To the Doctor I Go!

 6:44 Thursday morning, and raindrops the size of marbles pounding on my metal roof made Pinecone Park sound like an earthquake was happening! And the thunder! Oh my God! Summer ended very dramatically last weekend, it’s been dark, showery and cooler ever since, and there’s no sign of a return to Summer until next Wednesday!

Both Wednesday and Thursday were slow and all about waiting passionately for my meeting with Dr. Chen. My days involve only walking Her Highness, puttering, eating and watching movies in the evening. I’ve to work on my Powers of Attorney and Representation and my will, just in case. Now, even walking is a challenge unless I walk dead slow. Doing the laundry was torture because lifting my arms higher than my head is nasty. Thank God I see Dr. Chen tomorrow.

I’m taking an early ferry to go to my appointment, and I’m going to use my free ferry ticket to get some shopping done. But I hope to get home quickly. At least Fridays are days when the ferries are less busy than usual because Friday and the weekend are not free travel days for seniors.

I feel old and I feel very vulnerable. I hope and pray that whatever is wrong is fixable. Stacy, my doctor friend, wondered if I had coronary hypertension. Often, when that is the diagnosis, there is no intervention and that scares me. I don’t want to be this weak and tired.

The good news (for me) is that the house is tidy and clean. I took things slowly, and got a zillion chores done that I’d been wanting to do since Steve left. Now, everything is back in order which has me at peace.

When C-PTSD / FND hit in April 2016, I thought, naively I know now, that that was it. I’d have no more major challenges until my death. I was 40 years old the first time I went to the hospital because I thought I was having a heart attack. When they did a test that was excruciating to experience for 45 minutes, they discovered that I’d had a previous heart attack of which I was unaware. They knew this was my second because there were two scars, shaped like lightning bolts, on the wall of my heart.

As I’ve written before, this is my 6^th cardiac event. Any guesses why I will die? This one, though, is different from all my previous experiences. This time, I feel fine when at rest. I have no angina, nausea, arm pain or chest pain, I just get winded by the slightest exertion. 

I remember my first appointment with Dr. Shoja. The medical doctors who’d seen me only knew I had a mental problem, they didn’t give me a name, so Dr. Shoja was where I would find my answers. What I remember most, was waiting outside her office for her to call me in. I was so stressed, and then I was having up to 20 seizures a day, I emptied my backpack on my chair, put it over my head and face, and I lay on the floor.

I knew what I was doing was odd, but I was dying inside. I felt I was drowning, and her office door was the life ring. I was so close that I couldn’t stand the tension of waiting and I wanted to disappear. I was a total wreck. That’s how she met me. I feel similarly about this coming visit with Dr. Chen—incredibly anxious about working with him (taking tests) to a diagnosis, and then whatever follows.

I’m living a story, and the solution to the mystery is about to be revealed. I'm off on the 7:30 ferry.