Who knew I could break that hard, that fast? Okay, so my weekends are adventurous. Truly. Saturday night I was invited up to Mont Tremblant to DJ for a dinner party. An outdoor dinner party backing onto a gorgeous golf course. My father phoned me early in the week and wondered what I was doing Saturday. I told him working until 4:30 and he figured I could be in Mont Tremblant by 7ish, easily. With time to change. He was hosting a dinner party for thirty or so close friends and he had nothing with which to play music in the house. The house at Tremblant is about 3000 sq ft of glorious beauty. There will be a couple of pictures once I hook my phone to my PC and do all that fiddly technical stuff. So I suited up, drove up, and spent the evening playing light jazz and lots of 50s stuff... swing and rock and roll and all KINDS of glorious music that I have yet to get to play publicly. No, I didnt playlist it. The food was good, the company was festive, I got to play on the second story back deck overlooking the gorgeous dining set up. All good *nod* Visiting my dad and his girlfriend was wonderful. Sunday morning I awoke, had a leisurely and excellent breakfast and got in my car about 10am for the drive back to Ottawa. Half an hour south of Tremblant, in a place I had never been, I had the worst panic attack yet. Sure, last month I had a truly horrible one involving an ambulance being called and reports being filed [as I was at work] which was, to that point, the worst I had ever experienced. Who knew my brain had ever so much more in store for me! Pulled over into the empty parking lot of a closed mechanic... called a friend to help talk me through it [a tactic that sometimes works and I thank the friends on my call list who are truly helpful and amazing for being so]. Five minutes into the call and it just kept getting worse so... time for 911. Now, I have NO CLUE where I am... but fortunately, apparently, the 911 folk can just ping my phones gps and whoomp, there it is! First responder arrives as I call my friend, the fantastically helpful Aaron back. Another friend, Dan, is heading to my house but has no celphone. So Aaron took time out of his busy Sunday to hang out in from of my apartment and wait for Dan, to give him the message that I was in hospital. Yup. Ambulance arrived, hooked me up [having shaved half my chest so now Im rather lopsidedly frontally furred] and everything LOOKED good. Usually this confirmation is enough to settle my brain down but... oh, not Sunday. Went through the process... everything looks fine.. sign off that I do not wish to go to the hospital... get in my car... start her up... turn her off... get out of my car very shakily and ask You know that thing I just signed? Screw it. Hospital time! Long drive to Buckingham, Quebec.. really? They have a town called Buckingham? Named after the place where the British Queen lives? Honestly? Is this some... how did they... WHY? Anyhow... the ambulance attendants and the hospital staff all, every one, introduced themselves as Bonjour, my name is XXXXX, my English it is not good. So I responded politely, as calmly as I could [I tried... but when your brain is screaming DYING HERE!! it can be a bit touch and go] and told them my French was not good and thus wed communicate JUST fine!! Mostly by gesticulating. Six hours, lots of blood tests, strange humour that seemed to carry across the language barrier, injections of salinated water [which I DID NOT ENJOY], nursing staff thanking me for helping them practice their English skills and theyre 99% sure I did not have a heart attack BUT if I wait four more hours they can be 100% sure. You know... 99% is better than Ive gotten on a test in a long time so I took it and checked myself out. Dan had driven out to the hospital, was there for the last hour for support and advice, and then drove me to my car [sitting sadly in this parking lot over a half hour away] and then tailed me home to make sure I made it. Panic attacks are tiring. This one was exhausting. Even today I continued to feel the echoes, the after-effects of the panic attack [yet another new thing... it lasting into a second day... I do NOT favour these kinds of new experiences, thank you very much]. I expect I shall still feel it tomorrow. It was long and brutal and I dont want to experience another like this. Ever. Several possible trigger factors, likely all of them coming together to race around my nervous system in an attempt to destroy me. And it almost succeeded. I broke a little. Am still broken from it, today. Yeah, I still went to work because rent and food. Tomorrow is off time to... blah blah... do stuff, see friends. Friday is Doctors appointment to discuss treatment [the Doctor I am meeting is named Dr. Jackson Hughes... a very proper name, that. If s/he doesnt have a British accent I shall be disappointed]. I dislike pills and medication. I HUGELY dislike pills and medication. But I am running up the white flag... I shall now happily take pills and medication. Anything to not feel like that ever again. Hels tiny tulips, if they tell me that my only hope is a lobotomy Ill offer to sharpen the exacto knife! Things are being done, changes are coming to hopefully address these challenges. I just have to be patient and work through em as theyre not swift changes. I will survive this... its what I do. The staff of Buckingham Hospital in Buckingham, Quebec [just off the Autoroute 50] were great people and I thank them. My friends... are the duct tape that helps hold me together when bits begin to splinter off. Simple thanks are all I have... and are never enough.
Posted on: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 06:18:35 +0000
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