Okay, so this is that long ass boring entry where I tell you what the doctors think is actually happening with my chest pains. *yawn* So, I am going to send you around the net if you want other writing I have snuck online in the past few days.
Over at Mommybloggers, I wrote about why moms and women might be having trouble sleeping at night. (But before you read that, you have to read the amazing interview and essay by Krisco of Crib Ceiling. I absolutely love that woman!)
And at Aggroqueen (where I am meeting other women who are into gaming such as the play girlz and The Adventuress) and learning the tricks from them, I finally was able to reveal that I have been alpha and beta testing their upcoming expansion pack to World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. Yes. It just goes to show you that the gang over at Blizzard have one hell of a great sense of humor. (Mwah, guys!) I am so in love with this game now. Not that I would admit it. DO NOT tell my husband, kids or Blizzard. They must all think they still have to win me over. I am not a gamer yet, but trust me when I say this expansion pack is quickly shoving me in that direction. Shhhhhhh!
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Guess who got to spend half a day Friday at the hospital/doctor? Did you guess me? I bet you did. You’d be right. The diagnosis du jour is: costochondritis. Which is pretty much just a fancy name for “Ouch! You have pain in your chest. Bummer!” No, really. That is what it means. See. According to About.com who knows everything. (They do. I asked and they confirmed. Everything.)
Costochondritis a syndrome of chest wall pain that is due to inflammation of the cartilage and bones in the chest wall. Also called Tietze’s Syndrome, costochondritis occurs when there is inflammation at the junction of the rib bone and breastbone (sternum). At this junction, there is cartilage joining these bones. This cartilage can become irritated and inflamed. Depending on the extent of the inflammation, this condition can be quite painful. (No shit!)
What causes costochondritis?
Most commonly the cause of costochondritis is classified as ‘idiopathic,’ or unknown. This means that there is no identifiable cause for the condition. This does not imply that idiopathic costochondritis is any less painful of a condition than if the cause can be identified.
See? It means “Ouch! You have pain in your chest. Bummer!” (Sometimes referred to the “too bad, so sad” in the School of Throw a Dart Medicinal Diagnosis.) Honestly, knowing that we have ruled out just about everything life threatening that you can rule out, I could care less what they call it as long as they make this horrendous pain go away.
And of course, because I love to baffle the medical community, we had a fun game of “Why Is Your Stress So High and Your Blood Pressure So Low?” Remember they are also tacking on the “stress out and exhausted” tag to me? Therefore, one would think that stressed out would indicate high blood pressure. Nope. My body likes to be different. The nurse took my blood pressure 3 times insisting it must be wrong, but all 3 times it came back within 2 numbers of each other. 100/55. She just shook her head at me and wrote it down. Again, I just shrug it off and watch them scratch their heads in confusion.
I have had enough EKGs that it is no longer a big deal. Take for instance the fact that I am lying there on the examination table naked from the waist up with a hospital gown open to the front with electrodes hooked up everywhere when I noticed that my socks didn’t match. I do not mean an obvious “one is red and the other is blue” kind of not matching. It was more subtle. One had a pink stripe over the toes and the other did not. Oh the HORRORS! I am trying to curl my toes or hide one foot under the other in an attempt to not have anyone notice that my socks don’t match. Forget that I am half naked and having an EKG to ensure my heart is not about to kill me. MY SOCKS DON’T MATCH.
Yep. I am pretty sure I have had more than my share of doctors if that was my biggest worry of the visit.
Stay tuned next week for another exciting installment of “The Pain is Still There, Let’s Spin the Wheel of Diagnosis to Determine Another Cause.” For now, I am still on medical leave from most of my freelance jobs until Nov. 1st and am trying (meaning pretending to try but am really worrying about not trying hard enough) to relax and not worry about worrying. Which worries me. Ha! Gotta love the way the mind works.
Badgermama said it best when she told me: “It would be way more to the point to get up, do your thing, but get a little help, restructure a bit, cut something from your life, and do some extra exercise or yoga or something.” That is what I am doing now. Restructure. Refocus. Redirect my energies. And of course, realize that life without stress means you are dead. So, screw that!
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