recent trip to the hospital

I was sitting at my desk at work when my heart pounded hard for about four beats... then there was a tightening in my chest for a brief moment. My vision went warped... like someone smeared a painting with both hands... then it went gray... then black... then came back online, but everything looked 2-dimensional. I didn't feel "right"... so I stood up and walked over to my coworker's cubicle. My thought was that if something was very wrong, and I collapsed, it might be an hour or two before someone found me. I was a little light-headed, but not bad... but my legs just didn't seem to want to work in a coordinated fashion with the rest of my body. When I got to my coworker's cube and sat down, I told her what had happened. I noticed my speech was slow and slurred, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. I didn't consider the idea of a stroke... because I didn't have numbness on one side, or several of the other symptoms. My boss convinced me to go to Urgent Care, and they sent me to Emergency.
So... that's what happened...

The Docs did a CTSCAN, MRA/MRI, ultrasounds, stress test (that's just lovely, let me tell ya), echocardiogram, EEG, EKG, shot me up with radioactive isotopes (that's right, I'm radioactive), and a plethora of other tests.

The good news is.. they all came out clean

The bad news is... they all came out clean... so we have no idea why it happened.

What did happen? Well... the best theory the docs came up with is... my heart had a hiccup... probably due to anxiety/stress. During that hiccup, it fibrillated and caused the blood to pool in my heart... those hard thumps and chest tightening was pushing it out. It sent many small blood clots to my brain... which traveled down to the smaller arteries.

A true stroke is a blockage of a major artery to the brain that causes dysfunction of a large area of gray matter. During a TIA, the smaller clots cause blockage to smaller areas, leading to malfunction instead of complete dysfunction. Not as dangerous, though still a little unnerving. The automatic response of the body is to start dissolving those blood clots immediately... which is why the effects usually don't last for long. You still have some permanent loss of brain cells, but other parts of your brain tend to take over the function of the lost cells.

now...
A lot of people have said "omg, you must have been so scared..."
hmm....
no.... not really... on a scale of 1 to 10... one being nothing, five being anxious, and ten being peeing-your-pants... I'd rate my anxiety and concern at about a 4 at it's highest point... which was right after it all started. I went into "damage control mode" and really didn't feel anything over about a 2.5 after that.
I was concerned, but there was no "oh shit factor"... it was... "ok, let's deal with this, whatever this is going to be, and move on"

I was annoyed at having to stay in the hospital for so long. Not just because of the inconvenience to my (unhealthy) lifestyle as I let on to many who dropped by or called... the inability to smoke or have coffee... but because I've got a life planned LOL.

While I was in the MRI tube, I started to get a little freaked out. I'm a bit claustrophobic... but I noticed the sounds of the machine were very much like a drum beat... a nice trance beat... so I let myself go. What I found there is what I'd like to share with you. It's about the fear-factor that I mentioned above.
One of the reasons people can have a stroke (or TIA) is from stress and anxiety. Usually from fear. The fear of failure, the fear of loss, the fear of being passed up for that promotion, the fear of not getting everything handled before the deadline, the financial fears of living outside your means, the fear of the project not going as planned, the fear of letting people down, the fear of rejection or ridicule, etc. Any of those sound familiar?

How many of us are more afraid of Life than we are of Death?
Many of us, on the spiritual path we've chosen, deal with dying, death, and the spirits of the dead on a regular basis. And yet... how many of us still fear aspects of Life? is living scarier than dying?
Why should it be? Why fret over "shoulda-coulda-woulda's?" Why let "what-if's" keep you quagmired at status quo?

Step out on a limb. Don't fear failure. Do it. Whatever "it" is. If everyone played it safe all the time, we wouldn't have half what we do. If everyone gave up when they failed once, would we have these marvelous machines that allow us to talk like this, thousands of miles away? If everyone was afraid of getting themselves
emotionally invested, how many social programs and charities would there be?
I'm not talking about taking on too much... I'm not talking about making your life so crazy-busy that you can't breathe...

I'm talking about Life Without Fear.

Think about it.

When we get the most anxious is when we're not living in integrity.
When we cringe every time the phone rings with the fear that it's a creditor calling for money we spent on something else.
When we dread the alarm clock in the morning because we're going to a job we've come to despise.
When we decide to stay backstage because we're too afraid of stepping into the spotlight.

My energy has been scattered helterskelter. For the fear of letting a few people down, I've spread myself too thin to be effective anywhere.
Time to focus.
Time to let go of the fear that I may hurt someone's feelings if I'm just not there to do it one more time.

I'm not going to slow down. I'm not going to take it easy. I'm going to be choosy. but I'm going to dance on that proverbial limb until it bears fruit.