So that's what a panic attack feels like...

I'm not going to beat around the bush (literally or figuratively); it's been a rough end to the year. I'm still not exactly sure what happened Saturday night. Everything's still kind of a blur (and yes, I was completely sober). All I can remember is alternately feeling warm and cold, being unusually shaky, and before I knew it, experiencing heart palpitations like never before, having extreme difficulty breathing, and reaching a point where I thought I wasn't going to live much longer. An emergency vehicle arrived shortly thereafter, rushed me to a local hospital, where I got fully hydrated and settled down, to the point where I was released early the next morning. It was a struggle the next three days, though, as I found myself having trouble sleeping, feeling anxious as deja vu struck me while laying in bed, and thinking about my breathing, almost paranoid about it, much more than usual. Four days after the frightening experience, while I still feel alternately warm and cold (not to such great extents) and am coughing some, I finally feel at ease about sleeping and my pulse/heart rate, which reached between 140 and 160ish Saturday night. The doctor who saw me I think wrongly suggested my situation was caused by "overdoing" it over the holidays: Food, drinks, travel, lack of sleep, etc. I simply think it was a triple whammy, started with an onset of influenza (the worst I've ever had it), not realizing it during my 3.5-hour drive back to Ohio from Michigan, not drinking much water during that time, and becoming further dehydrated in the process. All of this, and perhaps more, then triggered my first ever panic attack - arguably the most frightening situation of my life to this point. Hopefully it was a fluke thing and I never have to go through that again, and having said that, I sincerely wish no one else has to either. It's an incredibly helpless feeling, like one has completely lost control, knows something is seriously wrong, and through this, makes the situation worse by getting increasingly more nervous/anxious, to the point where the chest feels as if it's about to explode and like one's life may not last much longer.

I've gotta say, from having seizures for 18 of my first 22 years, to a two-year virus when I was 28-29, to a gallstone attack at the age of 30, to gout and a panic attack at 34, it'd be quite nice to have a fully healthy year or two (or twenty-two). Here's to a healthy and happy 2016 to all my readers, their friends, family, and loved ones (and yours truly)! Cheers! :: drinks a shot of water ::