Confused and Scared

My story starts out with much confusion and feelings of loneliness. We were eating a late dinner with family and friends last Saturday evening. My husband first noticed that something wasn’t quite right with my speech and then the shaking of my right hand. He had asked me, “Honey are you alright?” I felt that I only had a “twitch” in my arm, and commented that I was fine. Within minutes of standing up to go to the kitchen, my left arm and legs had started to shake. He grabbed me, lead me to the bedroom, and put me on the bed, “try to relax!” The shaking only got worse from then on and led to more like convulsing of my whole body.

Within a thirty-minute period, he and my son had me in the ER. I remember how scared I was and the looks on their faces! After many tests, IV fluids and drugs, it was pretty much under control. Anxiety and hypertension was the diagnosis. My heart rate was an alarming 155 beats per minute, blood pressure 186/103! I am very thin, always have been, forty-one years old, and felt I had nothing to be anxious about. My life in general is seemingly happy and pretty routine. We had a lot of company in the past two weeks, but that is the way I like it. Lots of family and friends around me seem to make my world more fulfilling. My daughter of twenty years is about to move away and go to college and start her life in a good way. That is the only thing I can even imagine that I would be even a little anxious about. I am always doing something around the house, for my family or friends and consider myself very active person.

I was put on a medication to slow my heart rate and bring my blood pressure down. In return it is slowing me way down and giving me feelings of loneliness that I cannot express. Aside from changing my lifestyle and figuring out how to deal with this “illness” I am very frightened and do not know how to talk with my family or friends. I do not want to scar them even more than I already have. Until I have further consultation with a doctor, I have been told to relax, rest, and basically do nothing. This is not the person I am! I do not know what to do with myself and find that I am very bored, confused, lonely, and above all scared! So here I am telling complete strangers of my life and sitting in front of this computer.

Sincerely, Confused and Scared