Night in the E.R.

Yesterday was just a normal day for me. I went to work, come home, drove a friend around, grabbed some coffee and watched a movie until 12. I went to bed and I tossed a turned for about an hour. I couldn't fall asleep because I was kind of having some difficulty breathing and it seemed like my heart was beating very fast. I thought it was maybe just the caffiene from earlier, so I got up a tried to watch some tv to fall asleep. But the more I sat there, the faster my heart was beating and the harder it was to breathe. My body started shaking and my breathing was irregular. I woke my dad up and he drove me to the hospital. On the way there I started feeling very light headed along with my heart racing and hard breathing. My arms, hands and legs starting tingling and started to go numb. My lips were cold and my face was numb. We got to the E.R. and the nurse took my heart rate which was at a rapid 140+...crazy since I had just been sitting still for the last couple hours. Normal is 70-80, so it was double what it should be. They put patches on me and hooked me up to the heart/blood pressure monitor. They also tested that my heart was pumping evenly although very fast. They drew bood, hooked me up to an IV, gave me oxegen and took an X-ray of my chest. They then gave me some medicine throuh the IV that would help calm my heart rate. Praise God, my tests came back negative for blood clots, possible heart attack, failure, damage, thryroid, etc. They told me that it's common for heathly people my age to have their heart race when they get under a lot of stress. They said I need to stay away from caffeine and also eat potassium because my blood work came back that I was laking potassium. My heart was beating so fast I couldn't breathe in enough oxygen that the heart needed to pump, so the tingling feeling was carbon dioxide in my blood. I was at the E.R. for about two hours and they let me go when my heart rate was down to 100. The medicine made me really drowsy so I came home (at 4:45am) and crashed out!

It was so bizarre and scary! My dad and I were praying the whole way to the hospital. That's the reason I was calm and kept from passing out before we got there. I'm having to take it really slow today so my heart doesn't race again. Please be praying for me, that this won't happen again in the future. I'll be meeting with a doctor soon to learn more about what I can do to keep my heart and body healthy.