Come with Me on My Journey of Vasovagal/Neurocardiogenic/Vasodepressor Syncope – Episode 1

To make a long story shorter, a couple of years ago I started randomly passing out for seemingly no apparent reason. I’d already been diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Cubital Tunnel Syndrome; as I did my physical and occupational therapy to treat those two issues, I started passing out more and more frequently. At the time, I’d call them “very involuntary naps”. Even as a child I rarely ever napped, so I knew something was off. Thankfully, I’ve always had warning before these episode hit in full force. I’ve always been able to get myself into a safe position, but it was still massively interrupting my life.

Imagine going to the grocery store — on the way home you start to feel light headed. As you pull onto the same street as your house, your vision starts to intermittently blur. You pull in the driveway and find that standing up is difficult. Everything starts to feel wayyy heavier than it should. You try to walk to the back door to let yourself in, but you look kinda drunk while doing it and your vision starts to blur more often and stays blurred for longer. You have enough time to pour yourself a glass of water, and you make it to the living room. Once you’re halfway to the couch you realize you aren’t going to make it all the way to the couch, so you lay yourself down in the floor. You have time for a couple of sips of water before the glass becomes incredibly heavy and your vision starts blacking out. You lay down all the way and check your watch for the time and barely make it out. In about 45 minutes you wake up again, but you feel weak for the rest of the day. Now imagine that happening at random (minus driving, because now you’re afraid to drive) once a month, then twice a month, then once a week, then up to 3 times per week. It really wasn’t a fun time.

I bounced around to a few different doctors trying to figure it out. After a tilt table test at the local cardiologist’s I was given the diagnosis of Vasovagal Syncope (VVS). However, after responding negatively to the two classes of medications and a couple more appointments, I was shipped off again to Neurology since no one at the local office understood why I was passing out for 45 to 120 minutes at a time. I ended up doing an in-patient stay in an epilepsy wing of a hospital to make sure this wasn’t a more dangerous type of seizure. I came back completely negative for epilepsy, but I did get referred to a more experienced cardiologist and to a PNES clinic.

My new cardiologist took a look at my data from my overnight stay and knew what my other maladies listed in my chart meant. (I generally have to go around explaining half my chart to new doctors since, after all, the mascot for EDS is a zebra.) Immediately he was confident in diagnosing me with Vasodepressor Syncope, so confident in fact that he doubted going to the PNES clinic would be of use since I already go to therapy regularly. Unfortunately, I’d already been doing all of the recommended steps to try to manage my condition — aside from trying another drug which shocker didn’t end up working out for me either. I was, however, reassured and finally felt like I had someone on my team that understood what was going on and how difficult it is to deal with. He (the doctor) also informed me that I am no longer in the treatment stage so much as I’m in the management stage, because there is no cure. I just had to start learning how to really tune in with my body and figure out what the early warning signs and triggers are.

Six months later at my follow up appointment I had (have) a much better grasp on my triggers — now being able to better predict when a vasodepressor episode will come. Armed with this knowledge I decided to ask more about my condition. Was the diagnosis from my first cardiologist wrong? Why was I referred back to neurology again when I just ended up back in with cardiology? Why, when I try to search this on Google, does this always seem to return search criteria for VVS or Neurocardiogenic Syncope instead of Vasodepressor Syncope? And, what academic journals would he recommend I go searching in since I’m now ready to dig into this more?

The answers were a bit complicated, my first cardiologist wasn’t necessarily wrong in his diagnosis, but he wasn’t as specific in the diagnosis either. Also he definitely wasn’t familiar with the interplay of EDS with VVS; my new cardiologist is. While it is unusual to be rather out of commission for as long as I typically am, it’s not uncommon for this to happen in people with EDS. Technically VVS, Neurocardiogenic, and Vasodepressor Syncope are all quite similar and sometimes are used somewhat interchangeably in the field. They each have slightly different connotations, and using “vasodepressor” is the fastest way to explain what’s happening. He also recommended I use the website for the American College of Cardiology (ACC) as a good place to start for research. He also let me know that if I found anything treatment related that we hadn’t already tried, he’d be all ears.

So off to the ACC I went! I found a few promising journal publications, but printing them off or saving the PDF wasn’t working out for me. Instead, I leveraged my access to EBSCOhost to search for more peer reviewed publications that actually came with a save and print button. Success! I now have approximately 21 resources printed out, ready to be slowly broken down and understood. I say approximately here because I think that’s where I lost count — I might have gotten distracted and also started researching Depression with Cardiology, EDS, and Migraines.

Here’s what I know from my cursory glance while gathering my papers:

  1. The only papers I was finding listing “Vasodepressor Syncope” were all from the 1993-2004ish.
  2. Around 1997 to 2007ish the nomenclature seems to have shifted to using Vasodepressor, Vasovagal, and Neurocardiogenic somewhat interchangeably with Neurocardiogenic being the largest umbrella term, Vasovagal being in the middle, and Vasodepressor being used in a much more narrow sense.
  3. In 2017 a major article was published in order to define terminology in the field moving forward and standardize diagnosis criteria.
  4. No one really knows what’s actually causing these things to happen other than it being an issue with the autonomic nervous system sending out the wrong signals leading to expressions in the field of cardiology.
  5. By the time I’m done reading all these papers I could probably give a doctoral candidate a really good idea for a thesis.

So, with all that said, if you’d like to learn more about this go ahead and subscribe to keep up with what I teach myself. I’ll be walking you through what Information Literacy is, how to vet your sources, and what the research says in a layperson’s translation.

Stay tuned for Episode 2. Peace!

My Meditation Journey | Episode 56

I’m starting this blog series in an attempt to find my way to “chill” because yo gorl has almost no chill – only now instead of that being a personality trait it’s causing hormonal fluctuations that my body doesn’t know how to process anymore which then leads to me passing out … which is no bueno. I consider myself agnostic because I’m not sure there is/are a god/s, but I’m not going to tell you they can’t possibly exist either. I do however enjoy the idea of trying out different forms of meditation to see if any of them will work for me, which brings me to my latest adventure – using tarot cards as a point of focus for meditation.

What’s that? It’s been forever since I’ve sat down to do this? Yeah, yeah it has. I just haven’t wanted to really deal with any of the feels recently. It also doesn’t help that I’m experiencing a bit of self loathing from my days and nights being a bit swapped at the moment. On the one hand, it’s nice to just go with the flow and not fight when my body decides it needs to sleep. On the other hand, I actually kinda miss daylight and being awake when almost everyone else is.

I’ve been hunting for a somewhat traditional tarot set for a while now. I naturally gravitate to very queer, oracle decks; I normally don’t care for a traditional deck since they can be very Abrahamic Religion/Gender Binary based, and I’ve never really been one for tradition (with the exception of Fiddler on the Roof … and now that song is stuck in my head. You’re welcome.). However, I was at my local occult book shop and ran across Kitchen Table Tarot by Melissa Cynova; I fell in love how hilariously plainly this book is written and decided that it’s finally time to find myself a regular deck to go with it. I started looking for a deck below $30 (I love decks in the 50+ range from artists but I’m on a budget for this one … especially since it isn’t a queer oracle deck) and came across the very recently released Dungeons and Dragons Tarot Deck. My nerdy ass semi-regularly plays D&D from time to time and I loved the art style, so I definitely had to pick it up.

Soooooo, what do I mull over today? I do have my therapy appointment in about 5 hours from when I’m currently writing this, so I’m already rather primed to dig into some uncomfortable areas. Does that mean I should save my emotional energy and try to take things a bit lightly right now? Probably? Pacing myself always seems to be a pretty good idea lately. Let’s just randomly pull one card and see what happens.

Okay, I have more weird mapping than I thought I’d have to do; this deck is divided into Major Arcana (like normal) and four Minor Arcana labeled Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. I like that they’ve swapped out the Wands, Swords, Cups, and Pentacles for more D&D based suits, but then does this mean I don’t have a traditional deck? Let me try to match these up by using Lindsay Squire’s Natural Magick as a reference. Wands/Fire matches up with Strength well enough, Swords/Air with Intelligence, Cups/Water with Charisma, and Pentacles/Earth with Wisdom. For the record I could have used Melissa’s book, but I’ve actually read Linday’s cover to cover and haven’t gotten that far with Melissa’s yet. Hilariously, as I was flipping through trying to find the seven of swords I opened it straight to the suits and their meanings.

Seven of Intelligence aka Seven of Swords?

Lying to Ourselves
Accepting Truth
Stealing

Hmmm. Perhaps this is here today to remind me that trying to steal away from my emotions and try to ignore what’s happening in never a good decision. I’ve been ignoring myself for far too long thinking that “Oh, I’ll do that tomorrow or whenever I feel like I have more spoons to deal with that”, but when I finally do get the energy (which is few and far between at the moment), I still don’t seem to tend to those things I’ve been putting off. As my therapist says, “Sometimes you have to just do things even when they don’t feel right”. This is specifically in reference to depression overriding things that otherwise would be things I enjoy. I’m gonna take this as my wakeup call to just start doing things again. On the plus side, I already have — since I enjoy tarot meditation and have just written this up.

This card was pulled from The Dungeons & Dragons Tarot Deck and was supplemented by Melissa Cynova’s Kitchen Table Tarot.

My Meditation Journey | Episode 55

I’m starting this blog series in an attempt to find my way to “chill” because yo gorl has almost no chill – only now instead of that being a personality trait it’s causing hormonal fluctuations that my body doesn’t know how to process anymore which then leads to me passing out … which is no bueno. I consider myself agnostic because I’m not sure there is/are a god/s, but I’m not going to tell you they can’t possibly exist either. I do however enjoy the idea of trying out different forms of meditation to see if any of them will work for me, which brings me to my latest adventure – using tarot cards as a point of focus for meditation.

Regularity, who is she? We don’t know her. My body apparently hates spring time. I already knew I don’t do well with rain, but this year, I just feel like I’m deteriorating even more than normal. My days and nights are getting super mixed up, and I can’t force myself to wake up or else I’ll just have a non-epileptic seizure from lack of sleep. Yay, yay me. *sarcasm*

Well, let’s try drawing three cards and seeing what happens. My question tonight is, “What do I need to hear?”

Ten – Wheel of Fortune – Reversed

Accepting Fate
Lack of Control
Trying to Control What You Cannot

Well this is pretty self explanatory. I keep wanting a semblance of control over my life that I just don’t have anymore and need to come to accept that. Acceptance is hard. I’m pretty sure I’m still in the angry phase. I’m not ready to stop being angry, but I’m at a place where I need to stop being angry. Like, this is a thing that I know needs to happen regardless — I’ve been working on it in therapy, but coping is hard.

Six – The Lovers

Relationships
Sexuality
Union

Ok, first of all I find this particular reading extra funny right now because my wife recently came out as a trans woman and I happen to have pulled the fem version of this card (yes, I have the expansion pack to this deck and would highly recommend it). My relationship with her is great, in fact now that she’s out she’s taking wayyy better care of herself and has just been much happier in general. Secondly, this card points to caring in general, and lately I haven’t been taking care of myself AT ALL. I’ve felt like a zombie, and have, quite frankly, been jealous of how well my wife has been taking care of herself. Perhaps this is my sign that it’s time to start showing myself a bit more love too.

*sidenote*
If you’re friends/family that hasn’t heard this directly yet it’s probably only because we don’t talk to/see you often … especially since we’re still observing pandemic precautions since my likelihood of having a terrible reaction is still very high until I get my Vitamin D3 back to normal levels.

Fifteen – The Devil

Indulgence
Material Pleasure
The Shadow-Self

I am just getting all kinds of called out today. I’ve also pulled the alternative version of this card where a cat sits contemplating a couple of lovebirds sitting in a tree. My shadow-self has been extra present lately with my depression being all kinds of out of control. In some ways, I’ve been indulging myself in activities to take up my full attention and serve as a distraction — which in many cases is necessary, especially when you’re bullying yourself for having a bad day. It’s better to have the distraction than listen to self-barratement. (I might have just made up that word, but I think you know what I mean.) On the other hand, I don’t feel like I’ve been processing things. I feel like I’ve just been existing, as opposed to truly living. What even does truly living mean anyways? Why is this a thought that I have? Perhaps now is a time to do a bit of reflection to notice when I’m refusing to implement self care, especially since this has been absent from my life now for too many months with the exception of one good day on an occasional week. Maybe I need to address my shadow-self a bit more and have a conversation with it instead of pushing it into a corner and trying to pretend it doesn’t exist.

These cards were pulled from Eric Maille’s The Ink Witch Tarot set.

My Meditation Journey | Episode 54

I’m starting this blog series in an attempt to find my way to “chill” because yo gorl has almost no chill – only now instead of that being a personality trait it’s causing hormonal fluctuations that my body doesn’t know how to process anymore which then leads to me passing out … which is no bueno. I consider myself agnostic because I’m not sure there is/are a god/s, but I’m not going to tell you they can’t possibly exist either. I do however enjoy the idea of trying out different forms of meditation to see if any of them will work for me, which brings me to my latest adventure – using tarot cards as a point of focus for meditation.

I have been the absolute definition of grumpy and exhausted lately. The bad news is there is no further treatment for my medical condition other than what I’ve already been doing. I’ve been diagnosed with vasodepressor syncope, and I’m basically stuck like this because I’ve already exhausted all of my options for treatment. This is as good as things are going to get, and they’re not great — which means I’ll probably never get to drive again and always have to worry about falling/passing out for the rest of my life. YAY. (sarcasm.) Also we’re apparently on the brink of WW3 except it doesn’t look like anyone is actually going to honor their treaty agreements … because we should have already honored those treaties if we were going to?????

So I guess I ask the cards today, “What do I need to hear?” Will it help me deal with how grumpy I am? Who knows? Let’s find out.

Four of Wands

Celebration
Homecoming
Coming Together

I don’t know about this one peeps, this just feels off to me today, but let’s keep going to see what happens I guess. Perhaps it is here to remind me to spend time with my loved ones/closest friends and to remind me to be happy when I do have moments when I can do something. I’ve been stuck in a rather nihilistic space lately, so perhaps this is a reminder that I don’t have to live in that space. There are people in my life who support me and care, and I need to remind myself of that sometimes.

This card was pulled from Eric Maille’s The Ink Witch Tarot set.

My Meditation Journey | Episode 53

I’m starting this blog series in an attempt to find my way to “chill” because yo gorl has almost no chill – only now instead of that being a personality trait it’s causing hormonal fluctuations that my body doesn’t know how to process anymore which then leads to me passing out … which is no bueno. I consider myself agnostic because I’m not sure there is/are a god/s, but I’m not going to tell you they can’t possibly exist either. I do however enjoy the idea of trying out different forms of meditation to see if any of them will work for me, which brings me to my latest adventure – using tarot cards as a point of focus for meditation. Let’s see what cards I pull today, shall we?

King of Swords

Assertive
Mental Clarity
Logical

As I pull my card today I ask myself how I can better find a sense of balance in my life.

Perhaps this is here to tell me that I already know the answer to my question and I just need to be assertive in my creating and maintaining a routine. I feel like I found a few good routines in 2021 for self care and, meditation and, towards the end of the year, fun. However, I’ve never stuck to these routines for very long at a time. I would say I stuck to them more than usual last year. And, practice makes perfect. So this year I will again apply myself with trial and error to see what sort of routines are most sustainable for me.

This card was pulled from Eric Maille’s The Ink Witch Tarot set.

My Meditation Journey | Episode 52

I’m starting this blog series in an attempt to find my way to “chill” because yo gorl has almost no chill – only now instead of that being a personality trait it’s causing hormonal fluctuations that my body doesn’t know how to process anymore which then leads to me passing out … which is no bueno. I consider myself agnostic because I’m not sure there is/are a god/s, but I’m not going to tell you they can’t possibly exist either. I do however enjoy the idea of trying out different forms of meditation to see if any of them will work for me, which brings me to my latest adventure – using tarot cards as a point of focus for meditation. Let’s see what cards I pull today, shall we?

Twenty Four – Faith

Self-Belief
Trust
Serenity

As I draw my card today I ask how to conjure some motivation today since I’m very much still apathetic. I made a to-do list yesterday of things I both want and need to do, but now it feels somewhat like pulling teeth trying to do those things — not because they’re bad things to be doing. I guess in a way my answer today is rather obvious. I believed I could do these things last night when I was setting myself some realistic goals, and now I need to trust my past self that I can do them today even though it feels like I can’t. As my therapist has said, “Sometimes you have to just do the things to get through the melancholy; just make sure your goals are realistic so you don’t set yourself up for a fall.” I knew I could do those things last night. Everything mechanically is functional, so I should be able to do them. Now I just have to put one foot in front of the other until I get there. Sometimes focusing on the direct task of the moment rather than the total tasks that are needed for the end product feels much more attainable. 

This card was pulled from Ravynne Phelan’s Dreams of Gaia Tarot set.

My Meditation Journey | Episode 51

I’m starting this blog series in an attempt to find my way to “chill” because yo gorl has almost no chill – only now instead of that being a personality trait it’s causing hormonal fluctuations that my body doesn’t know how to process anymore which then leads to me passing out … which is no bueno. I consider myself agnostic because I’m not sure there is/are a god/s, but I’m not going to tell you they can’t possibly exist either. I do however enjoy the idea of trying out different forms of meditation to see if any of them will work for me, which brings me to my latest adventure – using tarot cards as a point of focus for meditation. Let’s see what cards I pull today, shall we?

Two of Earth

Equilibrium
Harmony
Confidence

When I pulled my card this morning I thought I would wait a while before writing my reflection. This card is about the importance of balancing mental, physical, and emotional needs. For the past month I’ve been neglectful of meeting my physical needs. Yes, I greatly improved my daily hygiene, but now I need to add back in the physical and occupational therapy on a regular basis. Now that I feel like I have a semblance of mental balance it’s time to add the physical balance back in. As I went about my day today I took note of how I was feeling mentally, emotionally, and physically — one might think mental and emotional health are the same, but they’re a bit different for me. With having depression, sometimes my emotions feel broken even though I’m making mental effort to check in and take care of daily tasks. For instance, today I woke up rather feeling apathetic about everything — emotionally this was my state of being. Mentally I knew I needed to get a couple of tasks done and would be completely ok with doing that. I also knew that I probably needed to slow down to notice things to try to ward off the apathy. On my physical check in I noticed my legs and hips were very sore from my workout yesterday, so I knew I’d want to take it relatively easy today if I didn’t want to end up taking additional medications. I completed my tasks and felt a small sense of accomplishment, then I watched a show that I knew was pretty much guaranteed to make me laugh. I had brief bouts of feelings before returning to apathy, which mentally is exactly what I had set out to do. Finding balance is difficult to do with depression, but it isn’t always completely impossible. Sometimes it is, but sometimes if I mentally challenge myself in a healthy way I occasionally find a work-around. Today was one of those days.

This card was pulled from Ravynne Phelan’s Dreams of Gaia Tarot set.

My Meditation Journey | Episode 50

I’m starting this blog series in an attempt to find my way to “chill” because yo gorl has almost no chill – only now instead of that being a personality trait it’s causing hormonal fluctuations that my body doesn’t know how to process anymore which then leads to me passing out … which is no bueno. I consider myself agnostic because I’m not sure there is/are a god/s, but I’m not going to tell you they can’t possibly exist either. I do however enjoy the idea of trying out different forms of meditation to see if any of them will work for me, which brings me to my latest adventure – using tarot cards as a point of focus for meditation. Let’s see what cards I pull today, shall we?

Six of Fire

Healing
Meditation
Boundaries

As I drew my card today I asked what I could do to calm down since I’m getting rather nervous about my upcoming hospital stay. So of course I’ve managed to pull a card about meditation and healing when I’m using meditation to help ground myself as I focus on healing my mental health after years of having my boundaries obliterated. What this card also stresses is being courteous and considerate. With putting these things together, I think I’ll focus the rest of my day on actions I find both healing and considerate, which would be cooking and reading. Even as I type this my hands are quite shaky since I’ve already done a lot today to physically wear me out (when I’m physically exhausted I have a tendency of losing motor control), so I think I may mostly focus on reading for now. And if I feel better later I’m totally making myself some Pumpkin Spice Bread.

This card was pulled from Ravynne Phelan’s Dreams of Gaia Tarot set.

My Meditation Journey | Episode 49

I’m starting this blog series in an attempt to find my way to “chill” because yo gorl has almost no chill – only now instead of that being a personality trait it’s causing hormonal fluctuations that my body doesn’t know how to process anymore which then leads to me passing out … which is no bueno. I consider myself agnostic because I’m not sure there is/are a god/s, but I’m not going to tell you they can’t possibly exist either. I do however enjoy the idea of trying out different forms of meditation to see if any of them will work for me, which brings me to my latest adventure – using tarot cards as a point of focus for meditation. Let’s see what cards I pull today, shall we?

Eleven of Earth – Heaven/Earth

Nature
Magic
Mundane

As I draw my card today I ask what I can do to focus on grounding myself since I feel like my mind is whirling in so many different directions at once, to the point where it feel overwhelming.

Of course I’ve managed to pull an alignment card LoL. Perhaps this is here to remind me to focus my intent and take time to notice the magical in the mundane. Maybe I should try to practice something with my hands to calm my brain. It’s been a while since I’ve focused on stretching and actually taking care of my physical health beyond basic hygiene. Today I’ll focus on that, paying attention to the things immediately around me instead of only the things whirling in my head. 

This card was pulled from Ravynne Phelan’s Dreams of Gaia Tarot set.

My Meditation Journey | Episode 48

I’m starting this blog series in an attempt to find my way to “chill” because yo gorl has almost no chill – only now instead of that being a personality trait it’s causing hormonal fluctuations that my body doesn’t know how to process anymore which then leads to me passing out … which is no bueno. I consider myself agnostic because I’m not sure there is/are a god/s, but I’m not going to tell you they can’t possibly exist either. I do however enjoy the idea of trying out different forms of meditation to see if any of them will work for me, which brings me to my latest adventure – using tarot cards as a point of focus for meditation. Let’s see what cards I pull today, shall we?

Ten – Wisdom

Understanding
Illumination
Instrospection

Today I feel a bit more guided than yesterday. I have an idea of part of what I want to do at least, but I think I shall still play it by ear.

I’ve made MANY mistakes in my life and I suspect I’ll make many more. The nice thing that comes from making mistakes is that we have to opportunity to learn from them, provided we choose that path. Sometimes I’m stuck asking myself “why, why does my life have to be this way?” I have the knowledge of why things are the way they are but not the understanding. Sometimes I find it quite difficult to be understanding with myself — after all I am stuck in a defective body. And, because of the circumstances I was raised in, I sometimes find it quite hard to be kind to myself. I think I have begun to notice when these sorts of things happen, and I do have a quicker response of shutting down the mean habits, but being kind from the start is still something I’m working on. I’m allowing myself to learn that those kinder moments feel much nicer, but it still takes time to undo a life’s worth of unkind habits.

Do you have a moment of wisdom you’d like to share?

This card was pulled from Ravynne Phelan’s Dreams of Gaia Tarot set.