[TreeDoc]

What a he11 of a place to have that kind of attack. Let me tell ya something about anxiety attacks though. You'll learn who you can trust real quick in that situation. Remember 9/11/01? Quite a week wasn't it? Well, after that Tuesday's events, one of my crew was involved in an accident while at work and driving one of my vehicles. Nothing major fortunately but when you're self employed it's not the kind of call that goes down well when your employee calls immediately after it has happened in a complete panic. I noticed my hands gripping that steering wheel a little tighter by Wednesday. A few other "bad day" issues came up on Thursday and by Friday the fingernails were digging into the steering wheel while I was "putting out fires" and dealing with clients as well as the grief we all watched unfold after Tuesday.

Saturday and Sunday were going to be good days as a buddy of mine and I were headed up to a local ridgetop for a overnight Blacktail hunt. I noticed that I wasn't feeling 100% on the way to our hunt but just brushed it off as being tired and being a bit stressed from the brutal week. I was looking forward to this getaway and a good chance at taking a good local Buck. We hiked down some very, very steep terrain for about 1.5 hours to get into a deep canyon and planned on staying in that night and coming out in the afternoon the next day. When I got down in the canyon my buddy was anxious to get to a good spot to catch the upcoming evening hunt. By now I was feeling really crappy but couldn't identify the cause of the symptoms so I sent him on his way while I kicked back against the hillside for a little water and recuperation. He took off and left me there at the drop of a hat. After a bit of rest I started getting dizzy and lightheaded. My breathing was noticeably different as was my heart rate and all of a sudden it felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest and nothing I did with my breathing pattern would ease it. Lots of things started feeling really, really unusual and I had never felt like that in my life, it was pretty scary. Here I was in the bottom of this canyon with a brutal hike out and I'm pretty confident that something is going on with my heart...the symptoms were all there now.

After putting it off again and again, I felt like a pussy but I called my buddy on the radio and told him that I was really feeling pretty bad and that I would be staying where I was at for the time being. He made no effort to check on me so I just stayed where I was. Things were getting worse and I started wondering how the heck I was gonna get out of this spot. I described my symptoms to my buddy and told him I had to start up the mountain for the couple a few hour hike out so I could make it up before sundown because I saw the fog coming in and knew there was no way a helicopter would be able to assist in my retreival if I couldn't do it on my own. My "buddy" did not seem terribly interested in my plight and sounded bothered about the whole thing. I didn't whine...I just packed it up and started putting one foot in front of the other and headed up the mountain. I told him what trail I was taking and that I was headed back up to the truck, I left the rest up to him.

While I exerted myself I seemed to feel OK but when I stopped to rest it would all come down on me again. It was pretty scary to say the least. You start thinking "Is this how a heart attack feels?" "Am I history out here in the woods?" I got to the truck in a bit over 2 hours straight up the mountain. My buddy had only checked my progress a couple times by radio and said he would head out eventually. He made it out about an hour or so later. He was obviously pissed but I didn't care at that point, I was feeling a little better but still not good and needed to get home and then maybe head for the hospital. I did just that as my wife took me in right after my buddy dropped me off at home.

In the ER when they heard my symptoms they rushed me right in in front of everyone else and hooked me up to the heart monitors, EKG, blood work, etc. After about 30 minutes the Doc comes up to me and says "so what's going on in your life....any stress? I replied "well, those azzholes just smoked the World Trade Center and some 3000 plus innocent people died and work kind of sucks but other than that...I'm good" He then proceeded to tell me that everything about my ticker was good and said what I experienced was a case of severe anxiety. I couldn't believe it....there's no way that what I had felt out there in the field could have been created in my mind....NO FRIKKIN" WAY!!!

Guess what? I was wrong, he was right. He wanted to give me some drugs for it but I declined and suggested that I'd get my house in order if this was to be a mind game. I just mellowed myself for a couple weeks and put things into perspective a little and I have never had a problem like this again.

I've only seen my "buddy" a couple times in passing since. I wouldn't pizz on him if he were on fire. I'm sure he thinks I'm a puss. Had the roles been reversed I would have drug him out of that canyon and hung by his side the whole way....screw hunting.

Sorry for the long drawn out story but that post brought back some memories whereas before this had happened to me I would have and did say "No Way...that's not possible!" A month or so after 9/11, I read that there had been a huge number of cases, almost in epidemic proportions, of people with nearly identical issues as mine. Who woulda thunk it possible?