I want to attempt a chronicle of the aftermaths of the event I experienced last week on this blog (along with all the other horse shit), so here is the response to a letter I received from a friend who asked me what the chest pains were like. Presented here replete with all grammatical and spelling errors that tend to occur when a person is typing something in the heat of the moment.
Hey, Eric. How goes it?
Let's see...the chest pain..Jeez, almost can't describe it. Like a fist was squeezing it maybe just a little bit and the pain from that caused the entire region around it (and in my back muscles) to tense up to an extraordinarily high degree. Have you ever had a pain that was sharp and lasted long enough that you had to sort of grimace and hold in your breath...not really 'had' to, but maybe like your whole upper body seizes up and you feel like your pushing down pressure in your pressure by not breathing out? Obviously I have difficulty putting it into word, but at least that gives me a chance to think it out a little. If I had to just explain it in person I am sure I would stumble over words trying to find the right ones. Then, as the pain subsided, I began to shake quite uncontrollably, as if I were very, very cold (it was not cold at all in the room). That kept on for several minutes before I decided, yeah, the wife probably ought to take me to the ER. The shakes continued for quite some time after I got there. I almost nodded off a couple of times, but I would open my eyes and look at Stacie and Bryan then determine not to close my eyes. I don't know. They didn't say it was a heart attack, at least I guess the tests that came back didn't indicate that. But the nodding off was a little disconcerting to me (though not really frightening).
Anyhoo, I guess that's about as good as I can answer your question. It's been a week now, and for the most part I've felt pretty good physically...maybe a little weak and sore from the events of last thursday, but tolerable. It gets kind of scary when I think about the angina, what it is capable of. But if I distract myself from those thoughts I seem to get better.
As for the mental condition and the lifting of depression...so far, so good. I haven't felt this good since 1985. That's a long, long time to fuel depression with anger and the other bad things that I fed it. I had a short, extremely heart-to-heart talk with my wife while I was in the hospital...really frightened, but even more concerned that I not leave her and Bryan with nothing but the memory of a real bastard. You know..kind of told her what I'd really been thinking about all day, that I still loved her very much but that my bipolar/depression had built a wall so strong that I wasn't even feeling it, even thought I knew it was there and has been there all along. I said I hoped she would remember that it was my "condition" that was responsible for all the negativity...and then the next night I just felt it lift...and I think a lot of it has to do with opening up that little chink in the "wall" and letting some light shine in. It didn't take too long for more of the bricks to start crumbling. I'm sure you notice the "religious connotations" in that :)
Oh, I could go into greater detail, but I don't imagine it would enlighten you any further than what I just said. Suffice to say that I have zero tolerance for "phony Christians", and that's what I was between 02-07. I'm not a "phony" anymore, and this after practically turning away from faith for almost 2 years. I accepted a lot of "theology" at face value, and now I see that absolutely none of that stuff matters. All that matters is that the Spirit is in you, and I think, no, I *know* that It/He is in me, because all I could think of on that table (and especially during the times when I started to "nod off") was how I would have to trust the lord in this whole mess...I mean, that He was all there was in that moment. And I realized, I guess, that He IS all there is *in this moment*. God, I hate to sound like one of those people who are all about "I saw god" or "I found god in my darkest hour"... it wasn't like that at all.
But look...I've digressed and this message is even longer than it was when I said I needed to shut 'er down. So I guess I'll let you go before I find myself rambling on about other aspects of this whole experience. Hope you don't think I'm crazy. I think we've got this thing under control and I don't even want to think about it going back down to where it was. I'm pretty strong in that area, though, so there is hope for optimism, if I can only reign in the anxiety that's still there (even if it's not nearly as strong).
I appreciate your concern. :)
jac
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