10: Holiday Season

It's the Holiday Season!

It truly was the most wonderful time of the year after the great results of November. The heart and sugars had checked out fine, and now it was on to the happiest time you can have.

But also the most stressful.

Christmas time is always stressful, regardless of how things are going for you physically, mentally, or spiritually. The stress of the season (gift giving and buying, parties, meals, serving, church gatherings, etc.) is high. I was coming to grips with that from two fronts.

One had to do with the fact I was stressing about the holiday season, which made my anxiety a bit higher. But the other piece had to do with a special Christmas gift I was giving my family. My daughter is a huge fan of Trevor Lawrence. She has been since his days with Clemson. Of course, this also makes her a big fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars. In May of 2023, I decided to purchase tickets to take the whole family to Jacksonville to see the Carolina Panthers (another favorite team of Abby's) take on Trevor and the Jaguars. Abby is a HUGE football fan. She likes watching every possible game she can see. A true aficionado. So, I knew a gift like this for her and the rest of the family would be thrilling. My son Charlie had even asked during the summer if we could go to Florida this year after two years of going to Pigeon Forge at Christmas. I remember thinking, why yes, we can, even as I told him we'll have to see.

All of this was great, but there was one problem. All of the plans were made before the Afib episode in July. Since July 2023, I hadn't been anywhere beyond Clemson, Greenville, and Anderson for 5 months! This issue of the trip created even more stress for me, and my anxiety was climbing.

I didn't want to cancel the trip, but wasn't overly enthusiastic about going either. Going on this trip was a true issue for me. The last time I went on vacation somewhere, the Afib struck as I was driving. So, naturally, the thought of driving 6 hours plus to Jacksonville wasn't something I was looking forward to doing. It's amazing how things can change in a short time, 5 months, that's all. Back in May 2023, I was more than willing to drive somewhere like that over and over again if needed. Since, though, I was sometimes nervous to drive to work, much less 6 hours away.

Even with the Lexapro, I could feel my tension rising. I was starting to have anxiety waves again and hadn't had those for a few weeks. It was unnerving to seem to be regressing. During a meeting in the middle of December, I felt a panic wave come on and got scared I was going to have a full-blown panic attack again. However, that didn't happen. In fact, the meeting and day were wonderful. I would pray to God when these feelings would happen, hoping they would subside. Even my mom and wife would pray to help me, too, as I would text them when things of this nature occurred. 

But I began to think to myself, the reason you had Afib in July was primarily due to Covid. Before that day, I had never had Afib, and all indications were that I was heart-healthy. This issue with Afib was just a season. I hadn't had Afib since July, either, so my heart was doing fine. I was most likely worrying needlessly because I was nervous about driving a long distance away. What I needed was some reassurance. 

I didn't know that reassurance would come in the most unlikely forms.

Tune in for the next segment, 10: Touched by an Angel.