Thursday, January 20, 2011

Real Life ER...


New Years day…always a fun one.  Between trying to nurse myself back to some functional state…helping to cook the massive amounts of food my Greek mother insists on preparing…and running around the house cleaning before my entire big Greek family arrives…I struggle trying to shake the aftermath of too much champagne, too little sleep and hours of dancing.  Lucky for me by the time the family storms the house I can pass for a sober, put-together individual.

When everyone had cleared out…at around 3am or so…I was in bed trying to go to sleep and I felt my heart begin to race.  This is something I’ve felt before and still haven’t explained.  Typically if I just sit up, relax and breath it eventually goes away.  This time, no such luck.  It started to get worse.  I felt my lips tingling, my hands and legs started shaking, my breath was getting short and it started to feel like I couldn’t swallow.  Wonderful, I’m going to fucking die…is all I could think of.  I went up to my parents and my mom tried to tell me to relax that it’s just anxiety.  But what do I have to be anxious about??!!?!?  I was just trying to go to sleep…beautiful, comfortable sleep….which I barely go any of the night before. 

Well, needless to say I told my Dad to take me to the ER.  I really didn’t want to die only 1 day into what I’m hoping will turn out to be an awesome year and 1 day before my birthday.  It would be too tragic.  Once we are there the woman at the front tells me I need to check in…I look her dead in the eye and say “You must be kidding me…I need a doctor….now!” through very short, shaky breath.  She apparently didn’t care and made me give her my ID anyway and then proceeded to ask me my birthday…ITS ON MY LICENSE YOU DUMB SHIT!  Sorry…stupid people piss me off.  Seriously though, why ask for an ID if you’re going to ask me the questions anyway…you work in a hospital…common sense is like a requirement on the application.

After my father and some kind stranger screamed at the woman to get me a doctor because I was clearly not doing well  they stuffed me in a wheel chair and brought me back.  There was a sea of faces around me.  Nurses, doctors, you name it.  My pulse was well over 150 which I hear is insane.  Oops.  Amongst all the chaos there was this young, cute face…thank god, something to focus on.  Turns out he was going to be the one to stick around and make sure I was ok.  He was a PA.

Even though I felt like death I couldn’t stop myself from flirting.  I didn’t even realize what I was doing until the words were out of my mouth and I must have been turning a million shades of red.  There was a nurse on my right who was going to put in an IV so she could take some blood (why do they ALWAYS have to do this?!) and he was to my left.  I was complaining about how I have terrible veins with the exception of one on my hand which pops out all on its own and how I suck as having blood drawn.  He tells me to just focus on him (like that’s hard) then he shows me his arms and veins that bulge out.   Let me tell you, I’m fascinated when the veins on a guys arm bulge out…it’s kind of hot…and I tell him just that.  Something along the lines of “Oh wow it’s so hot when that happens…I love when guys arms look like that”  Wow, really PYT?  Talk about word vomit.  That wasn’t the end of it though…I started talking to him about working out, his muscles, etc.  All the while thinking how ridiculous I must sound to the poor nurse witnessing all of this.

As I’m sure his job requires, he came to check on me a lot until I was well enough to go home (they think I was having an anxiety attack…what the hell).  Every time he stopped by there was so much flirting and I was eating it up.  Had my Dad not been hanging around so much I would have tried to play the game a little more…like make an offer to hang out, see if we had mutual friends (since I know a few people who work in the ER), something or anything except the patient-doctor “thanks for everything, feel better, blah blah blah” bullshit.

The Juicy Details:              I did a little facebook stalking searching the next day since I had his full name on the papers they give you in the ER.  He was just as cute as I remembered him in my hospital state and seemed to be right up my alley.  I asked my friend about him and he said he knew who he was and that he was single.  He promised to do some extra digging and throw my name in there but as it goes this friend is extremely unreliable so I never expected any of that to happen.  I wanted to write him a message but had no idea what to say.  A part of me still wants to….because really, what do I have to lose?  What do you all think?  Should I write the good doctor, er…PA?  And if so, what would I say?  “You did such an excellent job taking care of me, let me reciprocate with a beer.”  I have considered saying i saw him pop up under people you may know on FB and is he the guy I met in the ER a few weeks ago but that seems sooo cheesy.  Life is about taking chances…but this one may be too crazy.

9 comments:

  1. What a scary night! Glad to hear you're OK! As for the PA, I'd say go for it - I agree that you don't really have anything to lose and I think your beer message sounds fine. Several of the bloggers I follow have been setting themselves challenges and conquering these scary moments recently - New Year, no fear!

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  2. I gave you a blog award. You deserve it. Go pick it up http://theboyfrienddrama.blogspot.com/2011/01/birthday-celebrations-and-blog-award.html

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  3. Matt - thanks so much! I've actually seen the same thing with the challenges...I'm intrigued. Perhaps this can be my first!

    Candice - any ideas of what to say??? So nervous! aahhh!!!

    Alice - Girl you just made my day!!!! Thank you so very much!!! I popped over to check it out quickly before I left work...this is gonna make me work! xoxo

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  4. So scary when anxiety and panic take hold. I am glad you are doing okay now and a handsome face to focus on never hurts!

    I say do it---contact him---he already saw you at your worst and still flirted! He is a keeper.

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  5. Excellent point Jewels! Any advice on what to say??? That seems to be my biggest hang up!

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  6. Yeah sorry about the survey, i put blood, sweat and tears into answering all those, jewels did too :)

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  7. So, what happened? Was it a panic attack? That's what it sounded like. Poor you!

    And hilarious that you were flirting with a cute doctor even on your deathbed. That's awesome.

    Look at it this way, hopefully you will not be going back to the ER anytime soon. So what do you have to loose? I would shoot him a message on Facebook. Maybe something kind of funny like (hmm... shoot I'm not good at being funny) but you could thank him for helping you etc. and then see where it goes. Chances are, if he's single, he was totally checking you out too. At the very least he'll be flattered. I mean what have you got to loose?

    And thanks for your comment on my blog the other day. Going to post my whole profile in the follow up post. Would love to hear your advice!

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  8. i like your blog! feel free to check mine out at

    http://jenniferscavone.blogspot.com

    Ciao!

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