And I am.....

Your Power Element is Fire

Your power color: red Your energy: hot Your season: spring Like a fire, you are full of power and light. A born leader, you easily draw people toward you. You are full of courage and usually up for anything dangerous. You have a huge ego and love to be the center of attention.

What's Your Power Element?

Totally don't know if I agree with this one. (Okay, I'm really trying to be humble here but the part about people being drawn to me is true. It doesn't matter how mean I am to them, they flock. I think I could rule this world if I were truly motivated. And it's nice to be the center of attention all the time.)

Okay on a more serious note. I got to spend all last night in the emergency room again. (I swear we are all falling apart!) No, it wasn't Dwayne this time, it was me. I'll start from the beginning.

Sunday, I was doing my favorite thing, (cleaning the cat box) when my heart did this little fluttery thing and then sped up really fast for about 10 seconds. I kind of went "okay" and after the lightheadedness passed, I got a really nasty headache for a couple of hours. The kids start day camp next week so I figured I would go to my doc and have him maybe check out a few things. Now I know what your'e thinking is that I should have gotten my ass to the hospital lickety split but since I was positive it wasn't a heartattack or stroke, I didn't think it was iminent. Besides, my grandmother and sister have the same thing and it's no biggie.

Fast forward to Tuesday night, at work (I wait tables a P.F. Changs), talking to a table when it happens again only this time when the lightheadedness passes I have a sharp shooting pain in my chest about where my heart is. Still pretty sure it's not a heart attack but I let my manager know, "hey, my heart just did this weird thing and I might need to leave to go to the hospital." I actually finished up the tables I had (I walked with $115 and left 2 hours early than I was supposed to. Damned heart, I could have banked that night!!), went home and told Dwayne,"I might need to go to the hospital." He was kind of like, "Really, you can't wait till tomorrow?" To which my answer was, "How many times have I gone to the doctor or hospital in the 11 years we've been together aside from anything child birth related?" He said, "Let's go."

Get to the hospital and by the time I get to the back and hooked up to the EKG of course I'm fine, blood work fine, I'm healthy as a horse. Blood pressure 110/60, pulse 54!! And I'm about 50 pounds overweight so the doctor is astonished that I'm super healthy. They tell me to go home and follow up with my doctor the next day.

So today I went to my doc who totally reiterrated the whole healthy as a horse thing and basically told me that I need to go to a cardiologist and have the whole heart monitor thing and probably a stress test even though both times this happened I was literally doing not a whole lot.

He said what he thinks it is (and after talking with my grandmother today, this is exactly what she has and it's hereditary) is that my heart basically has a so-called extra wire that normally doesn't do anything. (You know like the weird light switch in your house that nobody knows what it does- we have three!!) Any way, every once in a while, it gets the equivalent of an electrical surge and my heart gets confused and skips a beat (the fluttering part). Because of that, my brain doesn't get enough oxygen and signals my heart to pump faster. It does and sort of goes haywire and pumps too fast. The blood is not going in the heart enough because it's pumping too fast and I'm now really not getting enough oxygen and my blood pressure drops which causes the light headedness. It can all be controlled with a beta blocker which I will probably have to take for the rest of my life. The pain I had he said was the muscles seizing up in my chest because I panicked (Well not necessarily me but my body). When you have a heart attack, it's not a sharp pain, more of a dull ache and a pressure like someone sitting on your chest, which thankfully I knew.

It's not that serious but sucks because it's more or less a birth defect thing and other than this I'm really healthy and I hate taking medicine. But on the other hand, I don't have to give up all the crap I do and eat b/c it's not really triggered by anything. My doc told me lots of people have this and never even know it. He told me it's probably happened before and I never noticed it or could have been asleep. He also said that it's possible it may not happen again for a year or two or even never! So that was my grand adventure for the day and I actually finished the one sock in the waiting room and started the front half of the shell sweater. So at least I was productive. Oh, and I went back to work today even though my manager didn't want me to come in, but my doc said I could resume all former activities. And I walked with $82 and went had a beer with one of my girlfriends. Hey, that's one of my activities and yes I did ask him if I could still drink and he said, "Yes, you have to." Smart guy, he understands.

He was also impressed with my sweater and my sock and made me show everyone in the office including patients.