Danny: This week's a little different.
As some of you might know, I also run a couple of other podcasts, one as
a host, and the other as a cohost.
Today.
I want to share an episode from the podcast I co-host, Mental Health and Us.
It originally started out as a solo hosted show by my wife, Jaclyn, and
was called Mental health and Me.
It shared self-care and wellness tips to help other mental health
sufferers and their loved ones cope.
Jaclyn uses her 20 years battle with both depression and anxiety
to share what worked for her, and how that could maybe help you.
I personally suffer from mental health issues too, and it's an important
topic and one I see more of in the podcasting space, both from a
podcaster and a listener perspective.
In this episode, Jaclyn shares how a major health scare made her fear
the worst, and why it's important to understand how your physical health
is important to your mental health.
The Mental Health and Us podcast will be relaunching early October, and
you can catch up with other episodes over at mentalhealthpodcast.ca.
Next week,
we'll be back to the usual Podcaster Stories programming.
Thank you for letting me share this special episode with you, and I hope
you check out the podcast and join in when it relaunches next month.
Until next time, take care and stay safe.
Jaclyn: Hi, I'm Jaclyn Brown and you're listening to Mental Health and Me.
I have anxiety and depression, and I've been suffering from these two
illnesses for years through this podcast.
I am sharing my journey along with practical self-care and wellness
tips to help other mental health suffers and their loved ones cope.
I hope you'll join me.
Welcome to the mental health and me podcast.
In today's episode, I'm going to talk about my health scare.
And the last episode, if you didn't hear it, go listen to it because
I talked a wonderfully long time about the eight week challenge
and how I I challenged myself to.
You know, follow healthy habits and make good choices and lose
some weight in the process.
And I lost over 30 pounds and and I said, okay.
So I started that challenge February 18th and I finished at eight weeks later.
So it was the beginning of beginning of April.
So now.
I'm going to talk about what happened when that pretty much the day after
that finished, because it was immediate.
So I finished my week challenge, went out for dinner with the family
and and then the next day I w I took a break now I didn't, I didn't, I
still followed my healthy habits.
I still ate, drank my three liters of water and I made healthy choices and I
drank my smoothies and all that was good.
But I didn't do my exercise.
And and then.
Then that night, the Monday night, the Tuesday morning at about at about, I
don't know, just after midnight, I woke up with a what felt like a heart attack.
And I've had this before, so I know that it's it's bad, but.
The first time I had, it was a little less than a year ago.
I had this heart scare and I didn't know what was going on.
And I had chest pains and I couldn't breathe.
And but I could feel it like right, right around my heart.
And and I also have asthma and I've had this my whole life.
So I naturally think, okay, well maybe it's my life.
And I take my inhalers and that doesn't work and the pain is getting progressively
worse and I can't get comfortable.
I try lying down that doesn't work.
I try lying, like I'm talking to on the floor so that I could, you know,
flat back, no pillows, no cushions.
And that was worse.
And then I tried sitting up and that was worse and that, you know, like every
single position I tried, it was worse.
And so I finally called the EMS.
And and, and, you know, was taken to the hospital.
And last year when that happened, I spent, I think, 36 hours in the hospital
and they fixed they took away the pain.
I, I'm not gonna say they fixed, but they took away the pain and I was fine.
What felt like fine.
After.
Maybe 10 hours, but I spent the next, you know, 26 hours in the
hospital being monitored because they wanted to find out what happened.
And then after that, the the 36 hours in the hospital I was released was
told to relax a bit, not too much.
Cause I was, I felt fine, but but it was just take it easy.
And then a week after that I was given a heart monitor that
I had to wear for 48 hours.
Then I saw a heart specialist, a cardiologist and and they took the
results from the heart monitor.
And said, basically they found nothing.
They found no reason why this happened.
They're going to write it off as a, not an anomaly.
And should this happen again?
Follow the same procedure, call the ambulance, go to the
hospital and get checked out, but they kind of made it sound.
It was like a one-time occurrence.
Given my age, it wasn't a heart attack, felt like a heart attack,
but it wasn't a heart attack.
And and they, they treat it like a heart attack when you're in the hospital.
But when you leave the hospital, they're like, no, it actually,
wasn't a ha wasn't a heart attack.
So then you know, Beginning of April when, the day after I finished my eight week
challenge, this is just a coincidence, but it feels like a really big coincidence.
The day after I finished, I complete my eight week challenge and stop exercising.
I ended up waking up in the middle of the night with these chest pains and
because I have asthma once again, I think.
Okay.
Maybe it's my, yeah.
Weird cause I was sleeping and it's not like I was doing any sort of extend EWAS
training or, you know so what happened?
I take my inhalers naturally.
They don't work.
It's not a lung issue.
And then I think, well maybe it's heartburn.
I have indigestion, so let's take some Tums and and see if that helps.
I don't know why I would think this because it's not like I was
eating any food at that time.
So but I take the Tums and they don't work.
And then and then I get more and more uncomfortable.
I try to go back to sleep, but I wake up in more pain.
So I wake up at like, let's say quarter after 12 with these symptoms.
And then I try to do all these things.
They don't work and I go back to sleep thinking, just sleep it off.
And then.
About two in the morning to two 30 in the, in between that time,
I I couldn't take it anymore.
I was in so much pain and I knew that it was a bigger problem than I was You
know, I just knew it was a big problem and worse off is that I went to the
bathroom and I saw my, my face and I could see that my skin color was gray.
I was pretty much like, you know, translucent, like you could
see right through me and that.
The big indicator for me, because that had happened the first time.
And they said like, you're, you're gray.
You have no blood pressure.
You need to call the ambulance.
And I said, okay, I don't know why I didn't do this before I'm doing it now.
And I also remember that they told me to take baby aspirin to chew baby aspirin.
Right.
So you have to take two baby aspirins, put them in your mouth
and chew and it tastes awful.
But there's no point in swallowing them.
It's not going to help you need to chew it and then swallow the chewed pill.
And fortunately for me, my husband takes baby aspirin every
single day for his cholesterol or whatever it is he takes it for.
So we always have baby aspirin in the house.
I knew this time where to go to get it.
So I went and yeah.
You know, chewed these pills.
And then I called 9 1 1, and I was like, I'm having these problems.
I had them last year, they told me to call the ambulance.
And then, you know, I've chewed, baby aspirin I've even swallowed baby aspirin
because I thought, you know, just in case the chewing ones don't work maybe.
And then that's when they said no, that you can swallow as many pills as you want.
It's not going to help you.
You have to chew them.
And you've already done that.
So now you just wait for the ambulance.
And I remember like, you know, my face is.
And the paramedics show up.
And I'm going to pause here to like, talk about how much I love paramedics.
They are incredible.
They're there and they have a what do you call that bedside manner?
They have that in spades where sometimes the emergency room
doctors, they don't have that.
And I'll talk about that when I get there, but.
But yeah, the paramedics are just amazing and and, you know, shout out to them.
And every time I meet a paramedic, whether it's, you know, they've helped
me or not, I just talk about how much I love them and I love what they do.
So shout out paramedics.
You're awesome.
So anyways, so the paramedics show up and apparently the police
officers showed up and fire.
Truck and fighters showed up as well.
I don't remember this because at that point I was just like, out of it, I
was so gray and so low blood pressure.
I couldn't even open my eyes.
I was sitting on the stairs and I, and I just knew I was like waiting for help.
And my husband was beside me.
And he was communicating with the people that had come to help me.
I was able to walk myself out to the gurney and so I didn't,
we didn't need the firefighters.
I think the police.
The policemen was talking to, to my husband and I, I don't, I don't remember
that, but I remember looking up and seeing his face and going, oh, you
know, it looks like this guy named Mike, the guy that worked on your stairs.
And then, and then the next day, when I was talking to my husband,
I was like, wasn't there a mic?
Like didn't did Mike come?
And he's like, no, that was the policemen.
And he looked kind of like Mike.
So I thought that was funny that I didn't remember a police officer
being there, but I remember seeing Mike, the guy that did my stairs.
So.
Anyways at paramedics gave me crap crap for waiting two hours before
calling them because apparently I made their job more difficult and
I put myself in a worse condition.
So they said, you know, should this happen again?
When you feel it, you call you don't wait.
And it's so hard for me to, I mean, I can say, yeah, you're right.
Okay.
I will call I'm sorry, but.
You know, it's hard to go.
Do I need an ambulance right now?
Am I going to call 9 1 1?
Because they send all three of those services, police,
fire, truck, and ambulance out.
When you call 9 1 1 is it, I don't want to waste their time.
Like what, what if it is heartburn?
And I can just take Tums and be relieved, right?
Like this is what I'm thinking.
What if it is asthma?
I know I can take my inhaler and feel fine.
How do I know that it's an emergency that I actually need to call these people.
And I had a conversation with my mom about it, and my mom said, you
call, so now I'm passing this advice from mom to you, you call 9 1 1.
And when they get to you and you start having a conversation with them and
you feel okay, you can send them off.
You don't need to get in the ambulance, but it is much better to have those
people in your house and taking care of you if you need it than to
need it and not have them there.
So if you're in a situation where you think, just think that you might
need help you call there's my advice.
There's my mom's advice.
Just take it.
It's smart.
So.
That happened.
And then I was I was ambulanced to the hospital.
They they were, the paramedics were really good.
They, whatever it was that they tried on me in in, and because, you know, my,
my my, my blood pressure was so low.
It makes them, it makes it difficult to find veins, you know, wherever
they put in the IV, it makes it difficult for them to find it.
And I, I have You know, a hard time.
They, they have a hard time.
I should say, finding that anyways.
And then when my blood pressure is low, it just makes it almost impossible.
So I get like poked a lot while they're looking for these things.
I don't care.
Like I don't, I'm not I have a high pain tolerance.
Like it doesn't, it doesn't affect me if they need to poke me in
various places, as long as they find what they're looking for.
So that part is fine, but, and then they tried some medicine.
I wish I knew, but I was, like I said, it was out of it, but they were laughing.
And I remember seeing the look on the two paramedics faces before we even
left my driveway while we were in the ambulance, they had tried something and
then we're checking my heart rate and whatever it was that they tried on me.
It, it started to work.
And my, my heart rate started to go up in my blood.
Started to increase again.
And so I was no longer in that scary zone.
I still I'm still out of it, but, but from their perspective and from a health
perspective, I guess I had, you know, I had shown signs of improvement and
they were laughing because I think it's their job to try this method first.
But.
Apparently it's never worked before.
So every single person that they have tried it on, it doesn't work.
And then they go to step two, whatever their step two method is.
First step is easier.
Doesn't work, try the second step.
But for me, the first step worked.
So they were like, so impressed with that, that they told they're like, I
just want you to know that I've been in this business for X amount of years
and I've done this X amount of times.
It has never worked, but for you, it works.
He's going to remember me and I'm certainly going to remember him.
And I think that's amazing.
So it worked and I started to feel better.
I started to feel cold, so it was like all the blood was there, but but I
was just not circulating it properly.
And I remember feeling like I was in hypothermic shock to the point where I
had like, I think six different blankets put on me now I'm in the hospital,
they're adding more blankets to me.
They gave me heated blankets.
They gave me a heat pack for me to hold on to yeah, it was, it was like,
they were treating me for hypothermia at that point, but eventually.
When we also, and I, another thing that I remember about being in the hospital
was when they said, how do you feel?
And I said, I feel really cold.
And so they gave me more and they said, okay, but are you in pain?
Nope, I'm just cold.
And they said, that's good.
Like, we can deal with cold.
And I said, I can deal with cold to it.
And it was like, I was smiling.
Sure.
I might be in hypothermic shock, but I'm smiling.
And so that you know, it was good.
And then and then I was I don't know how long I was in the hospital.
I was released the next day.
It was not, it was less than 24 hours that I was in the hospital.
At that point, I was not even transferred to a room.
I just stayed in like the emergency section until my mom came to pick me.
And then I was off and recuperating for for three days.
I wasn't, I mean, like for more than three days, I think it was
probably like closer to 10 days where before I felt back to normal.
And even to this day, I haven't done any exercise because I'm a little
afraid of what might happen to my heart.
So I've just been taking it easy.
I started walking again, but not running and yeah.
And I'm taking it slow.
I feel okay.
I feel like everything's okay.
I'm just trying to be cautious.
And and yeah, and they're still, they still don't know exactly.
What's what is wrong with my heart, but I do, I have gone two
more times back to the hospital without scares just for them to do.
And the CT scans and whatever else.
So, so they're, they're continuing to check.
I have another appointment next week to talk to the doctor about what's happened.
So it's it, they're constantly looking at it.
They're not going to let it go.
I do hope that I am given some sort of proactive measure, whether it's
you know include this in your diet or.
Medicine, like, you know, if it's medicine, whatever it is, I hope they
give me some sort of proactive attempts because waiting to handle this as a
reactive measure is literally killing me.
Like it hurts it, that the pain that I have to go through.
It hurts and sure.
It's like once every 10 months, but I would rather it not happen at all.
So that has, that was what I went through after my eight week challenge and why
it's been a little bit more difficult to get back into the swing of things.
And then of course, after my heart feels okay, and I'm sort of getting
back into the rhythm of things.
I then get a cold from my day.
And I don't mind because you know, when the kids give you cold, so you just
take it and it's better you than them.
So it's fine.
But it was just the app here.
I am sick again.
So that's, that's how it's been.
And one of the, another, one of the things that my mom said in her with
her words of wisdom, was it, you know, it's pretty funny that coincidentally,
as soon as I stopped my eight lead channel, And I say, I'm going to have
like an unhealthy meal or I don't care if I cheat and have a chocolate bar.
I mean, you know, and I w I was still good about it, but I just didn't care about
those like little cheats as reward system.
So having a chocolate was fine.
You know, and I, I didn't do it every day and it was okay.
My mom said, the minute you started putting crap in your body, crap happens.
Now I'm going to say, my mom said it was swears.
I'm not going to swear.
You put crap in crap happens.
And I think that that's brilliant.
And if I had have said, if I had have, instead of said, Hey, this is
going to be an eight week challenge.
And at the end of eight weeks, I'm going to do whatever I want.
If I should have said, I'm going to start with eight weeks.
Not take a cheat day, then do another eight weeks.
And Hey, guess what?
I just created a lifestyle change and not just a silly little challenge for myself.
Maybe I wouldn't have ended up in the hospital with what
felt like a heart attack.
Maybe not.
Maybe I have this heart condition that I can't get rid of anyways.
But I just, you know, the timing is everything.
I ate a really bad meal.
I don't, I shouldn't say that, but anyways, it felt like I took some
cheats and I ate some bad stuff.
And then all of a sudden I'm back in the hospital with heart problems.
So.
It's just a coincidence or maybe it's not, but I'm going to heed once more.
My mother's brilliant advice.
Don't put crap in the body.
And so there's that.
And the other thing, and I will, I will wrap this up shortly, but I will say that
since I haven't been able to exercise, but I still am able to watch what I eat.
I have not put any more pounds back on now, when I, when I eat pork, You know,
if I have a bad meal, I might notice a difference on the scale by like a pound.
But I don't eat poorly every day.
I don't make poor choices.
Every meal, I have a little cheat here and there, and then I
really watch my intake of food.
Excuse me.
That is my asthma catching up.
So I watch what I eat and I'm very good about moderation and.
I'm very aware of everything that I put inside of me.
So even though I haven't been able to do my cardio exercise, excuse me again,
I should have a cup of water here.
So yeah, even though I am not able to do my cardio exercise,
but I am able to go for walks.
I've managed to, to to keep the weight off.
And to me.
I haven't been able to lose any more, but I have been able to
maintain the weight that I achieved.
And I'm really proud of that.
And I think that's important to know, like for those people that
really don't want to exercise, it turns out you don't really need to.
And I will talk about that in the Q and a future posts as well.
You don't need to exercise.
You do need to move, but walking is okay.
So so yeah, like, I, I don't, as much as I loved that cardio workout and I will
like, if anyone wants to know that cardio workout, I will for sure give it, and
I will talk about, you know, that great teacher, great detail, if anyone wants to
know, but but it's not, you don't need it.
You really need to the food, all the food that you put in
your body that is important.
And and I.
Walk a little bit and move a little bit.
Don't just stay still, but you don't need to do any sort of lifting weights.
You don't need to do a core cardio workout.
You can maintain a healthy weight w just by, by eating the right foods.
So that's how I'm going to wrap this one up.
I hope you enjoyed this podcast and we'll see you again soon.
Thanks for listening to Mental Health and Me.
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