A couple weeks ago I had blood drawn from my left arm. It left a nasty bruise and my elbow was sore for a few days. But the ache never seemed to fully go away. After the bruise disappeared I was still noticing an occasional ache in my elbow. Over a few days it moved into the meat of the big muscle on my left arm, and I began to notice it “sliding” about… sometimes in the forearm, sometimes in the elbow, and sometimes in the bicep. In just the last day or so it sometimes manifested as a shooting pain running up my middle finger. I didn't pull any muscles that I'm aware of. It doesn't hurt to move it. It doesn't hurt to the touch. Pinched nerve maybe? Maybe. The problem is that due to anxiety, athsma, and scar tissue in my left lung, I get chest pain and tightness all the time. Pain in the chest coupled with an ache in one's left arm is considered a strong indicator that one's heart is having trouble…

I had a heart check up in 2001 and everything looked good then. Should I worry? Well, my father has heart disease, and needed a quadruple bypass in his early 50's, and his father died of a heart attack at the age of 47. And just recently, a cousin of mine on my father's side of the family passed away from a heart attack. She was 42. I am 37, sedentary, overweight, and I have high cholesterol and circulation problems.

I have been hoping this pain in my arm would subside given time, but it hasn't. Two nights ago, I had an anxiety attack about it. This morning at 3 AM, I had a full blown panic attack. (Side note: the less sleep I get, the more emotional and irrational I become. If I go 24 hours without sleep, just about anything even remotely sentimental will make my eyes water.) My wife comforted me and urged me to go to the doctor. “Go see Doctor Lisa, she'll tell you you're worrying over nothing, and then you'll feel better.” So this morning I made an appointment with my nerves all ajitter.

The appointment was at 11:30 and I arrived at 11:20. I had brought with me the results from my blood test that the podiatrist had run (liver function normal, kidney function normal–much to my surprise), but I hadn't brought anything to read. The magazines in the waiting room were wayyyy out of date. (There was a copy of TIME there talking about the upcoming presidential election.) I read an interesting article in Nantucket Magazine about a guy named (I think) Peter Boynton, who raises native Nantucket plants from seeds to help propagate those species across the island. He sells his “native plants” via Surfing Hydrangea Nursery in Nantucket.

But I could not sit still. I was too anxious. While reading the above article I wandered over to a window and stared out at the snow which had begun to fall.

 

And I waited. And waited. I kept checking the wall clock, and then each time I would remember that the wall clock was broken and always said it was a quarter to three. I wondered if it would be correct before I left. As I often do when stuck at the doctor's office. I sent text messages to Patty's cellphone to pass the time:

11:32 AM: I hate waiting. I'm worried.
11:34 AM: Starting 2 snow here.
11:51 AM: Snow is really coming down. You should probably get going.
12:23 PM: 1 hour and counting…

Shortly after that last message, they finally called me in, weighed me (255 lbs) checked my bloodpressure (excellent) and then sat me down in the exam room to await the doctor. Now I was in a 7'x7' room about with no windows and even less reading material. *sigh* Fortunately the wall clock in this room worked, so I could be even more cognizant of the passage of time.

The wait in here was comparitively shorter… I finally got to see the doctor at about 12:45 PM. She apologized for the long wait and listened while I explained to her about all the things I am worried about. She listened to my heart and my breathing, and asked “Are you having any neck pain?” No. “Chest pain?” Well, yeah my whole life, I have been noticing some tightness in my chest lately, but a large part of that is probably anxiety.

After examining me she said I was not showing most of the symptoms of heart trouble. She once again encouraged me to work on my anxiety, because that was the *real* problem. It may be time to go back on Paxil again. Further she said that because of my family history, I should begin exercising and that if my cholesterol turned out to be high (it was 220 last time I had it checked years ago), then perhaps medication to lower it would be in order.

So I'm scheduled for more bloodwork now to check my cholesterol. Yayyy. To put my mind at ease, the doctor also arranged for me to take a stress echo test so that I could have my heart checked out. Further, she also recommended that I have an EKG done, saying “Now listen, I'm not recommending this because I think something is wrong. This is largely so that if at some point in the future (considering your family history) you go to the ER with chest pains, there will be a baseline EKG on record that they can compare to.” Apparently people who have heart conditions will sometimes have an EKG done which will be compared to earlier EKG's done on the same person. Changes in the EKG reveal changes in heart function.

So that was my visit to the doctor. I'll probably do the bloodwork and EKG on Monday. The stress echo test isn't scheduled until April 15'th… like I need a test to tell me I'm stressed on tax day.

On the way home I felt a lot better. I grabbed a chicken stir-fry sandwich with delicious peppers and onions and got home by about 1:20 PM. I've been worried about my health a lot lately. I made a New Years Resolution to quit most fast food, and have been very good about it since then. Jody over at The Big DumpTruck wrote an article that inspired me recently:

…I read an article on the web about how if you take 10,000 steps a day, you'll be healthier and lose weight. As someone who just cannot join a gym and actually use it, this sounds like it's right up my alley…

So I ordered a pedometer from Amazon – doing research into the ones recommended by other people, etc., and I decided on the Omron HJ112 Premium. I'll let you know what I think.

Good for you Jody. You go girl. Think I'm going to get a pedometer and set myself a goal of steps per day. Hey it's a start. Better than sitting on my ass all day… uh, writing blog articles.