By: Jena Slater
Can you imagine sitting in a classroom, waiting for attendance to be called, when out of nowhere you start feeling a very rapid thud, thud, thud? Following this, you begin feeling as if the heater suddenly got kicked way up. Now, the room feels nearly twice as hot as it did only minutes before. You start losing the ability to focus and start looking around to see if anyone else noticed too. Instead, you start realizing how dizzy you’ve gotten over the short amount of time. If you are standing or sitting, it feels like you can fall over at any given moment.
I do not want to give in to whatever is causing this. I want to continue finding the strength to try and carry on fighting it.
My name is Jena Slater, I am a senior attending Eastern New Mexico University (ENMU). I am majoring in Communication with an emphasis in Journalism.
Some of my hobbies include working part time on a ranch during the summer and when I am not here taking classes. I am very passionate about my hobbies including: horseback riding, writing, listening to Country Music, photography, and eventually learning to play the guitar. I also love the outdoors and living a country lifestyle.
How does getting episodes of dizziness affect the life of a full-time college student?
If you have a while to read and stick around, you can learn parts of the journey which, I have dealt with over the last six months. I should first, start with the symptoms I face.
These do not always occur, but most of the time they do. My face turns flush, my heart beats rapidly, and the beat itself is unusual. Then, I start feeling really hot. I tend to get really dizzy. If I lay down to take a 30-minute nap without setting alarms, I might not wake up for anywhere between one and a half hours to three hours; it just depends on the day honestly.
Also, the room starts spinning, and if I am standing or sitting, I feel like I am about to fall over at any moment. Sometimes, when it gets really bad, my ability to walk changes a little bit.
Yes, the “can you imagine scenario” is a real episode of dizziness I faced. One of the scarier episodes by far, not the scariest though. I will get to those a bit later.
If you have ever experienced dizziness in general then, you probably have realized it is a struggle within itself. One of the hardest parts about facing this obstacle is coping with not everyone around me knowing what’s going on.
Not everyone knows why I might randomly grab hold of the table while I am eating, or the chair I am sitting in, hoping it will be enough to stabilize me from the dizziness sensation. Most of the time it does not. Even holding onto a table or chair still makes me feel like I am about to fall over.
Sometimes, people sense something isn’t right. Unfortunately, I cannot describe what I look like when these episodes occur, aside from there is a good chance my face is probably very flushed or pale and that I might be swaying.
What I do know is, I would have never made it this far both in and out of the classroom without: god, my family, friends, classmates, and understanding professors helping where they can. Whether it is sending me encouraging messages throughout the day, or my professors emailing me to check on me and seeing how I am doing, or my friends texting and praying for me. I have a huge support system who help me a lot! In all honesty, it is probably way bigger than I even realize.
Another example of an episode is, going to the cafeteria and not realizing I am feeling dizzy until I stop in line for food. Then, I began searching for a shorter line to go to before scrambling to find a place to sit. This way, I can start eating and sipping on water while I wait it out.
Finding an empty table can be quite the task since a sense of not being able to control my focus and a little bit of confusion starts setting in. Mainly, it can be rough finding a small empty place to sit because I head for a table that looks empty just to find keys or a notebook that I did not see before, so I quickly move on to the next small seat.
How it progressed over the last six months:
When these episodes of dizziness started back in April of 2017, I was studying in the Golden Library with one of my best friends. We were wrapping up homework and getting ready to go home when, I stood up and turned around. I fell into the bottom of the chair and luckily did not hit my head or anything.
If you know me, I am also extremely accident prone as well. Even after I fell everything around me still felt like it was spinning. After sitting in the position I landed in, and taking a minute to process what just happened, I asked my friend, “did you see that? Did you see me just randomly fall?” After asking, my friend replied, “What happened, are you ok?” All I could say was, “I have no idea. I just got really dizzy while turning and fell.” We waited until after the dizziness had passed before going home.
Once I got home, I took my stuff in and went to go in the bathroom, and I could feel myself falling again. I quickly caught myself by grabbing the wall and braced myself to keep from falling again.
Another time in the preliminary stages, I was sitting in class listening to presentations when I started feeling really hot. The room started spinning around me. Eventually, I just gave in and laid my head down or closed my eyes from time to time to try and focus on the presenter. This is easier said than done as I recall class seemed like it would never end.
One evening while eating supper over the summer in Logan, New Mexico where I am from, the power had been flickering since there was a storm over the small town that night. I looked up while I was eating and everything literally dimmed way dark to black. I thought maybe it was just the storm but asked some of my coworkers, and they said the power stayed on because the radio stayed on that time while others said it did dim. I’m not sure how long went by when all I saw was black. I would say a few seconds or minutes, maybe if I had to guess. However, it was a very scary time.
After, everything went back to normal all the lights looked way brighter than normal. I made sure I was not feeling dizzy when I started driving home. However, about five or six miles from my house I started seeing double. I pulled over at a safe spot in the road and waited it out. A little bit after it passed, I continued driving and made it home safely.
The night I blacked out and the night that I fell in the library were two of the scariest nights of my life. With the real-life example, I offered at the beginning of this article following closely in ranking.
Up to this point, many tests have been run. I joke with some of my friends about feeling like a human robot sometimes with how many tests I have gone through even though some have surpassed me. I constantly feel like I am getting tests done. Also, for those of you who do not know me, I am terrified of doctors, dentists, and surgeons.
The first time I went to the doctor was on April 21, 2017 at a clinic in Portales, New Mexico. After checking my heart rate and blood pressure and the rest of the routine things, the doctor came in and asked me a series of questions. Then he told me, I’m going to run some tests on your heart, because my heart rate had been high.
Next, he called out: EKG, blood sugar, for room _____. I remember the ladies who would run the tests looking kind of confused. On this night, I had my first EKG, along with a blood sugar test and bloodwork done. All came back normal except the bloodwork which, I would find out later was an infection unrelated to the dizziness, but it did not help matters any.
Currently, I have lost count of how many EKGs have been ran on my heart, and how many times I have gotten bloodwork done in the last six months. I do remember some of the major tests that have been ran due to my heart rate or pulse staying above 100 beats per minute consistently throughout the day.
So far, this has been my only confirmed diagnosis known as Sinus Tachycardia. During doctor visits my heart rate was sometimes as high as 120 or 130. I always thought that my heart beat fast since I have a fear of doctors, but my thought turned into something beyond this.
I had to wear a Holter Monitor for 48 hours. This device is what lead to my diagnosis of Sinus Tachycardia. It is like an EKG, but the wires and stuff stay on until the number of hours you are required to wear it are done and professionals remove it. After what seemed like forever for this 20-year-old college student at the time, the results came back. My heart rate stayed over 100 consistently throughout the 48-hours and showed I have an irregular heartbeat.
After this, I tried to reduce my caffeine and soda intake after talking about caffeine when the person put the Holter Monitor on. I did this for a couple weeks which, is doing pretty good if you know me and my love for cold coffee, Dr. Pepper, and recently, Coca-Cola.
After, wanting a more concrete answer for the cause of my dizziness, I went to the clinic in Logan, New Mexico for a second opinion. The doctor in Logan believes part of the dizziness is form the irregular heart beat itself and thinks part of it could be from Low Blood Sugar. She also tested me for one kind of Vertigo which, I do not have, but it does run in my family. More bloodwork was done over the summer as well.
Next, I went to the Cardiologist I was referred to on July 25, 2017, exactly one month and a day after turning 21-years-old. Some of the testing that was done that day was: EKG, blood pressure tests, and an Echogram, which is where you get an ultrasound of your heart done. They thought one of my heart valves was closing, so I had to get the ultrasound done. Luckily, my results came back normal and only my prescription changed.
Even longer story short, a couple doctor visits later, and it was mid-September. I decided to go for another opinion from another doctor at the same clinic in Portales, NM since my ongoing medical mystery persisted on.
They did a blood pressure test where they took my blood pressure and heart rate multiple times. At this point, it scared everyone a little bit, I think, since it did not stay consistent. As you might have guessed this test was repeated. On September 08, 2017 my heart rate increased and dropped a couple times and, an EKG was performed which came back normal since everything calmed down a little bit.
This brought on a whole new idea of what might be causing my ongoing medical mystery. I cannot remember the technical name for it, however, it is in relation to Low Blood Pressure. Kind of what it is, if I stand up, sit down, or change positions too quickly enough blood does not reach my brain and it can make me faint. Pretty scary sounding stuff, am I right?
I received a referral for an MRI on my Brain which should help confirm or deny this diagnosis. However, it must get preapproved by my insurance before any scheduling can take place. While this referral was still pending, I scheduled and got an ultrasound done on my neck, also known as a Doppler Ultrasound.
I also have been referred to an Ear Specialist, who after performing all his tests, does not believe this is anything seriously related to my ears. We talked about different tests I could get done in the future that were more for detecting very small movements in the eyes and checking my ears more closely. I opted out of these tests.
My most recent visit for these episodes of dizziness occurred on October 25, 2017 and it was another trip to the Cardiologist. This visit entailed an EKG, and getting my Blood Pressure checked. Currently, I am waiting to schedule my Stress Test to see if that shows anything as to why I am still having heart palpitations and dizziness.
Now, I am on a mission to completely cut off all caffeine and soda, except some chocolate here and there. I am hoping taking on this new challenge will help me shift my focus form this obstacle in my game of life and become healthier.
Another goal is to keep working around it in hopes I will not become as dependent as I did when it first started happening and even now sometimes. I do not want to give in to whatever is causing this. I want to continue finding the strength to try and resume fighting it. Some things are always easier said than done sometimes.
I would love to be able to say after an abundance of testing and getting put on heart rate medication that it would help with this ongoing medical mystery. In a perfect world of course the dizziness, fast heart rate, shakiness and other symptoms would have quit after testing. Unfortunately, this is not a perfect world and even though the heart rate medication does help a little bit, this ongoing medical mystery continues to go unsolved, for a little over six months now. As of October 25, 2017, the Brain MRI referral is still pending.