My weekend started earlier than I had planned it would. Around 9 AM on Friday, I started having chest pains, so much so that it became hard to breathe. Every time I inhaled, the pain worsen and it was impossible for me to take a deep breath. But I was in a meeting taking notes. At first, I thought it would pass. I had experienced a tight chest before but it went away after about 15 minutes. But this lasted–through our entire one hour meeting. By the time the meeting was over, I knew this was a special case and felt I needed some medical attention–not just because I thought it might be serious but because I wanted someone who could alleviate the pain I was in.

So I told my boss Carol Ann that I needed to go to the ER because I was having trouble breathing. She offered to take me and long story short, that’s what ended up happening. I called Travis on the way there and he said that he would leave work right away to come meet me (and he literally dropped everything on the spot–that sweetie). When we got to the ER (which seemed to take forever), Carol Ann told an EMT standing by that I was experiencing chest pain and having a hard time breathing so they made sure that my oxygen level was good (still 100%) and put me to the top of the list. About 5 minutes later, I was called back into triage.

I could bore you with the details but I won’t. Let’s just say they asked me a lot of questions, many of them 4-5 different times, gave me an IV, did an EKG, drew blood for lab tests, x-rayed my chest, gave me some nasty chalky stuff to numb my throat and stomach, the whole shebang. All of the tests (thank the Lord) came back negative. Turns out I’m actually pretty healthy. They even asked me if I was an athlete because my heart rate was so low (abnormally low–in the 40s–but then it stabilized around 64 or so).

But turns out that I have acid reflux. Some people get it because they’re overweight. Some people get it because. (I can’t help but wonder if all those nights of binge drinking in college has anything to do with this…that was before I was a Christian though! Don’t be getting the wrong idea about me!) Anyway, the doctor told me about the esophagus and the muscle between the ribcage and lungs can get inflamed by the acid. Then those muscles that normally help you breathe feel like sandpaper rubbing together. Beautiful picture huh?

Anyway, I got released with a prescription of Prilosec. I took a nap after getting home and then got up and painted our house (I’m a diehard, what can I say? Plus, 2 of our friends came over and helped us. I couldn’t just sit around!) But Friday night was miserable. I couldn’t lay down any which way without intense pain so I propped 2 pillows against the wall and tried to sleep sitting up. It didn’t work. About 2:30, I got up and went to Walgreen’s for some pain medicine (we didn’t have any at our house because we hadn’t moved all of our stuff down yet). That helped–so I got about 5 hours of sleep that night.

Saturday was Moving Day. We got up at 7 and went to Home Depot because we weren’t quite done with painting and needed to buy one more gallon for the living room. After finishing that, we drove up to Boulder and some of our other friends met us there to help us load the truck. About an hour and a half later, our lives were loaded into a 16-ft Budget truck. We drove down to Boulder and the unloading began. Another hour later and we were done (with that part)! We ate pizza at Beau Jo’s for lunch and then it was back to the grind.

Or not. I tried putting stuff away for maybe an hour or two but I was so in pain (this time it was my collarbone…?) that I eventually had to call it quits (against my stubborn nature). I took some Tylenol PM and watched TV (we finally get some stations!) waiting for it to kick in. I decided to sleep on the couch that night because I was scared of the bed (it was so mean to me the night before). Travis, again what a sweetie, slept on the futon so that he could be close to me. What an amazing man, huh? I actually slept really well on the couch–I could even lie down flat!

Sunday I felt good. I had a little pain in the morning but I took some more ibuprofen and I was good to go. Which was SUCH a blessing from the Lord because Sunday was Apartment Cleaning Day. It took Travis and me 4 1/2 hours to clean our tiny 700 sq ft apartment. But it is DARN clean, let me tell ya. Let’s just see what the landlords think tomorrow at our walk-through.

I even felt good enough last night to put stuff away in our apartment. I was a whirlwind–I unpacked all of our boxes and organized everything but our picture frames (I can never figure out where to put those!)

Anyway, this blog post is way too long now and you’re probably not even reading it anymore! (If you are, thank you for your dedication to my nothingness)