26 January, 2012

Can you get Ambulance Frequent Flyer points?

Alright boys, I'm going to share about something you don't want to know.
Well, I got myself admitted to hospital quite recently. My period was late by about six days when I started spotting. I didn't realise I was late until I started spotting and when I noticed the blood wasn't bright red, I started to panic just a little bit. Blood which is darker or even brown can be a symptom of a late period but it's also a symptom of pregnancy. So I was a little worried. And when it didn't get heavier but also didn't stop, I lost it like a fat kid outside a closed bakery. I thought it was another loss.
When the chest pains started, they were so bad I thought I had to be having a heart attack even though I'm eighteen. Then I started to feel like my chest was bottoming out every time I breathed. That was fucking freaky. It was like part of my chest was just disappearing every time I took a breath. I tried really hard to keep it under control but this was the worst panic attack I have ever had and I knew it which just made it worse.
The chest pain went away but then I started to tingle. I called myself an ambulance and waited out the front. It may have been 2am in the morning but I did it alone. I wasn't going to have my dad around for this side of me and I couldn't get hold of Trent. In the ambulance, it got worse. I was taking huge, shuddering, gasping breaths that made my legs shake. It felt like painless pins and needles on the outer halves of both hands, in my toes and when it went further I cried. I felt my face going numb and just closed my eyes. I didn't want to try anymore.
I clung to the stretcher for dear life. In the end, I looked like I was preparing to give birth rather than having the worst panic attack of my life. I was sitting up with my knees as close to my chest as possible so I could see my feet and tell myself they weren't going blue. I had my hands clutching the sides of the stretcher so damn tight that I thought my knuckles were going to burst through the skin. By the time I got to the hospital, I was breathing better but definitely not easy and my heart rate had really slowed down. That meant nothing. I was taking 28 breaths a minute (18 being the highest normal rate) and my heart rate was 114 (90 being the highest norm for someone resting for the last half hour).
They tried to put me in bed 13. I've been in bed 13 and it was unpleasant. I went to 20 instead. After the ten minutes settling me in, I still hadn't calmed down so when they came bearing a sedative in pill form I took it. I forgot to fight them on that. I hate taking tablets. They scare me half to death now I know what I can do with them.
And they came with the needles. I had blood taken and an ultrasound at about 3am. There was nothing there. More appropriate to say no one. I have never been so relieved and so upset at the same time. I went back to bed 20 and tried to sleep. I was lucky enough to get in about an hour before I was cleared to leave.
The best thing about this entire experience is that Trent came. He lives in Cranbourne and doesn't always hear his phone so he can be unreliable but he answered. I was tired and cranky and I missed him so much I didn't care that I hadn't seen him properly in over a week. He took me home and he stayed with me. He was my hero then. I needed him and he actually came through for me.
I poked him awake and tried to tell him some of what I was thinking and feeling but he was asleep again. He probably was before I even had time to open my mouth. I stopped talking and I cried a lot instead. I didn't have much chance to do that well between calling the ambulance and getting back to my bed. I didn't even care that Trent was asleep. I just rolled over and he cuddled me while I cried about everything that was hurting in those dark corners where pain hides itself. Eventually I slept.
He left a couple of hours after I got to sleep but I was ok by then. I got over the panic and the loneliness. Even as I write this, none of the pain or fear comes to mind. Now I can look at it and say it wasn't the end of the world. In the moment, it was terrifying but that was then and this is now.

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