Lost & Found

THINGS WOULD NEVER BE THE SAME

I remember the cold Melbourne winter night that I woke up with a jolt and sat bolt upright with sweat dripping off my brow and the feeling of my heart beating out of my chest. Was I having a heart attack? I'd always been one of the lucky ones who would go to bed late and sleep through the night solidly and wake up feeling refreshed, so to wake up in such a way was enough to start my mind racing.

Sure, life had been hectic over the past couple of years. I'd gone through a divorce which separated me from my two oldest kids, who I missed dearly. I'd been trying to maintain an unrealistic and busy work schedule with a boss who was happy to bleed me for every cent that he could. In between all of this, I had also had a "rebound" relationship too soon after my separation, which was exhausting in every way. I was insecure and timid on the inside, but a joker on the outside, and no one would ever suspect that I had been struggling. This was my time to shine.

I had started living with a woman who I'd known for 9 years. We had a solid friendship and it had blossomed in to a great relationship after we'd both been single for several months. Sure she had a lot of her own issues and insecurities stemming from alcoholic parents and a feeling of never having been loved, but we were doing the best we could. We had just found out that we were expecting a baby, which although it wasn't planned, was a welcome surprise. Work was still very busy, but plans were being put in place to ease off duties over the next 6 months. Lastly, my relationship with my ex-wife was going well and I was seeing my kids regularly. So why was this happening to me now?

I reached over and shook my girlfriends arm to tell her something was wrong. I remember the moment clearly as rather than being concerned, she told me to just breathe and go back to sleep. I think about those words a lot. What if I had just taken her advice and rolled over? Would the next few years have gone in a totally different direction? I remember shaking her arm again and telling her that I thought I was having a heart attack. We called triple zero and they advised us to go to the hospital. We jumped up and got in the car, but the ride was a blur. I remember not being able to breathe properly and the pains in my chest. I recall just as we were approaching the intersection to enter the hospital that I felt myself starting to faint and uttering to my girlfriend to tell my kids that I loved them. Words that I think stuck with her as being selfish over the following year.

At the hospital I was rushed through the ER with a suspected heart problem. If you ever want to beat the queues, just mention your heart. Honestly the nurses and doctors of the ER at this hospital and all the others I visited over the following 6 months are angels on Earth. The things they see and do, from suspected heart attacks to truly gruesome scenes and the pride and care that they give each patient is second to none. After rigorous tests and some 6 hours of waiting, I was given the all clear and advised that although I had an irregular heart beat, I could head home and was given paper work to visit a cardiologist. On arriving home I apologised to my girlfriend and went to bed still feeling unsure of what had happened. My cape of invincibility had been tarnished and I'd never be the same.

THE AFTERMATH

I decided to take two days off after my night in hospital. I'd only taken two sick days over nearly 15 years before that, which was something I was proud of and a work ethic that I had learnt from my Dad. I don't recall him having a sick day ever, though I do remember seeing him go to work quite hungover on several occasions. On the days off, I started to call cardiologists. It's funny how the mind works once you give in to fear. As I called around and kept getting appointments that were 3 months away, a strange thing started to happen. With each setback, I began to develop a shortness of breath and also started to have weird heart palpitations and irregular beats and jolts in my chest. Each time this happened, I felt a lump in my throat which also made it hard to swallow. These feelings were accompanied by a slow and steady trembling in my hands. What the hell was happening to me?

I was able to talk myself through what was happening to my body as just being part of aging and having a heart that was playing up. Sure I was only 37 at the time, but I had been so busy trying to do the right thing by everyone else, that I had forgotten to look after myself. Funnily I was not a believer in stress. I'd always heard others talking about their stressful lives and never really put myself in the same category as them. Looking back now, I realise I was working 60 hour weeks driving around the countryside while trying to maintain a relationship with my kids and ex. Meanwhile, the news of a new child on the way had hit my subconscious. What if this relationship falls apart again? What if I'm not a good Dad? What if I'm not loving my girlfriend the way she needs or deserves?

Looking back now I also realise that I was consistently sabotaging my relationships due to a lack of understanding myself and how my childhood had shaped me. My parents had separated when I was very young and I was living with a fear of being abandoned. It meant that as soon as the honeymoon period ended, or that there was any sign of distance with my partner, I would cling to them, cling to work, cling, cling, cling so that I wouldn't be discarded. Not a healthy or sustainable way to live, but I will touch on that again later.

I managed to drag myself to work on the third day after my hospital visit, but my body was still sending me signals that things weren't quite right. I was developing strange tingling sensations in my hands and my heart was doing "runs" on a consistent basis. I was too scared to mention these things to anyone, as to me they sounded quite crazy. Instead I internalised them and started to use Dr. Google to try and work out the best way to feel like myself again. My boss had planned an impromptu work trip across Northern Victoria and Southern NSW, and I was to leave the following day, much to the dismay of my girlfriend, my kids and my ex-wife. The pressure builds.

BOILING POINT

The morning of my road trip was pretty uneventful. I woke up early, had a quick shower and got on the road with a van full of clothing to be distributed along my journey. I remember feeling a little bit more like myself as my body wasn't tingling and my heart wasn't doing strange things, however the further I got from home, the more I started to feel a sense of impending doom. It was like there just wasn't enough air in the van to sustain my body anymore, yet at the same time my mind was telling me that this was a crazy proposition and to just breathe. It was a vicious cycle of self talk, and I didn't know it at the time, but I was both starving my body of oxygen and then overcompensating and flooding it with too much oxygen, which was causing my body to feel tingly again and making driving very unsafe. Eventually I had to pull over the van and climb out. I felt like I was on the verge of passing out. Interestingly, I didn't on this day, nor on the countless other days when this fear and panic overwhelmed me. It's amazing what fear of the unknown can present itself as.

Eventually I talked myself in to driving again. I put down all of my windows with the thought that it would somehow allow me to breathe with ease. 5 minutes further along the road, my breathing started to become laboured again. Was I dying in the middle of nowhere? Alone? I forced myself to continue driving until I arrived at a service station. I walked inside in a complete daze with a feeling that was somewhere between an urge to vomit, collapse and cry. The staff at the service station were amazing. They let me lie down on a couch and gave me a glass of water and were very concerned when I mentioned chest pain. I really wish I had gone back to the store at a later time and thanked them for their assistance. Although I still felt uneasy, I walked back to my van for a third attempt at getting to my days destination. I was only 2 hours from home, but had suffered what I later realised were continual and aggressive panic attacks the whole time. In hindsight it sounds ridiculous, but at the time I thought I was close to death.

Leaving the service station took all of the courage that I could summon, but within the next 25 minutes, with laboured breathing and a pulsing headache, I decided to pull in to a country hospital and get myself checked out. The staff again were amazing. They did every single check up possible to rule out heart attacks, high blood pressure and stroke. I told them that I was attempting to book myself in with a cardiologist and the staff were kind enough to give me a Melbourne based contact to visit once I got home. I called my boss to let him know that I was unable to drive on, and although he was disappointed, he agreed to drive and pick up the car, and I caught a train back home with my tail between my legs. Within a week I had gone from a confident young man to a whisper of myself that feared his own shadow.

FEAR

Two days after arriving back at home, I was lucky enough to arrange an appointment to see a cardiologist due to a cancellation. Within that 48 hours, I stayed at home on my couch too afraid to leave the house and using Dr. Google to try and diagnose my heart problem. As each hour passed, I noticed that not only was I having the heart tremors and tingling sensations, but my hands had started to shake consistently. The more I tried to control it, the worse it got. I'm the kind of person who always prided themselves on having a daily plan and yearly goals, but during this period of "fear" I lost my ability to think. I was consumed 24/7 in finding out what was wrong with my body and when I couldn't find an answer I was consumed with what my body was doing. It was a pointless, endless circle and meant that I couldn't focus on anyone or anything else. Looking back now I can see that I needed help at that stage, but I allowed the fear to grow.

On the morning that I was scheduled to see the cardiologist, I was at a very low point. I hadn't slept the night before as every time I went to fall asleep my heart would race with a "thump" and wake me. I was scared of falling asleep in case my heart stopped. I'd secretly put aspirin under my pillow, as I'd read that it could help in the case of a heart attack. I'd spent the night breathing for my body. EVERY SINGLE breath I monitored and took and gauged and what used to be autonomous had become my duty. This continued for the next two months, but I'll write about that later.

I got in my car and for the first time in my life, I HATED driving. This was so foreign to me, as driving and basketball had always been my ways of escaping from the world. Now I was on high alert, hyper vigilant and taking every single breathe and waiting for a heart attack to occur. I remember vividly parking outside the doctors and willing myself to go inside. I was scared to faint. Scared to breathe. Scared of a bad diagnosis. I was just scared. I walked inside and sat in the waiting room unaware of what would come next and unsure if I even wanted to know.

AN UNEXPECTED OUTCOME

After a 25 minute wait, my cardiologist came out and greeted me with a smile. I was given a routine check-up, and although she found an irregular heartbeat, there was nothing else of concern to her in regards to my heart. The words that left her mouth in my appointment floated across my mind, but never really sunk in until months later. I feel that although she was a very young an unexperienced doctor, she was very caring and in touch with her patients needs. I was in such a state of fear and panic at the time and the doctor mentioned words that I'd never related with myself. "Do you have a history of anxiety or panic attacks?"

I'd never thought of anxiety or panic as being part of my life. Sure my mother had suffered with severe depression and anxiety through most of her life (we thought it was normal for Mum to be in bed throughout the day), and sure my sister and brother had episodes in the past, but I felt like I knew myself quite well and could feel if I ever had a depressive state approaching and adjust my routine. As for anxiety, I just assumed that everyone had anxiety at certain points of their lives. But this was my heart? So why was the doctor prescribing me an anti-anxiety drug? Again with hindsight the doctor could obviously see that I wasn't breathing properly and I was shaking like a leaf. I needed help.

I left the doctor with a prescription in my hand, but a mindset that I didn't want to take any drugs to feel better. I didn't even take panadol when I had a headache, let alone a strong drug to alter my mind's state. I got home and again, the dreaded Dr. Google told me every single side effect and problem that could occur by taking this "miracle cure in a bottle." I was torn. I started to try every single meditation and self talk practice to calm my nerves, however the more I tried, the more my brain went in circles and the worst I felt. My body was starting to fail badly and I was a prisoner to my own mind.

Hours turned to days in my house. I'd already made a permanent indentation in my favourite spot on the couch as I was too scared to move. I called in sick 3 days in a row and slept most of each day. I was forgetting to eat. Forgetting to shave. Forgetting how to care. I'd lost hope. As the weekend came around I needed to re-visit the cardiologist again and have a heart monitor put on. I picked up my kids on the way home and put on a brave face so they wouldn't know I was monitoring every single movement and every single breath. But kids are intuitive. They noticed that I wasn't my usual playful self, and my daughter in particular was very aware of my heart monitor and called Daddy a "robot." I truly didn't want them to see me lost or hurting and I think after a weekend of inactivity, I dropped them off and made the decision to start the anti-anxiety drug EFFEXOR. This is where the rollercoaster began.

ALL ABOARD

To be continued