Friday night I had some back pain — nothing that unusual for me. After sitting a while in the recliner with the shiatsu massage thingy, I took a couple of Aleve PM and went to bed.
Then my chest started feeling tight, hurting when I’d take a deep breath. That started to get a bit scary for a while; though “heart stuff” still seemed unlikely to me and anxiety seemed more likely, or even some kind of muscle strain. Still, I did not sleep well between the pain and worry, and in the morning I asked my spouse to take me to urgent care. (And of course, there’s the thing where, if it’s caused or worsened by anxiety, worrying about it can only make it worse…)
I got right in to an exam room (a first in my experience with urgent care clinics). It did take a little while to see the doc, but he said with my medical history (diabetes, parents with heart issues, age) that I really should go to an ER and be checked for heart issues, since their clinic wasn’t equipped to do the blood tests that he would want. He recommended Missouri Baptist as being the best for heart stuff and also not as busy an ER. An assistant did an EKG, and sent me on my way with the printout. (All it found was “early repolarization” which apparently isn’t that unusual in healthy young folks anyway.)
The MoBap ER prioritized me and had me on another EKG in under a minute, put in an IV port and took blood for the first round of tests; within 20 minutes I’d been put in a room, changed into a hospital gown, given a nice pre-warmed blanket, wheeled to get chest x-rays and then returned to my room and given another warm blanket. And then… waiting on test results. I got signed up on MyChart so I could see them as they came in, which was nice because it often took a while afterward before a nurse or doctor would come talk to me.
After a while, they did a second round of blood tests to screen for a possible clot and to follow up on a blood test (there’s one they do in 2-hour intervals to check for rising enzymes which indicate a heart attack). Everything came back normal, except somewhat elevated white blood cell count. After what seemed like a lot of waiting, the doctor told me I don’t have anything dangerous going on with my heart, and no pneumonia or lung issues. He wouldn’t say it is (or isn’t) anxiety; acid reflux seemed unlikely due to the set of symptoms but advised me that antacids aren’t a bad idea anyway, and said the most likely thing is pericarditis (swelling of the lining outside the heart) due to a viral infection of some kind. He prescribed Toradol, a strong NSAID. The first dose of it I got via the IV port didn’t seem to do much… but when I was discharged, standing up out of that hospital bed I noticed I was feeling a bit more comfortable. A while after taking it in pill form, even more so. And this morning there’s almost no pain at all — I have to bend over weirdly and take a real deep breath to get the chest pain, and the back pain is no worse than my usual and can be pretty easily ignored.
So. It wasn’t a fun day, but I am relieved and grateful that it’s not something worse and that I’m not stuck with mysterious pain.