, poor sleep..and the list goes on.
At this point I started withdrawing a bit more from the outside. I was fine at home and nobody knew anything was going on. But I always had an excuse why I did not want to go somewhere....my husband is great and went along with it.
It took a few years to get pregnant and the baby did not survive..we decided we would not have anymore children....3 months later I was pregnant again and an emotional mess that something would happen to this baby...with the help of progesterone supplements and great prenatal care I ended up doing fine. At the end though I was having weird heartbeats, shakes and sweats..at the time they thought it was maybe blood pressure problems or something related to the pregnancy. In hindsight I think it was minor anxiety attacks from me being so worried my baby would be still born or something else would go wrong.
When the baby was 7 weeks old I went to the dr for the pain I was in...I explained to him all that was going on and he told me again that it was fibro and that I also had a social anxiety disorder. He wanted to medicate me then for it but I was breastfeeding and was still in denial that anything major was wrong..so what that I was not social....my husband and I even joked about it that I was going to be known as the old hermit that lived on the hill..
as the next year or so went on I was in more and more pain and was on daily pain pills. I also was much less social...to the point that there were times that months would pass and I would not leave the house..again I had an excuse for all of it. I homeschooled my 3rd child so I would not have to take him to school. The older 2 kids took busses to school. My husband did all the shopping and all the other errands...
I started shopping online so I would not have to go out.
Still I did not think much of this..
July 2004 I started not feeling well. I often felt shaky. Sometimes my heart felt funny. I thought maybe it was problems like low blood sugar so I would eat and sometimes I felt better. I just did not quite feel right. About August 9th I started having a feeling like there was a lump in my throat....very bothersome. Then...the worst thing ever..
August 12th 2004...I was standing in the kitchen talking to my husband and all of a sudden I could not breath. I was icy cold, shaking. My chest hurt. I had a huge lump in my throat. I felt like I was suffocating and having a heart attack at the same time. I told my husband something is wrong. He took one look at me and said we better go to the hospital. I agreed...this scared him because I never agree to let him take me to the hospital. On the way to the hospital it was getting worse, I was feeling faint and nauseous and could not catch my breath. My youngest 2 kids were in the car and I was crying telling my husband I was sorry that I was leaving him because I really thought I was going to die and leave him to raise the kids.
We got to the hospital and they started an iv, drew blood, took urine, hooked me up to the monitors. My heartrate was through the roof and so was my blood pressure.