Is there a Doctor in the House?

Sometimes I walk into this office and things are buzzing and people are laughing and it’s a ZOO I tell you! And then other times everybody just quietly works and it’s all totally lame.

I will give you one guess as to which one I’m dealing with today:

So while my dear coworkers toil away on your loans instead of paying me lots of attention like they ought to be, we’re just going to talk about me for today, okay?

I’ve been having chest pains lately. This first occurred when I had my panic attack. Okay now, chest pains in the middle of a panic attack I’m okay with. I get it, you know? But then they started showing up on their own, sans panic attacks.  Listen up. Unaccompanied chest pains have not been invited to this party, ladies and gentlemen. I’m trying to figure out if the pains are stress, or some odd ailment that I’ll end up hooked up to a machine over.

Here are my clues:

• Once or twice, the pains have shown up in the  middle of the night and woke me up. One point for Chest Pains are a Horrible Unknown Condition that will Land Me Attached to a Ventilator.
• It happened this morning while I was listening to National Public Radio. Now, let me tell you, NPR is not here to calm any fears, people. NPR is here to send your soul into a crazed state, making you want to cry that the world is not fair. You will possibly pull out your own arm hair. This morning they featured a charming author who just wrote an investigative book about how we aren’t as safe as we think concerning NUCLEAR WEAPONS (that’s not stressful at all, right?), how we’re all about to die from nuclear weapons basically any second now. So you might as well eat dessert first is what I’m saying. One point for Chest Pains are Caused by Stress.
• Sunday morning they showed up while on a walk with my engineer husband in which he told me in great detail of everything that could possibly go wrong on the project on which he’s working. One point for Stress is Causing These Bad Boys.
• It happened two weeks ago while I was in Zihuatanejo. This was the view during the day:

And this was the view at night:

One point for Chest Pains are a Rare Disease Unrelated to Stress. It’s been nice knowing you all.

• My Boss Chad has experienced these chest pains, as well. The first episode occurred two years ago, but I haven’t heard him mention it since. I peeked into this office a few minutes ago under the guise of having something important to say, and asked, “Hey, remember when you had those chest pains?” Chad perked up. “Yeah, and funny you asked because I just had one a couple of hours ago!” No way! “What!? Were you stressed?” I prodded. “I’m always stressed,” he replied. Great! One point for Stress! “But I also had a fried chicken sandwich for lunch so maybe it was that?” he offered. Y’all, I eat an organic plant-based diet. There’s no way this is because of my diet. One point for Disease.

So listen, are any of you doctors? Or has anybody else out there had the mystery chest pains? Should I check myself into the ER? Or do I need to sit down on a therapist’s couch? Opinions, advice and commentary welcome!