This morning I woke up at 4am and fed Camryn. I opened up facebook as I do every morning and looked at the “on this day” feature. I love reminiscing about what happened years ago and enjoy that feature immensely. I scrolled down about halfway and then had an instant pit in my stomach. I had to take a couple of deep breaths before I kept reading.

Two years ago today after my swimming lesson for my nephew, I started to get changed like I normally did and instantly felt my heart beating out of my chest. I couldn’t control it and my heart rate was going higher and higher. I could feel it so heavily in my neck too. My sister is a nurse and thankfully she happened to be with me. I remember her trying to calm me down and then she took my pulse. In that moment when I saw the look on her face, I knew something was wrong. I tried to remain as calm as possible and instantly my boss called 911.

When the ambulance got there they took me right away. I remember laying in the ambulance by myself staring at the giant red letters that said AMBULANCE while thinking of my family. I was crying and could not stop thinking about my family and baby girl. My heart rate was at 230 bpm and the EMT said he had to give me a dose of something that instantly was going to make me vomit but it would hopefully slow down my heart. I was administered the medicine and nothing. I didn’t vomit or get nauseous. I was in the exact same state. They did it a second time and the same thing happened. Nothing. Nothing was working. The EMT kept asking the driver how far out we were to Newton Wellesley Hospital and I was a fucking wreck of a human.

My heart rate kept getting higher because I was so anxious and nervous. When I got to the ER they were able to get it to slow down after several hours. After lots of ekg’s and other tests, I was finally released 7 hours later when everything went back to normal. To this day they don’t really know what the actual cause was.

The post that I read this morning said, “After the longest and one of the scariest days of my life, I was able to thankfully put everything in to perspective. Family is everything and stressing over things isn’t worth it. I am so thankful I have my own personal nurse in the family because she is a damn good one! I am very lucky to have an awesome support system!” It went on to thank my husband, sisters, brother in law and my parents. I don’t talk about this story much or ever at all really. It induces fear and panic all over again. When I read that this morning, I thought, wow, two years have gone by and what the hell have I done to make things better?

Truth is, I didn’t make things better initially. I didn’t work out more or eat healthier like I should have. I just decided to live in my own small world of fear. It wasn’t until I was pregnant with Cam that I admitted I needed help. I had a really rough pregnancy (blog about that to come soon) and decided I needed some more guidance with how to cope with my new onset of severe anxiety and panic attacks. We dove right in to our sessions and weeks went by before I told her what had happened to me two years ago. We connected everything that was happening with the pregnancy with Cam to my issue that happened two years ago and started my treatment plan.

During my super early yoga class this morning we were towards the end of our practice and the instructor was talking about erasing our thoughts and just being in the moment. I couldn’t. No matter what I did I kept thinking about what happened two years ago. So I decided to think of all of my progress within the last six months. I am grateful that I found an amazing therapist to help guide me through my new normal. I lost all of my baby weight from Camryn and have 18 pounds to go from the weight that was left over with Harper. And yes, I know she is four. (Thanks for the reminder). I have been able to manage my anxiety and panic attacks without ever going on medication. (That has not been easy, let me tell you!) I have been eating healthier and working out 2-4 times a week. Some weeks I make it to the gym more than others and I am okay with that. Life happens.

So when I ask myself the question again, I have made huge strides since two years ago. Today I went to yoga. Today I refused to have a panic or anxiety attack. Today I lived more in the moment and was thankful for my health and all of my loved ones surrounding me.