It Was A Great Birthday, Until...

What a great birthday I had yesterday. Really, it was wonderful. My husband bought me beautiful pink daisies (my favorite color AND flower), a dear friend got me an Amazon gift card (several David Sedaris books coming my way... and Guitar Hero Smash Hits), and another dear friend hooked me up with 2 Amy Grant tickets. SA-WEET. Not to mention the dozens of birthday wishes I received online. I am blessed to have such incredible friends.

Since it was my birthday, I opted to gorge myself on crap... namely, pizza and cheese fries. Yum! And as if that wasn't good enough, I even got my husband to play Guitar Hero with me (I whooped him).

Yeah, and that's where it started to tank.

I was rawking out when suddenly I had awful chest pain that went into my jaw and my back. I blew it off, it went away. Then it came back, worse. I had experienced the same pain a few days ago and it lasted several hours but I just suffered and moved on with my life. But this time it kinda freaked my husband out, so he got the car keys, I put my sneakers on, and we went to the ER.

Now, the plus side of having chest pains is that they take you right away at the ER. You don't have to sit there like all the other chumps with broken bones and sniffles. As soon as I walked up the front desk and said "I'm having chest pain" they were pretty much on me like flies on cow poop.

I got back to the triage area and I met the doctor for the first time. He came armed to the teeth with unpleasant questions.

DOC: Can you tell me what physical problems you have?

ME: I'm diabetic and I have high blood pressure.

DOC: OK. Do you smoke?

ME: Yes.

DOC: What have your glucose readings been like lately?

ME: Uh... I haven't, um... I haven't really checked them lately.

DOC: How long has it been?

ME: (shrug)

DOC: What did you eat for supper?

ME: Um. Well. Pizza and cheese fries.

By now, I was getting the same kind of look from the doctor that my mother used to give me when I did something completely stupid... like not turning in an excuse at school, when all I had to do was walk up to the desk and hand it to the secretary.

So they proceeded to do an EKG, run blood work, and take x-rays. Everything came back normal, except for my blood sugar, which was quite high. They passed down the declaration that my birthday heart attack was not, in fact, a heart attack, but rather severe acid reflux.

Talk about feeling dumb.

They would not release me until my sugar was under control, so they put insulin in my IV and made me sit there for 2 more hours. My husband slept. I watched Discovery Health, who was hosting "Psych Week." They aired a documentary about Jani Schofield, a 6-year-old girl born with schizophrenia and how her family copes with it. Fascinating as all heck. For a moment, I thought it was almost worth getting the IV shoved in my arm.

And for the record, yes, everyone noticed it was my birthday, from the receptionist in the lobby to the extremely eccentric nurse who got me settled into my bed. I responded to all of them the same way: "I always wanted to be stuck with needles on my birthday."

I finally got to bed around 4am and slept, straight through, until noon. I normally take my bipolar meds around 11, so I have to say... it's 12:30 and I feel like I have the world's worst hangover, minus the alcohol.

I'm just grateful that I didn't have to celebrate my birthday with a triple bypass or something. Pin It