When Anxieties Attack
by Scott Hardie on December 6, 2012
It feels weird to write about a fairly minor health incident in my life after someone else on this site just went through a major crisis. But people have been asking since Kelly's cryptic Facebook comment on Tuesday morning and I guess I should explain.
I had been working every night last week on a project for work and getting a couple of hours of sleep each night, which turned into an all-weekend thing, and the avalanche of tasks didn't stop when the site launched early Monday morning. (Message me if you're curious to see the finished site.) A week straight of all work and almost no sleep apparently took a toll. By Monday night, I was unable to fall asleep for hours, my heart racing arrhymically and jolting me awake. I visited the ER and asked them to run tests just to be safe. They told me my heart was fine, diagnosed an anxiety attack, and sent me home with a Xanax prescription and doctor's orders for two days of rest. Other than burning my hand on the stove this morning (they really aren't kidding when they warn of medicine making you clumsy), it's been a restful two days of sleeping and catching up on Netflix and trying not to touch any projects, personal or professional.
I can be weirdly dichotomic about this stuff: Sometimes I'm relaxed and work in moderation and don't stress at all, but other times I really get deep into a project and work myself to exhaustion and worry that it's not going to turn out perfect. The latter is my natural mode, but Matthew Preston once wisely taught me to try to be the former as much as possible, after seeing the health consequences of a lifelong "Type A" personality that he knew. It's getting tougher in this hyper-connected, 24/7 work-at-home world, but we as Americans really do need to learn to back off sometimes and avoid burning ourselves out. The risk of being perceived as a "slacker" is not worth the trips to the cardiologist.
I'm grateful to everybody for their kind words of concern, but especially grateful to Kelly for sitting by my side for hours in the middle of the night while nurses poked and prodded me, and for taking care of me since. I don't know where I'd be without her.
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
2012
What a great year. Kelly and I got engaged. Kelly gained permanent employment and health benefits. Go »Things You Realize at the Top of a 40-Story Ferris Wheel
Kelly and I just got back from a two-day getaway to Orlando to celebrate our anniversary. No theme parks; we've been to them many times and they're jammed with people right now anyway. We tried small local attractions instead. Go »Final Chapter
The movies that are going to be written about in Brittany Murphy's obituaries are Just Married, 8 Mile, Clueless, and maybe Sin City. But the one most sadly relevant is a movie that few people saw, The Dead Girl. Each chapter of the movie shows how a different woman is affected by the discovery of a woman's body in a field, until the last chapter doubles back and shows us her haunting final days. Go »Scott's Car is Dead; Long Live Scott's Car
Is it a reflection of our road-rage culture that a company named Dodge manufactures cars with violent names like Ram, Magnum, Caliber, and Viper? I pondered this at the dealership yesterday during the eternal wait between brief flurries of document-signing so I could buy my first car. It took some doing to get the sunroof and other features I wanted, but I'm now the happy (and relieved) owner of a 2007 Dodge Caliber SXT. Go »Gingerbread Office
I don't often join in Kelly's craft projects, and it's even rarer for her to join in one of mine. But that's what happened last week when my company held a gingerbread house contest, and Kelly pitched in to help the team that I signed up for. We decided to make a "north pole branch" of our Sarasota office. Go »
