My Trip to the ER

I was supposed to go camping this week. I set aside work and put enrolled in paid time off so I could go camping. This idea was not mine but my mother’s. I haven't been my mother's biggest fan as of late. We went last year. It was okay. At that time it felt promising in the beginning, then it slowly deteriorated into  “This bitch is crazy, do I really want to do this again”? I haven’t used this time to answer the question even weeks before the trip was meant to start. I was going to regret that.

Three days before I am meant to go camping, I have a beer (not my first) and become ill. My face got beat red and hot to the touch. I was flushed within minutes of consuming the whole thing. Kept myself hydrated as best I could afterward but still felt ill by the morning. It felt like someone had put weights on my eyes. They physically hurt to look around. The back of my head and neck were throbbing. This was no ordinary migraine like the ones I’m familiar with. The day before our trip and I’m still not 100%. I sleep in. Departure time is noon and I look at the time on my phone: 11:30am. Nothing is packed. I tell my mother I’ll meet her up at the site tomorrow, not knowing how I’d feel. It was at this point that I was sure I didn’t want to go. It took me until the last possible second to realize that this was not a trip looking forward to. I just lied there wondering “why does she insist we do this now? I am a broke, depressed, insecure, mediocre adult. Why couldn’t we do this when I was a happy kid?”. She takes off to the campsite. I’m stuck at home, alone, with just my cat and my thoughts. That’s when the pain sets in. From noon until 10 I sit in their dark house, doing all the things I can to keep myself calm. My head still hurts. My neck still hurts. And now my chest is burning. It feels like someone took a spear and jabbed it through my heart. It doesn’t go away when I lay down so sleeping is out of the question. Eating doesn’t help. Bathroom breaks aren’t helping. I do the one thing any desperate millennial would do; I webMD my symptoms. ANGINA? HEART ATTACK? Well now its a trip to the ER for me.

 I call up my dad since my mom is out of town and ask him to meet me in the ER (I know, I’m that adult that brings their parent to the clinic, how mature). The nurses are very quick to strip me down and hook me up to their machines. Its uncomfortable but I let them do their thing without thinking that this whole room just saw me without a top on (my sincerest apologies). They test my blood pressure with that arm squeeze thing and damn did that hurt. I don’t remember that machine causing bruising. They run a CT scan to see if I have blood clots. Nothing. They do an ultrasound to see if my gallbladder is redirecting the pain. Nada. Every test they come up with is inconclusive so they send me home. Four hours of testing and who knows how much money just went out the window. My therapist told me it was likely an anxiety or panic attack. All because I didn’t want to go camping? Beautiful.