Stress Symptoms and Chest Pain - Sunday Stress Management Sharpens Sense of Mortality
Posted: Monday, June 14, 2010
by Julian Price
http://www.uk-freelance-content-writer.co.uk/
Stress is a subtle and stealthy operator, with intentions only to debilitate, cause panic, anxiety and ill health. Stress can display itself in an array of unpleasant symptoms and one of the most common ones is chest pain. Been there, got the T shirt.
Stress related chest pain can also vary in intensity. From niggling, annoying dull pain to the all out “I think I’m having a heart attack” pain and other types of chest pain in between.
On a humid, wet Sunday afternoon, my wife began complaining of chest pains (which of course she later revealed she had been having for days!). “Do you want to go to the hospital and get it checked out?” I asked. “No” was the response. A couple of hours later, my wife said, “I think I will go to the hospital now, please.” The pain had intensified and become sharper.
So, off we went to accident and emergency or the “The Emergency Room” at the hospital, expecting to wait a few hours before we were even seen. However, it turns out, no risks are taken with chest pain, especially if there is a family history of heart problems, and within a few minutes my wife was in bed and hooked up to a heart monitor, having her blood pressure taken and being quizzed and questioned by the young doctor on duty.
I have to confess, I am one of those people that feels more than a little uncomfortable in a hospital, especially an emergency room. My own stress levels began to rise as the sights, sounds and smells began an assault on my senses.
Meanwhile, next to me, my wife was undergoing blood tests and we were told the results would be back in “about an hour”. A curtain was partially closed around us but this only seemed to add more mystery and menace to the sounds around and about.
Behind the curtain on our left, an elderly lady, who appeared to have suffered a fall and was very confused was shouting at the top of her voice, “Jesus is watching, Jesus is watching!”, “Rome, Rome, Rome!” and “The Garden of Eden, Garden of Eden!”
On our right, a gentleman had had some kind of fit and couldn’t remember much of anything as nurses and doctors tried to establish what had happened. Directly across from me, through a gap in the curtain, I could see a young guy, probably in his early twenties who was shaking and clearly in a lot of pain as he was hooked up to a machine.
While all of these things were happening simultaneously, a cacophony of bleeping heart monitors reverberated and seemed to make my skull jangle. I was beginning to panic and wondered if I may in fact need the bed more than my wife, who was still in pain and apparently oblivious to all the other activity.
I held her hand and offered words of comfort, love and reassurance as I watched the numbers on her own heart monitor rise and fall.
At that moment, with the bleeping and wails of pain in my head and the numbers before my eyes, I was acutely aware of the brevity and fragility of human life and was enveloped in a shroud of mortality. It reminded me of the time that my dad was taken to the very same emergency room years earlier on the day he died. How I averted my own panic attack I don’t know.
Four hours later and the doctor returned with my wife’s results. A huge relief as the heart was normal and fine and the blood work was normal. You have probably guessed the rest. My wife now needs, like many of us, to learn how to reduce daily stress levels, which of course can be easier said than done.
So, if you are having chest pain, the first thing to do is to see a doctor. Perhaps almost as important though, is to try not to panic and begin to fear that something is seriously wrong with your heart. In many cases it will turn out to be stress that is causing the problems and these “problems” are more often than not very fixable indeed and it is likely your doctor will point you in the right direction.
As much as any return there will be too soon for me, I tip my hat to the men and women who work in the emergency room who battle through the daily chaos, fear and death in their attempt to save life, comfort others and perform miracle after miracle.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)At least you didn't go home with the added stress of a $50,000 hospital bill that the insurance companies here in the land of the free will only pay a fraction of, at best, and drop your coverage at worst. Of course with a preexisting condition like heart disease you couldn't get any insurance over here anyway. .Thanks a lot for the comment!
It's so hard to know when chest pain or discomfort means something has to be done. I'm glad doctors took your wife seriously and that she's okay, and that it was just a wake-up call which you caught in time.Hi Jennifer, thanks a lot for reading and commenting. Much appreciated!
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