Everything Under The Tropical Sun

It was Labor day and for most of us, our day off… and as usual, it wasn’t for my dear hubby. He went to work because they had a lot of deadlines this weekend. In fact, they worked yesterday. But my hubby didn’t because of our little scare last Friday.

He came home and we had dinner as we always do. Everything was fine and nothing seemed out of the ordinary… and as usual he had his “little” asthma attack before going to bed and used his inhaler. Then he complained that he still couldn’t breathe. I didn’t think anything of it because he would normally go into his asthma attacks and always, the inhaler helped. But this time, he was antsy. I told him to use the nebulizer but maybe it’s because he felt his inhaler made matters worse, he opted not to. After pacing a few more times, he looked at me and said: “We have to go to the hospital.”

My heart started racing. I tried not to worry until I had all the facts. But he rarely complains about anything… PLUS he hates seeing anyone who has to wear a white coat for a living. For him to ask me to take him to the hospital was enough to get me really really worried. A million scenarios played through my head while on the way to the hospital. I found myself silently picking things off and praying that I was just being paranoid. But he couldn’t breathe and he was dizzy.

We got to the hospital sometime around 10:30. Thankfully the doctor was able to see him immediately and he didn’t order him to the O.R. or anything like that so I was a bit relieved. But when he asked for an X-ray and ECG test, my heart and mind started working overtime again. But the tests came up negative. His blood pressure was normal and nothing was really wrong with him. The doctor said that it might be gastrointestinal acid reflux disease. In layman’s terms: easy up on the coffee, softdrinks, alcohol, and other such vices.

He was still complaining about his shortness of breath so I guess he had a slight anxiety attack too. (But to be honest, if the nurse took my BP, it probably would’ve been high and she’d say that I was having an anxiety attack.) So they gave him a sedative (he was quite happy about that) to calm him down and calm his breathing pattern. We got out of the hospital at around midnight. But when we got home, he was still complaining and had to “consciously” breathe.

He’s okay now but gave me quite a scare. I weighed myself yesterday. I had to go on and off the weighing scale about 5 times because I couldn’t believe what I saw: I lost 5 lbs. Was it because of our little scare last Friday? My body had to go on an adrenalin spree because of the worry? If it is… well, that’s one workout regimen I don’t ever want to go on again.