Poor Sean, Alex, and Brian. They were so young and so sweet but despite my overwhelming love for them, I now found myself screaming and yelling at them for the most trivial things. Sean spilled his milk one night during dinner and I went ballistic. I couldn’t seem to cope with the boys’ normal needs and simple childishness. In the few hours he spent at home, Chuck seemed to be avoiding me. The reality of how bad things had gotten between us penetrated at times but I told myself, Maybe I’m imagining all this. Maybe he’s not around enough to even notice. Maybe he doesn’t care. I’m most afraid he really doesn’t.
All these changes happened to me over one year. Just one year! First, the headaches. Then the weight gain. Next, my hair loss. Then my erratic mood swings and ongoing depression. And after that, my periods became irregular. One by one, my symptoms accumulated. Why had my life changed so drastically in just twelve months?
Why?
There seemed to be no answer.
I went to doctor after doctor. None could determine a physical cause for any of my problems; so I dismissed the seriousness and continued to blame my lifestyle for my failing physical and emotional condition. Life’s stresses, my job, finances, my marriage, the kids. The same stale excuses.
One morning I woke to feel my heart skipping every sixth to seventh beat. “What the hell’s happening?” I cried out. Chuck slept on. “This has gone too far. I have to get some answers.”
I went to see a family doctor whom some other professors spoke highly of down the street from the university. After a thorough examination, Dr. Baker asked to perform an extensive thyroid scan. “Something’s not right,” he said almost too casually. “There’s an increase in thyroid activity which may be the reason for your health problems.”
“This never happened on any tests that were run by the various physicians I’ve been to over the past year,” I replied. “But I am relieved someone has given me some sort of answer for my recent health problems.”
The doctor prescribed expensive thyroid medication and told me to take it easy. I went home feeling relieved. I’d made some headway.
But nothing changed in the next few weeks. I still experienced sudden migraines, PMS, continuous spotting, depression, and unpredictable mood swings. My hair kept falling out in huge clumps. My fingernails were down to nubs. My weight was now up thirty pounds. My skin looked irritated and was broken out, and my eyes protruded to the point that I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror. Nonetheless, what scared me most was my heart. My heart now continuously skipped beats, sending unrestricted surges of blood through my veins.
Then, late one night, my heart abruptly began to beat ferociously until I lay motionless in a pool of sweat. I knew I had to do something else at this point. I thought I was about to die.
“Damn it!” I knocked the alarm clock off the bedside table as I feebly reached to see the time. It was 4:00 A.M. Chuck and I had returned home from a weekend “getaway” only a few hours before—an attempt to rekindle something, anything of our relationship. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, it wasn’t exactly a huge success.
Suddenly I felt awful. What was happening to me now? I felt hot, very hot, and it was getting harder to breathe. As I lay in bed trying to sleep, my heart began pounding with such fury I actually saw my chest heave with each amplified heartbeat.
Sweat poured down my body, yet cold chills made my jaw chatter. “I’d better check my heart rate,” I murmured. I reluctantly placed two fingers on my neck, afraid of what I’d find. I had reason for fear: my heart was beating one hundred eighty beats a minute! One hundred and eighty beats a minute? Propping myself up with a pillow, I cautiously counted again. One hundred and eighty beats. Now I was scared, really scared. I was slipping out of control. What was happening to me? What was wrong with my heart? Don’t panic, I told myself. You must NOT panic!
Then I thought to myself, I’ll just go to the hospital emergency room. They’ll be able to slow down my heart rate, and then I’ll come right home. I could leave a note for Chuck, I thought. The boys would never know I was gone.
I rolled to my side and elevated my body up and out of bed with a weak push. I dressed, swished mouthwash around my mouth, and whispered to my still sleeping husband that I was driving myself to the hospital. I was not sure if he heard me or not. That was okay, really, because I’d rather go through this alone, at least until I figured out what was happening to me. And if it was just paranoia, I’d only be embarrassing myself in front of some emergency room strangers.
I slipped out of the house and into the chilly morning.
The ten-mile drive to the hospital seemed a hundred miles. It was drizzling. The roads were slick. I had a hard time seeing the road. I didn’t see well at night, anyway. “Maybe I should just turn around,” I murmured. “Yeah. ‘Just turn around.’ Jan, you’re acting crazy.”
At last, I pulled into the hospital parking lot and spotted a parking place near the emergency entrance. Feeling very weak, I struggled out of the car and walked timidly toward the door.
“I feel like I am dying,” I whispered hoarsely to myself.
The glass doors slid open with a metallic bang, sending shock waves down the emergency room hallway. The smell of childhood vaccinations stung my face as I stepped inside and looked around. The room was almost deserted and creepy at this hour of the morning. I can’t believe I just drove myself to the hospital. I hate hospitals! I think I’m going to throw up. I think I’m going to die.
I shuffled to the receptionist’s desk. Sweat rolled down my back as I shivered with cold chills. A tired looking, middle-aged woman stood behind an oversized counter flipping pages on a clipboard. She looked up at me over the top of her heavy specs. “Yes?” she said in a monotone. “What can I do for you?”
I could barely hear her over the sound of my heart roaring in my ears.
I explained my situation as if confessing a crime. “I really don’t know what’s happening to me,” I said helplessly. “I just know I’m real sick, and I don’t know why.”
The tired receptionist ushered me to a cubicle where I exchanged my sweat pants and tee-shirt for a skimpy hospital gown, its flowered blue fabric faded from one too many washings. As if she were the hospital’s headmistress, she instructed me to lie down and wait for the doctor, and left. Listlessly, I obeyed, and fell instant prey to other emergency room personnel who came in and out bearing thermometers, blood pressure cuffs, and plasma kits.
Pain struck. Pain, terrible pain ripping down my right leg. Every time I sensed that wicked piercing pain I hoped the nurses would pick up a jagged spike on the EKG. They didn’t. For months, I had felt extreme biting pain wrap itself around my right knee and repeatedly shoot down my shin. The pains appeared out of nowhere, always without warning. Why didn’t the nurses see what I felt?
The white sheets of the hospital bed felt crisp and cool against my skin. As much as I hated injections, I didn’t mind when they punctured my vein and began the IV, and I was greatly relieved when the EKG became an appendage. I felt secure with it taped across my chest, as if my racing heart would return to normal now that professionals were monitoring me. I drifted in and out of consciousness. I wanted to sleep, just for a bit. Sleep. . . . I tried to drift off. I was too restless, though.
An emergency room doctor on duty that night entered the cubicle