Something is wrong...something is very wrong

I sit in the kitchen eating a late lunch. All day, I have been feeling very unwell. I have constant chest pain, and the last several days my shortness of breath has been severe with little exertion. I am short of breath as I gulp down some food. I am extremely exhausted. I decide I should go back to bed.

When I arrive in my bed, the chest pain is intense. I feel as though I cannot catch my breath. My chest forcefully rises and falls. I know something is terribly wrong. I try to reassure myself everything is fine. Perhaps my airways are being partially obstructed by mucus. I run saline through my nebulizer. My breathing becomes more and more ragged. I feel my body using a tremendous amount of energy trying to force air into my lungs. My ventilator is alarming like crazy. I tell myself I will run my nebulizer until the saline runs out. If I am still struggling to breathe, I will tell my parents I need to go to the emergency department (ED).

With each passing breath, my symptoms increase. The pain in my chest feels as though someone is strangling my heart. It also feels as though the blood vessels leading to my heart are under tremendous pressure; they are exploding in pain. Pain shoots across my chest away from my heart and toward my arms. I am trying not to cry, but tears want to spring forth. Things keep getting worse and worse. I need to go to the ED but my nebulizer is still running. And just when I am thinking all these thoughts, my mom enters my room. I instantly praise God because I need to tell her to take me to the ED, but I did not have the energy to travel all the way to the living room to tell her this. I quickly tell my mom I am very sick and need to go to the hospital. She leaves my room and grabs the things she will need for the journey.

I try to get out of bed, but the pain! Oh the PAIN! I cannot breathe! I am breathing so hard that my airways make a high pitched wheezing noise. I feel as though I cannot get any air into my lungs. I gather up some items I need to take with me, but I can barely move. My mom arrives back in my room and asks how she can help. Soon, my parents are driving me to the hospital.

It is a 43 minutes journey from my house to the emergency department which we feel can best handle my medical case in my immediate home area. As we travel, the pain gets worse and worse. I am really struggling to breathe. I start coughing because I simply cannot get air into my body even though my ventilator is running. There is one crushing wave of pain which seems as though it is going to kill me and then, like magic, the incredible pain and pressure on my chest instantly lessens. My breathing becomes less labored. The immediate sense of impending doom disappears. My chest is still sore. The pain is still there, but it is so much better than what it was. I am still in a sorry state, but I think I do not need to go to the ED. If things are getting better, I do not need to endure a traumatic trip to a medical facility. But I refrain from relaying this to my parents. I do not want to go back home and have everything become worse again.

The pain and pressure on my chest increases and decreases in intensity for the rest of the trip. When we are near the hospital, I ask my dad to stop at a convenience store because I have to empty my bladder. (I know this is a good sign. When under severe stress, your adrenaline levels are high. High adrenaline makes it hard to go to the bathroom. If I am feeling the urge to go, my body must be getting back on the path to better health.) I exit the car and huff and puff into the facility. The pain in my chest greatly intensifies now that I am moving. I do my thing and go back to the car.

When I arrive at the ED, my blood pressure and heart rate are elevated, but I know they are much lower than what they probably were an hour ago. I am taken back to a room. Blood is drawn. The lab work shows my d-dimer (the test which is used to check for blood clots) is higher than my normal, but it is less than the threshold needed to indicate a clot. To my shock, my white blood cell count is elevated. I ask myself, "Could this be pneumonia?" But I know it is not.

Pneumonia can come on quickly, but it does not quickly disappear without any intervention. I have never had crushing chest pain like this when I have had pneumonia. Pneumonia chest pain feels like an elephant is on your chest; it feels as though your chest is heavy. It does not feel as though someone is trying to crush and squeeze your heart; it does not send pain shooting away from your heart toward your arms. I know it must be a blood clot or something blocking blood flow to my lungs.

During my time in the ED, I have another episode in which I have severe chest pain and fight hard to breathe. The symptoms build up over an hour and then suddenly my symptoms dramatically decrease in intensity. I am still short of breath, and my chest still hurts, but it is nothing compared to what it was.

I am admitted to the hospital under the guise of pneumonia. The next day, my white blood count is elevated above my normal baseline, but it is now in the normal range for the test. It is believed the antibiotics worked. I have a suspicion that the elevated white blood cell count could have occurred due to severe stress (as severe stress is known to cause an elevation in the production of white blood cells)...and now that I was no longer in severe distress, it was naturally going down on its own.

I keep my theories to myself. I am just grateful "something" was found during my ED visit. There is nothing worse than being severely ill and being told you are perfectly healthy. I leave the hospital and am grateful I survived another one of these attacks. There is something wrong...something very wrong. I hope and pray in the next few weeks after I have more testing done, the source of these attacks will be figured out.