You all know my family moved to Brussels 8 weeks ago. We were not informed that we'd be in a hotel for more than a week until about 12 hours before the movers came and packed everything out, giving us little to no time to rearrange our stuff.
We moved in a smelly, gross hotel with the tiniest kitchenette I've ever seen (It has one functioning burner) and none of the restaurants are open for dinner because they only cater to the business lunch crowds. This has meant some serious challenges in trying to feed the family, as there is also only a teeny-tiny grocery store nearby and the prices are quite high.
This has been really stressful for me, apparently, and I've developed a heart condition thanks to all of it.
We finally move into our home on Thursday, but we won't have our household stuff, including sheets and towels, until Friday.
This heart condition is likely a part of me for the rest of my life. My mother developed a similar problem at the exact same age during a high-stress summer. She was on heart meds for the rest of her life and eventually died of heart failure at the ripe ol' age of 55.
I'm freakin' scared that the family decision we made has ruined my heart and will forever taint the wonderful experiences I have been having and will continue to have here in Brussels.
My sensitive 8 year old was so upset by my trip to the ER on Saturday that her stomach is all messed up and she's had to stay home to be near the bathroom today. The other girls are scared, too.
For those of you in the medical field, it's a persistent PVC with pretty low voltage. The PVC's are occurring at a rate of 8-20 times a minutes so it's pretty bad. All my minerals and other labs came back perfect so there is no medical reason for this to have happened.
Until I meet with the cardiologist next week, I have been told to be as sedate as possible (ha! we're MOVING again this week and it's a 20 minute walk from the metro to my kid's school, each way, twice a day until that move happens).
The doctor at the hospital has put me on the European version of the same exact medication my mother was one. According to my father, she didn't have PVC but she would develop a very hard, fast heart rate. I am on the lowest dose possible and it seems to help, but is wearing off too soon. So I sleep great, wake up and have about 2-3 hours where I still feel good, and then my heart feels all wrong again for the rest of the day.
The cardiologist is highly respected by the medical staff here at the Embassy so I am hoping he is as good as they say.
I was sent to a specific hospital by the embassy health unit and it happens to be the nearest local hospital. I was worried that I was bankrupting us but my heart was beating so badly that I felt I didn't have any choice.
I found out just why so many people love socialized health care! For the entire 3-4 hours visit, including being seen by multiple doctors, getting an x-ray, 5 vials of blood, and continuous monitoring, the out-of-pocket cost for us was under 300 Euros. In the US, that would have run well over 10 times that amount. I will not hesitate to go to the ER again!
But that said, as I sit here feeling my heart do flip-flops around itself, i'm frustrated and scared. This wasn't supposed to happen. I'm the healthy one in the family. I'm only 10 pounds overweight, my blood work is always perfect and other than infertility-causing autoimmune weirdness, I've always been pretty darn healthy.
So a heart condition that makes it so I can barely stand on a metro, or walk down the street, is painful.
No comments:
Post a Comment