| 7 min. read |

I often like to portray myself as a professional worrier, as worrying is what I have been best at for most of my life. I often use my anxiety as a motivator to problem solve and perform. Well, all that worrying and overthinking finally caught up to me.

Two weeks ago I was in the midst of wedding planning, making updates to my house, and getting ready for our upcoming vacation. While all of these tasks are certainly a privilege, my stressing and overthinking quickly turned them into stressors and energy suckers, to the point where I literally worried myself sick. At the time, I didn’t know what was coming for me, so I kept pushing myself to my limits.

A week before vacation, there was some unexpected wedding updates that truthfully brought me to tears. I was so mad and sad at the same time that I could not even think straight and my brain felt hazy. Following that mini meltdown, I began to feel sick Wednesday night. My bones started to feel like glass, and I could not keep warm no matter how many clothes and blankets I had on me. As you may have suspected, I then began to run a 102-degree fever. Luckily, it was just a 24-hour thing, and I was almost back to normal by Thursday night. Then, I got back to wedding planning in hopes it would make me feel better, but I realized I forgot to budget for transportation (we’re already over budget for the wedding), adding to the physical and mental stress.

Fast forward to Friday, I had to take my cat to my parents’ house so they could watch her while we were away. Then, I had to come back and pack for our week away, design and cricut our flower girl asks, go to the store for candy, take an everything shower, and get some sleep because we were leaving at 3 am to avoid New York traffic on our way to the beach. Needless to say, I finished that to-do list at 12 am and got about 3 hours of sleep. We packed the car at 3 am and made the 6-hour trek to the beach, spending the rest of the day soaking up some sunshine.

Unfortunately, I was still feeling sad about wedding planning, so I was not able to fully relax even though I was at my favorite place. Eventually, I decided to reach out to my other friend who is at a similar stage in wedding planning to see if she was having similar struggles. After some in-depth conversation, we realized we were both experiencing the exact same problems, and I felt less alone in the hardships that come with being a bride, which allowed me to finally move past all the icky feelings.

Eventually, I was able to unwind and relax at the beach until it was time to check into our Airbnb with my fiancé’s family. We checked in and headed to a relaxing dinner on the water – it was so nice to catch up with his family as we hadn’t seen them for a few months. I was finally feeling at peace and in vacation mode.

The next day, I was playing with my niece on the beach when all of a sudden I felt a shooting sensation go up through my neck into my skull, almost like I had gotten hit in the head. I had never felt like this before, so I decided to go lay down and take a rest. Shortly after the pain, a light headache set in, which at the time I figured was due to all the sun exposure and that I was possibly dehydrated.

I tried to sleep it off, but the headache persisted throughout the rest of the night. After dinner at an incredibly rowdy restaurant, I decided to take some Tylenol and head to bed as my headache had only gotten worse. Next thing I know, it’s 3 am, I am having the worst headache of my life, my neck is stiff, my back is stiff, and I can’t move without feeling like I am going to pass out. The pain is so severe that I start crying and decide to wake my fiancé up to go get me more Tylenol. So, I take more than the recommended dose of extra strength Tylenol and hope for some relief.

Relief never came, and instead, I began throwing up for the next 4 hours. As we approach 8 am, my fiancé’s parents decide this is not normal, and I should head to urgent care. Luckily, it was a rainy day, so at least I was not missing the beach!

We head to urgent care, and it takes them about 45 minutes to tell me they are not comfortable treating me in the event they miss something major and suggest that I should head to the ER. By the time I get to the ER, it is 9:30 am, and I still have no relief for my symptoms, and I am convinced I am likely going to die from a brain aneurysm. I get triaged around 10:15 am. The nurse decided to take pity on me through my whimpered description of my symptoms by giving me a room instead of sending me back to the waiting room until the PA could see me. At this point, I understand that I am not dying since there is no urgency, and she checked me for a stroke and brain aneurysm, but I am still in an extreme amount of pain.

Once the PA comes in around 11 am, he orders a CAT scan, which happens around 11:15 am, so that he can rule out anything serious and get me some medicine to address the problem. Unfortunately, the CAT scan takes an hour for the results, so I have to lay there in pain for another hour. Finally, the PA comes back at 12:30 pm and tells me there is nothing wrong with me, asks me a few questions about my life and habits, and the days leading up to now, and informs me that I am experiencing a stress-induced migraine…

At this point I feel like the ultimate baby as my friends get migraines and they don’t go running to the hospital for them (at least not that I know of). I immediately think, who goes to the hospital for the worst pain of their life and it ends up being a migraine?

The doctor then goes on to explain that it was a stress-induced euphoria migraine. Am I telling you that you can’t be too happy? No. I was so stressed that the sudden shift to happiness likely threw my brain into a tizzy.

The PA proceeded to give me a migraine cocktail to help relieve my symptoms. Once the cocktail had been administered, I was finally able to sleep and took a two-hour nap while my fiancé sat next to me waiting for us to be released. By the way, did I mention that the hospital room had to be 67 degrees and we were in shorts and a t-shirt? Yeah, so as you might imagine, we were both freezing and uncomfortable for all 4 hours that we were in that room.

Once I went through two IV bags and the migraine cocktail, I was prescribed some meds and was free to go home. Needless to say, we made a swift exit to our car and blasted the heat. At this point, I still had a slight headache and a tight neck and back, but the pain was completely bearable.

From this expensive and painful hospital trip, I learned a few things. The most important thing being that I seriously need to learn to manage my emotions. I am unsure where to start, but I have hope that journaling is a great first step.

Next is that nothing is ever worth worrying yourself sick. In the moment, it was all worth it, and I was validating my extreme emotions. But once you are at the point of being sick, you no longer have the privilege of worrying about anything but getting your health back.

Lastly, mental rest is just as important as physical rest. While I have never been good at resting my mind, this hospital trip was certainly a wake-up call.