Panic

Gee. I guess I tempted fate by ending the last post with an admonition not to panic. My Wednesday began pleasantly enough. I hardly bothered to get dressed because my brain was sending out loud warning signals. "Sleep or else!" While I wasn't able to sleep, I was having a decent time playing basketball on the PS3. This relatively easy start came crashing to an end with someone banging on my door. My next door neighbor was upset because she had water in her garage. After having her water heater replaced, the water in her garage didn't go away.

This is just the latest in a long line of exchanges where something from her garage has seeped into mine and vice versa. Actually, you might just call a spade what it really is and note that this is the first time the water damage has hurt her. She doesn't know me at all so I bet she interpreted the long pause after telling me this as me not caring. These are the neighbors we see so rarely that I hold a half joking belief that they are a husband and wife team working for the CIA. Melissa isn't quite as kind about it. She wouldn't know that I was standing there trying to process the concept of what was going on.

Unfortunately, the path to the closet where the water comes into the house happened to be where we stored all of our most fragile things we're getting out of the way so that someone can fix our floor, wall and ceiling. Each tote is beyond the safe limit of what I could move. I climbed past and saw that there was a relatively small puddle in that closet. It might have gone from her house to mine for all I knew since I had no visible damage on my side.

I told her that I would fix the problem if it were coming from my side as quickly as possible. For that, I needed a second pair of hands and eyes. That's when I realized that Melissa was still home. She could help me and so she came down to take a look. Some time very quickly after she went into the closet, she started crying out in distress. This is very unlike my beloved stoic and so I rushed out to see what was wrong. Between the two of us, we got her back into the house and the emergency cutoff valve closed. I wasn't so sure such a measure was truly necessary but my neighbor was politely insistent that I do something.

Once we got Melissa to the couch, I called our doctor. It was their lunchtime, of course, so they called back and told me to call 911 for an ambulance. I did so and began running up and down the stairs collecting what we might need for an extended hospital stay. When the EMTs arrived, it took at least a minute to convince them I wasn't the patient since I was out of breath, sweating and trying to bounce off the walls. Once they realized that Melissa was the actual patient which involved her crying out in pain, half their efforts seemed to stay on preventing me from becoming the next patient.

I could tell how much pain Melissa was in by the way she responded to simple choices. Can you walk to the ambulance or do you need a stretcher? Ouch! I can...(near fall)...walk...(lurch to a stop from pain)... I cut her off and asked her to ask for the stretcher. I swear they spent more time stowing me in the ambulance than they did her. I'm not counting the time spent putting her on the stretcher and belting all the safety belts so it was actually much faster to point me to a seat directly behind the stretcher and to get me belted in. My neck brace caused them a little concern.

Melissa told me in the hospital that our dear neighbor asked the EMTs what I had done about the water problem. She's lucky that I didn't hear her live because heads might have rolled. Let's get our priorities straight here. Woman being loaded on an ambulance or the possible trickle of water? I thought about how worried I had been about the water in the ambulance and almost laughed. A later inspection after everyone was home safe revealed a pinhole in a minor pipe coming out of the water heater. It was under pressure but a towel taped in place is allowing us to use the water for brief periods of time. A length of plumber's tape might be enough to let us run the water 24/7 for a while but we're not that recovered yet.

We arrived at the hospital where Melissa was confirmed as the actual patient again. She was left to suffer in the ER for a while but it was no longer than necessary. My own quick triage while waiting for the ambulance showed me that there was no blood gushing anywhere. We waited our turn like good little inmates...err...patients while a nearby man was yelling at the top of his lungs for pain meds. I can understand the urge but he was triggering me by screaming f-bombs. He was triggering my fight or flight reflex and I couldn't run with Melissa helpless. (It was not a real concern but there is a level of animal response in us that is not so practical.) Over the next few hours, I heard some of the worst drug abuse behavior that I've ever heard. He was in agony and then he was high as a kite (his own words) from the pain meds he was given. An hour or so later, he was in agony again but his behavior told me how high he remained.

Melissa had her own panic reaction and I don't blame her. I was there to hold her hand and coach her the way she coaches me. After we had been there more than an hour, her pain level dropped quite a bit. I got to (not in the sense of enjoying it) observe one of my guilt reactions from her. Once she was no longer in agony, she questioned everything she had done that day from calling the ambulance to staying and "wasting" the time of doctors. What had happened was that her body caught up to the intense pain. We produce endorphins from pain and exercise which help control pain and induce euphoria with what's left over. I remembered how I felt all the times this happened to me and I told her to relax and enjoy it. We share a bit of gallows humor between us to say the least so I told her to enjoy the pain relief because it was temporary. I hoped I was wrong but I wasn't.

Shortly into her second bout of extreme pain, a doctor arrived with IV dilautid. After taking a few blood samples, Melissa got the dilautid and let herself enjoy it. With the meds in her system, the endorphins left her feeling tired but okay. My adrenaline reaction was slowing down and there was pain on the other side of it. One of the nurses got me some water and I took my pills while we chatted about Arnold Chiari Malformations and the fun they can cause. Melissa was out of agony and I was almost comfortable. Compare that to some of my previous hospital experiences!

Okay. I need to note that the staff at the Christiana Hospital part of the Christiana Care System including triage and the Emergency Department were wonderful to us. All I wanted was for Melissa to be okay and then I wanted water for my pills and a bathroom. Normally, I get sent to cool my heels all over the place while Melissa has to go through these things by herself. This time, the good ole husband card got me through every door. Even when I wanted to lose my temper in an unpleasant looking test, the staff never gave me cause. They were top notch.

Speaking of top notch, Melissa's job and her friends came through for us. We were stranded at the hospital but I got on the phone and sent the balloon up. We were in need and the friend who came to her rescue was merely the first in line. If she hadn't been able to help, others would have done so. I'm pretty sure that I can get help for the plumbing issue as well. I think I wasted 30 seconds thinking about how much easier this all would have been had I been able to call on a parent. That's when I remembered how much worse they made so many things. I don't know about you but I can live with limited access to water for a little while anyway.

I suppose when you get down to it, I never truly panicked. There was a problem and I had responses ready for the problem. The fact that my heart was racing and all does not mean panic. It just means I was scared and there's a big difference.