Delayed Stress Reaction

The conference I was planning is over and despite many oversights, communication breakdowns and outright mistakes, it was a smashing success. The ministers who attended were completely unaware of the challenges we faced behind the scenes and many raved about how wonderful it was and what a good job we did. Really? What a relief!

I drove home Thursday night and was reunited with my husband & children. I got some much needed sleep and on Friday morning I was able to spend some time with my family before enjoying a relaxed 1/2 day at work unpacking the conference materials.

Even as I experienced this awesome relief, random chest pains I had experienced during the stress & chaos of the conference became more frequent and pronounced. I was at peace for the first time in weeks and yet my body was sending strong signals that something was wrong. As the day wore on, I realized that a trip to the emergency room was going to be my on my Friday night agenda even if it was just to rule out anything serious.

By the time I arrived at the hospital the cramping spasms I felt in the middle of my chest were occurring every 10 minutes. In every other way I felt calm and healthy so I refused to let the chest pains or the long emergency wait upset or worry me. Just when I would think, "Hey, I haven't felt a pain in a while...I should just go home", another one would come. Compared to the people who shared the waiting room with me over the 6 hours I sat there, I was the picture of health. Only the persistant pains I experienced over the course of the evening kept me from leaving for the comfort of home and my family.
 
If anything inspires me to make healthy choices, an emergency room visit does! I was surrounded by people who were vomitting, coughing, moaning, crying, and shaking. It was hard to be in such close proximity with individuals who appeared to be suffering from contagious maladies that would have been more appropriately treated at home and would likely improve with time. Who was I to judge though? Maybe there was more to their flu-like symptoms than met the eye. My lack of agitation and discomfort made me look very out of place--in fact, I was making the most of my uninterrupted quiet time to read, plan and think!
 
I was finally seen by a doctor, but by then the mysterious pains had finally diminished. Two blood tests and the EKG indicated that nothing was or had been wrong with my heart. I had no reason to believe that my chest muscle had been irritated in any way as the rigorous conference demands were not physical in nature, but chest muscle spasms is likely what it was. I left at 1:30am after 9 whole hours with a stress test appointment in my hands.
 
I hate to think I wasted tax-payer money on a false alarm, but I have never experienced anything quite like that in my life. In the end I believe that I let the planning and executing of the conference affect me physically and that at the first quiet opportunity, my body spoke loud and clear, "Don't ever do that to me again!"
 
Delayed Stress Reaction.
 
This annual conference is part of my job and it's not going to go away. If anything, it is going to get bigger. This year's event had a lot of "firsts" including my first time being so involved in it's planning. I have come to realize that I am responsible to find a way to cope with stress and that it largely corresponds to my interpretation of events around me. It's ironic that at the conference resource table I discovered some material that may just help me get to the source of my anxiety issues. My brain!
 
More to come...