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reymonkeyIn a not-so-great place, right now. I'm just posting this here because I need to get my thoughts down somewhere; sometimes it helps me to be able to look back and see what I was thinking earlier and what patterns emerge. It scares me a little that there's posts from August and September of last year where I was feeling burned out and that means it's been more than a year that I've been picking up the slack for coworkers who are barely there. Things only got worse when the tech left, which is more like six months ago, so most days it's just me and the boss, open to close, 6 days a week. And her son, who is nice but spends 90% of his time hiding in the back with his headphones on.
Adding to work stress, my effectively Mother-in-Law/Bridgie's mom has been battling lung cancer, and she's doing okay right at this moment, but there's been a lot of back and forth to the hospital. While it is fantastic that the supreme court made a ruling that allows B and I to get married without having to scrounge up money to go several states away to do it, we're also kind of rushing to make that happen so we can be sure her mother will get to be there for it.
So the past week, right off the bat Monday morning, I was having a really fast heartbeat and shortness of breath. Tried not to say anything about it until it went on for about two hours with no improvement. It went on for most of the day, in fact, and by that point I was pretty sure if it was a heart attack I'd be dead or at least have some more serious symptoms. It was a busy day, no chance to slip out sick, and I noticed my heart rate spiked every time the phone rang. So, panic/anxiety attack? Not sure I've ever had one before. Had a few episodes of inexplicable racing heartrate before but they were brief. Got through the day, but worried my boss some. She told me I can't die because then I'll haunt her.
Tuesday and Wednesday I felt... off, but functional. Thursday it went on again but not quite as bad, Friday worse again. We pulled out a heartrate monitor but it couldn't get a good reading and kept flatlining. I was dizzy, no amount of deep breathing seems to help, and I was aggravated because if it's an anxiety attack then shouldn't I be able to get that under control? Trying hard to reframe my thinking and deep breathing and that's hard to do when the phone rings every five minutes or clients come in.
But I scared her, I guess. By about three in the afternoon the bosslady sent me off to go to the doctor.
Still had no word on whether or not I was going to have to work Saturday.
At the doctor, my blood pressure was 140/98
They did radiographs (fine), did an EKG (fine), did bloodwork and urinalysis - bloodwork fine although the thryroid part they have to send out so I don't know yet, and the urinalysis... had blood and bacteria. It is not my period. There is no reason there should be blood. Sent the bacteria out for culture.
The doctor wrote me a prescription for Xanax in the meantime, which I... don't really want to take. Especially not knowing for sure if these are anxiety attacks or if there's something else weird like hyperthyroid or a bizarre UTI going on.
I got lots of warnings about my blood pressure, and no answers on what to do about it.
They sent me off, I checked out, reached the lobby, and a nurse chased me down and pulled me back to take my blood pressure again. Higher, this time, but I was standing, and the weird part is it was noticeably higher in my right arm than my left, which she told me is backwards from normal. Both readings still worryingly high, though. We'll call you, she said.
Got home. Called the boss. Had to work Saturday, of course. B and I had, briefly, entertained thoughts of going to Comic Con for the first time ever because we finally had an opportunity to... or thought we did. Between having to work and continued spells of... generally feeling physically not right, that's a bust.
So it's Sunday, and I won't know more until tomorrow. Heart rate spiking just writing this. The advice on the print outs for lowering my blood pressure are: Cut back drinking (I drink maybe once or twice a year? Or every few years? One single drink when I do.) Quit smoking (I'm sure being around the MiL doesn't help with secondhand smoke, but she's on oxygen right now so she's not, and I never have smoked), eat more fruits and vegetables... I have an apple with peanut butter for breakfast almost every day for the past 6 months, eat mostly salad with chicken for dinners, sometimes for lunches too. We're part of a CSA and have a garden, we eat a lot of vegetables and cut back on meat. This has been the case for a long while. Get more exercise and lose wight. Those two... I have been trying. I have been trying so hard. The problem is that I do not know where in my ten-hour workday six days a week schedule to find time to do this. By the time I get home it's errands and dinner and then maybe an hour to unwind and then bed so I can get up and do it again. I can't even go for a walk on my lunch break because I do not get a lunch break, I answer the phone through lunch. Sometimes clients come in. Some days it gets too busy and I skip lunch entirely.
I feel so stuck. I like my boss. I like working around animals. I do not want to quit and leave her hanging and the business might very well collapse if I up and left. I am playing receptionist and vet assistant all at once, and there is literally nobody else available to do my job. We've had a couple people come in and apply since we lost the vet tech but then they don't answer when she calls or they are absolutely not hiring material.
I'm not sure we could do without my income in the equation, right now, and there seems to be no option to simply cut back on my hours instead of flat out leaving.
I don't know what to do.
It lurks in the back of my mind that high blood pressure is a reason I might not be allowed to take T. Every thing I think about my current state of health just raises my blood pressure more, and I don't know what to do. I have lost all interest in RP online. I can feel myself sinking back into the depression I thought I had shaken free of a few years back. I want to pull myself out of this and into healthy normality and I don't know how.
Adding to work stress, my effectively Mother-in-Law/Bridgie's mom has been battling lung cancer, and she's doing okay right at this moment, but there's been a lot of back and forth to the hospital. While it is fantastic that the supreme court made a ruling that allows B and I to get married without having to scrounge up money to go several states away to do it, we're also kind of rushing to make that happen so we can be sure her mother will get to be there for it.
So the past week, right off the bat Monday morning, I was having a really fast heartbeat and shortness of breath. Tried not to say anything about it until it went on for about two hours with no improvement. It went on for most of the day, in fact, and by that point I was pretty sure if it was a heart attack I'd be dead or at least have some more serious symptoms. It was a busy day, no chance to slip out sick, and I noticed my heart rate spiked every time the phone rang. So, panic/anxiety attack? Not sure I've ever had one before. Had a few episodes of inexplicable racing heartrate before but they were brief. Got through the day, but worried my boss some. She told me I can't die because then I'll haunt her.
Tuesday and Wednesday I felt... off, but functional. Thursday it went on again but not quite as bad, Friday worse again. We pulled out a heartrate monitor but it couldn't get a good reading and kept flatlining. I was dizzy, no amount of deep breathing seems to help, and I was aggravated because if it's an anxiety attack then shouldn't I be able to get that under control? Trying hard to reframe my thinking and deep breathing and that's hard to do when the phone rings every five minutes or clients come in.
But I scared her, I guess. By about three in the afternoon the bosslady sent me off to go to the doctor.
Still had no word on whether or not I was going to have to work Saturday.
At the doctor, my blood pressure was 140/98
They did radiographs (fine), did an EKG (fine), did bloodwork and urinalysis - bloodwork fine although the thryroid part they have to send out so I don't know yet, and the urinalysis... had blood and bacteria. It is not my period. There is no reason there should be blood. Sent the bacteria out for culture.
The doctor wrote me a prescription for Xanax in the meantime, which I... don't really want to take. Especially not knowing for sure if these are anxiety attacks or if there's something else weird like hyperthyroid or a bizarre UTI going on.
I got lots of warnings about my blood pressure, and no answers on what to do about it.
They sent me off, I checked out, reached the lobby, and a nurse chased me down and pulled me back to take my blood pressure again. Higher, this time, but I was standing, and the weird part is it was noticeably higher in my right arm than my left, which she told me is backwards from normal. Both readings still worryingly high, though. We'll call you, she said.
Got home. Called the boss. Had to work Saturday, of course. B and I had, briefly, entertained thoughts of going to Comic Con for the first time ever because we finally had an opportunity to... or thought we did. Between having to work and continued spells of... generally feeling physically not right, that's a bust.
So it's Sunday, and I won't know more until tomorrow. Heart rate spiking just writing this. The advice on the print outs for lowering my blood pressure are: Cut back drinking (I drink maybe once or twice a year? Or every few years? One single drink when I do.) Quit smoking (I'm sure being around the MiL doesn't help with secondhand smoke, but she's on oxygen right now so she's not, and I never have smoked), eat more fruits and vegetables... I have an apple with peanut butter for breakfast almost every day for the past 6 months, eat mostly salad with chicken for dinners, sometimes for lunches too. We're part of a CSA and have a garden, we eat a lot of vegetables and cut back on meat. This has been the case for a long while. Get more exercise and lose wight. Those two... I have been trying. I have been trying so hard. The problem is that I do not know where in my ten-hour workday six days a week schedule to find time to do this. By the time I get home it's errands and dinner and then maybe an hour to unwind and then bed so I can get up and do it again. I can't even go for a walk on my lunch break because I do not get a lunch break, I answer the phone through lunch. Sometimes clients come in. Some days it gets too busy and I skip lunch entirely.
I feel so stuck. I like my boss. I like working around animals. I do not want to quit and leave her hanging and the business might very well collapse if I up and left. I am playing receptionist and vet assistant all at once, and there is literally nobody else available to do my job. We've had a couple people come in and apply since we lost the vet tech but then they don't answer when she calls or they are absolutely not hiring material.
I'm not sure we could do without my income in the equation, right now, and there seems to be no option to simply cut back on my hours instead of flat out leaving.
I don't know what to do.
It lurks in the back of my mind that high blood pressure is a reason I might not be allowed to take T. Every thing I think about my current state of health just raises my blood pressure more, and I don't know what to do. I have lost all interest in RP online. I can feel myself sinking back into the depression I thought I had shaken free of a few years back. I want to pull myself out of this and into healthy normality and I don't know how.
