In the meantime, every so often I felt a kind of short-lived swelling in the right side of my chest, like my lung was temporarily inflamed.
I thought it was gas, because back when I was experiencing acid reflux on a regular basis, I would sometimes feel the stabbing pain shoot up into my right side instead of my left. Though the sensation this time was different, I continued to chalk it up to a stomach problem. I'd recently been treating a minor hiatal hernia.
And then, the elephant came.
Maybe about four days ago, in the evening, I suddenly felt this odd sensation at the top of my chest which I'd never experienced in my fifty-two years. It was similar to that swelling sensation I mentioned above, except it was on both sides. And only toward the top.
During the few days, I'd also been experiencing costochnodritis. That's when the cartilage in between your ribs gets inflamed for no apparent reason. It's been a change-of-life symptom for me for at least the past five years, but up until the other day, the soreness would only be in one or two spots, usually on the same side of my chest.
This time, it felt like my entire rib cage, even in the back - which was new for me - was sore. I'd also begun to cough once in a while, and one day, my throat felt like it was full of glue.
When I went to bed that night and lay on my back, it felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. And no matter which way I turned, my lungs hurt.
At least, that's what it felt like. And that was on top of the familiar pain from the costochondritis.
I got scared.
I had trouble sleeping that night, and the next. What the heck was wrong with me? I feared the worst.
And then, I began cataloging my symptoms. Sneezing. Dry cough. A bit of a sore throat.
I got online. Searched, "omicron and chest pain." Sure enough, one of the symptoms of omicron (and all COVID mutations, I think) is chest pain.
It could have been worse.
While most of the rest of the world has been fearing COVID for the past two years, I hoped as hard as anyone could ever hope that I'd finally got the nasty bug. The other horrible alternative that might have been happening in my lungs was unthinkable.
But, I had to be sure. And so, I did something I've never done as an adult.
I sought medical attention because I felt sick.
Even when I was in my late twenties and had what I now believe was whooping cough, even another time back then when my sinuses were so clogged that I was literally half deaf for a month, I never went to a doctor.
But I'd never had this weird heaviness and tightness in my upper chest, and I knew it was going to worry me until a medical professional told me what it was.
If the essential oils I'd been inhaling deeply every fifteen to thirty minutes for two and a half days had helped, had diminished the symptoms, I wouldn't have bothered calling the local clinic. But thought I would seem to get better at times, I would get worse again. Was COVID too strong for even God's most powerful weapon against illness?
So I made an appointment, adamant with the staff there that I must have COVID, and insisting on the nasty nose swab. The LPN who initially talked to me was skeptical. COVID cases had become few and far between in our area by that time. She also pointed out that a lot of people had come in recently with similar complaints about chest pain (not the heart attack kind, the achy-scratchy-heavy kind).
But, at my insistence, she dutifully did the swab.
I was wrong. And that was good.
About a half hour later, the A.N.P. (Advanced Nurse Practitioner) with whom I'd officially made the appointment came into the exam room and promptly announced...
Wait for it...wait for it...
...that I tested negative for COVID.
I was almost disappointed.
Almost.
Because, really? Does anyone want to have a virus of any kind in their body?
And by that time, the LPN's words had given me pause, made me think that I'd just caught something that was going around.
Chris, the APN, believed my problem to be either some kind of bacterial infection or allergy symptoms.
He wanted to prescribe antibiotics, to be on the safe side.
I told him thanks, but no thanks. If it was either bacterial or viral, I knew how to take care of it myself. I was just there to find out if it was COVID.
And, yes, I did ask him, sheepishly and with self-deprecating chuckling, to tell me that it couldn't be the Big C. Of course he couldn't responsibly say that, but he did tell me what the symptoms are that indicate that particular disease.
Which I knew. But I needed to hear it from a medical professional in order for my brain/the devil to stop being able to torment me with the possibility.
Chris went on to say that if the symptoms hadn't subsided in a week, to consider calling in and asking for a prescription. Desperate for the feeling in my chest to be gone, I actually agreed.
Everything's connected.
A couple of hours later, however, I began to wonder: since the chest pain came right on the heels of the costochondritis, could they be related? For at least the past five years, I've been experiencing mild symptoms of fibromyalgia, presumably as part of the peri- and post-menopause package. So I got online and searched, "fibromyalgia and chest pain."
Sure enough, chest pain of all kinds is a common symptom for sufferers of fibromyalgia.
Now, it is possible that I'm dealing with a new allergy symptom. Or a bacterial infection in my lungs. But antibiotics won't help the former, and the latter I should be able to knock out with intense essential oil therapy.
However, I keep wondering: if it is a bacterial infection, shouldn't the discomfort in my chest be more or less constant, rather than coming and going as it has been?
My conclusion and decision.
Thanks in large part to my low estrogen levels, my immune system isn't working up to par. I'm working on raising my estrogen levels, but my intuition is telling me that whatever is wrong with me, I need to also do some serious internal cleanses to reset my systems while taking something that will improve my immune function.
I'll let you know later how that goes.
In the meantime, knowing I don't have either of the Big C's has reduced my anxiety considerably. Which in and of itself will be a big boost to my immune system.
