I remember being scared, like my life was draining out of me. I was pale, numb and incoherent. My thoughts were static, I felt everything around me slowly slipping away. My vision was blurring. It was a nightmare, something I wouldn’t forget. My colleagues who were worried, had taken me to the urgent care. They thought I was having a heart attack or that I was slipping into the abyss of lunacy, because I kept asking if my lips were turning blue. The blue lip comes from an episode of House where an oncologist moonlighting as a chef asks if she had blue lips before she passes out. My mind, in the midst of being scared shitless, thinks that exactly what’s happening right now. I might be dying, I don’t know what’s going on, there is something seriously wrong with me. It’s weird how for every gentle breeze, your mind thinks there is a tornado that could pop up right around the corner.
The nurse asked me a couple of questions like my DOB, what I had eaten and more. I could understand the questions, but in my daze I didn’t know what I was answering. The nurse drew some blood, another strapped me to an EKG and then there were a bunch of tests. I don’t remember much of what happened but an hour later the doctor walks in and says, “Everything looks fine you had an anxiety attack”.
I for one had never had an anxiety attack before, so I described to the doc what happened and how I feel that my head had been fried to a point, that made me incoherent in my thoughts and actions, that I couldn’t stand up without trembling and that I was passing in and out of consciousness . I sort of remember the following conversation. The doctor said, “Sometimes stress at work or home can cause those. Depression could also lead to these kind of situations”. My colleague interjected “There’s no stress at office and this guy is always smiling, laughing and cracking jokes, he can’t have depression.” The doc ignored that and said, “It’s a treatable condition, take these anxiety meds for now, but speak to your physician and may be seek a therapist. If you can’t find one call me, here’s my number, I can help.”
Obviously at that point I paid no attention to what he was referring too. I felt that all this was due to some crazy disease that I had, or maybe I had a tumor in my head. It felt like was about to die anytime anywhere. Every action had the potential to lead to something terrible, but mostly death. I went home and tried to sleep with these thoughts. I couldn’t!
Not a Hero 