Not a Heart Attack

That was the verdict after my exciting trip to the ER/stay at the hospital!

I had the unfortunate combo of chest and arm pain (and some fatigue to boot), and a nervous call to my health care nurse line got me sent directly to the ER.

Still, I thought they'd dismiss me after checking me out, but no, they decided to admit me and keep me hooked up to a monitor. Ended up staying at the hospital 18 hours, and they decided it was not my heart, whatever it was. Perhaps an inflammation of the chest wall muscle, perhaps the world's most expensive case of heartburn.

I did a stress test, which was positive (you want negative), but then was told by almost everyone that women tend to get false positives on the stress test. So first they were going to do an echocardiogram to be absolutely sure nothing was wrong, but once they figured out that the cardio lab was way backed up for the weekend, the cardiologist on staff decided that my stress test was "normal, for a woman." And off I went!

It helps that I'm only 35 and have basically no risk factors or major health history of any kind.

Feeling fine now, though I plan to cut back on the coffee drastically and work on stress reduction. I can't deal with heartburn that manifests like a heart attack!

The big bummer is that I was supposed to be away for a girls' weekend at a cottage on a lake in mid-Minnesota, scrapping, swimming, and generally living it up with a few ladyfriends. They were pretty surprised when they came to pick me up at 7 am and DH said, sorry, she's in the hospital! It was more medically dramatic than having a baby!

Trying to catch up on the news around here and failing, but I do have an excuse!