Chest Pain

Two nights ago, I had a little scare.  I started bathing Lani, which requires a lot of bending and reaching, in spite of the fact that I'm rather short, and my chest started hurting.  I thought it was just the positions I have to contort myself into to reach my squirmy daughter to actually wash her hair and body while she obtinately insists on playing.  Lani doesn't like to stop what she's doing to give me her arm or leg or head.  She can't be bothered with what I would like for her to do.  She still gets shampoo in her eyes because she won't put her head back when I rinse it because she might miss something with her toy boats in front of her.  Bath time is fun!

After getting her out and dried off, Jon got her ready for bed.  My chest was still hurting.  The pain was on my left side, just above the xiphoid of the sternum and was concentrated around the ribs that attach there.

I checked out what I could find on-line, but I really already knew that we should probably head to the Emergency Room to get it checked out.  The pain wasn't changing at all and I waited 40 minutes before I told Jon, "I think we better head to the hospital."  You are only supposed to wait up to 5 minutes.  I know it is possible to have a heart attack at a young age, but you just never think that it may be you. 

We got there and they took me right back and ran an EKG right away and gave me baby aspirin in case it was a heart attack.  Then they put in a hand catheter.  My skin was being lifted 1/2 inch off my hand.  It was very painful and I couldn't really believe how badly the nurse did.  Once it was in, she did the saline push and that really hurt too.  It just sat there.  She tried to draw the blood they needed to check everything to make sure I hadn't had a myocardial infarction, but the blood wouldn't flow back through the catheter, so she was unable to use it.  Next, got chest x-rays, P-A and lateral.  Back to the room and an actual phlebotomist came to draw the blood.  She was very good at her job and she minimized how painful it could have been.

Dr. Irving came in to see me intermittently, did heart sounds and lung sounds exam.  He eventually came back & told us that all was fine, except for having borderline anemia (which is the norm for me, even before I became a vegetarian), and that my diagnosis was costochondritis, inflammation of the cartilage where the ribs join the sternum.

So, it is just a painful condition and nothing to be too concerned about.  That was good news.

Got adjusted last night and almost every rib was out.  Glad to have been in to the Clinic because I felt a lot better afterward.

Need to head over to Phys Di, so I'll write more later.  By the way, it is snowing.  The first snowfall.  Big flakes, very delicately swirling in the slight breeze.  Almost makes me like it a little.  We are headed to the Wisconsin Dells for Dartagnan's 15th birthday this weekend, so a little snow will be fun on the snow tubing hill at the resort.  I think he'll have a great time.