Aleen and Michael’s Blog

Ever since I can remember I used to always get these random chest pains from time to time, out of nowhere.  It wouldn’t happen often, but when it did I was always worried it was something with the heart.  It felt like something was stuck or that a bubble was there that needed to burst.  It was always on my left side hence why I thought the heart.  Deep breathes would be painful and so I would do quick ones and try to expand the area.  Usually after 5 minutes or so it would disappear.

Last night I woke up with the same problem, only this time it was for 30 minutes and still the pain wasn’t going away.  I got up and tried walking around, but I really had pain breathing.  I checked online and found a few articles that seemed to match what I was experiencing.  The possible name is Precordial Catch Syndrome, the symptoms were near exact:

“Do you ever get a piercing pain in your chest, usually on your left side under your rib, which almost feels like a bubble ready to burst?”

“PCS episodes happen most often while sitting or lying down, and being inactive.” 

Anyhow, I decided to do some light movement, like walking on the spot, knees up with proper breathing and sure enough after 1 minute the pain went away.

For more information try these:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precordial_catch_syndrome
• http://www.failedsuccess.com/index.php?/weblog/comments/precordial_catch_syndrome_chest_pain/

So after some debating for the last few months (and certain circumstances) we finally went out over the holidays and bought a new car.  After driving the Jetta for the past 7 years I liked the look and feel of a car in that size.  I had a few other cars in mind like the Audi A4 but the price of such cars is just too much at the moment given the house and wedding all in the last year.

I had my eye on a Mazda 3 for the past year as I really like the sporty look of the car.  It had all the extra features that I wished my Jetta had.  I was quite hard nosed on owning a German car always, but aside from a VW there isn’t much to chose from in the price category I was looking at, so I had to make the jump to Japanese.  I would go American too, but they really don’t have any offerings either.

Anyhow, we took a test drive and loved the way it handled.  The pickup when you step on the gas is a tremendous difference from my Jetta, which had a feeble engine.  This engine is a 5-speed automatic 2.3L 156hp.  It has pretty much the same features as the Jetta, except it has 17 inch alloy rims and a sunroof.  And it was much cheaper than what I spent on the Jetta.

Since we’re still on holidays, I haven’t driven that much but when I have it still feels weird driving in a new car.  But I should get over that real soon.