When Grief Feels Like a Heart Attack Not long ago, after a traumatic life experience, you could not have convinced me that I wasn’t having a heart attack. For more than two weeks, I lived with an unsettling chest tightness. It would wrap around my chest and sometimes radiate up my neck, into my back, and even along the left side of my jaw. I didn’t feel dizzy, I didn’t have shortness of breath, and I didn’t throw up but the symptoms were enough to leave me reaching for low-dose aspirin at least twice a week. The worst part was the timing. I had just lost my mom unexpectedly. With my grief weighing heavy, I believed the discomfort was the start of what’s often called “broken heart syndrome.” The ER Visits and Test Results After finally making two trips to the emergency room within two weeks, doctors reassured me that it wasn’t a heart attack....whew. Instead, an MRI suggested possible inflammation around my pancreas and gallbladder. They explained that gallstones someti...
My Extraordinarily Un-Extraordinary Life