A Tale of Terror

I feel as though I have calmed down sufficiently to tell our Tale of Terror that occurred this past Friday evening.  Patrick and I were having a lovely and uneventful evening after having decided to stay home and watch a couple of rented DVD’s.  After roughly four hours of movies (the content and names of which I do not recall), we headed upstairs to proceed with our pre-bedtime rituals (tooth brushing, face washing, etc.).  I was a step ahead of Patrick and had gotten into bed and was applying lotion to my hands while Patrick proceeded with his twice-weekly injection of Enbrel that he takes for psoriatic arthritis.  This is a procedure he has successfully completed for the past year or so.  Our peaceful evening quickly took a turn at this point.  Out of my peripheral vision, I see 200lbs of man falling straight back onto the bedroom floor, head first.  Did that just happen?  Ohmigod!  I turn my head only to see my husband lying flat out on his back, not moving, staring wide eyed at the ceiling, chest heaving violently as he seemed to wheeze and gasp for air.  I have not moved a muscle at this point, except to turn my head toward him and inhale sharply.  I tried to cry out his name, but what came out was some slurred and incomprehensible sound resembling nothing close to his name.  I tried again with the same result as I leapt from the bed to kneel at his side.  I finally get his name out successfully, but there is no response from him.  His eyes stared wide and vacant right through me.  At this point I cannot seem to process what is happening.  All I am experiencing is shear terror and desperation.  After shaking him and getting no response, I am at least content that he is obviously breathing, so I fly across the room to the phone beside the bed.  I fumbled at least a half dozen times trying to dial 9-1-1 and finally the line was ringing.  “Do you need police or fire?” comes the detached voice.  I respond with a flurry of frantic connected words describing what has happened (or rather what I have observed, since I had NO idea what was going on or why) – all while thoughts raced through my head… What if he DIES right here in front of me?… How am I going to raise this child alone?… What if he turns out a vegetable because I don’t remember CPR training from my life guarding days?… What if…. What if… What if….  Patrick stopped breathing.  I thought my heart would stop instantly and I would just lie down and die right beside him.  I tell the woman he has stopped breathing, while she is asking if the front door is unlocked for the paramedics.  Door, what door?  My husband has stopped breathing!!!   Maybe three more seconds pass and as though waking startled from a dream, Patrick suddenly comes back to life, puts a hand on my leg, recognizes the utter terror in my eyes, and says, “what’s wrong babe? Are you ok?  What’s going on?”  The woman on the other end of the phone is asking if he’s conscious and talking and is still insisting I go unlock the damn door!  She is simultaneously instructing me not to let Patrick get up off the floor as he may have injured himself when he fell back on his head… and as she’s telling me this, Patrick is making his way to his knees.  I finally hang up with the 9-1-1 lady and help a very pale, almost literally green looking, Patrick to the bed to sit.  As I do so, there is a knock at the front door.  I run downstairs to let the paramedics in and show them the way to the bedroom.  Trembling and sweating (literally in physical shock at this point) I try to describe to the medics what has happened while they go about checking his vital signs, etc.  Blood pressure – fine.  Blood sugar – fine.  Reflexes and pupil dilation – fine.  Back of his head – fine.  Literally everything checked out fine… until they asked him how old he was.  He shrugged his shoulders.  Date?  Blank stare.  Who’s the president?  Nothing.  So the medics decide maybe he’s not quite as well as he appeared.  They insist on taking him for an ambulance ride to the ER to make sure that everything is really ok.  They load Patrick up while I throw some clothes on and rush to my car to follow the ambulance.  (At this point I woke Heather and Barney up with a panicked call at 12:30pm to let them know what was happening… and promised to call them back when we had some answers)  In Room 10 at the St. Vincent’s emergency room, the nurses and resident MD do all the same tests all over again and take what seemed like a gallon of blood from Patrick’s right arm.  Lot’s of waiting.  An EKG is ordered and we wait our turn.  While waiting, some of the fog had cleared from Patrick’s mind and he was recalling the events leading up to his blackout.  He remembered choosing the spot in his stomach to administer the injection, inserted the injection but “hit something kinda chunky” which hurt and made him instantly nauseous.  Instead of pulling the needle out and doing the injection somewhere else, he just pushed the needle in and administered the contents of the vial.  He remembered completing the shot, though it was far more painful than usual, and as he removed the needle and set it on the counter, his vision tunneled… then black.  EKG, normal.  Diagnosis: Vasovagal Syncope.  In layman’s terms: he fainted.  So, at the end of this ordeal, I felt as though I had aged a minimum of 15 years in the span of 5 minutes.  I had experienced genuine, life-altering terror like nothing my 26 years had yet shown me.  I had had visions of a husbandless life, and a fatherless child.  I had realized just how desperately in love with Patrick I truly am.  You cannot adequately describe the utter terror and fear experienced when you are convinced that you are witnessing the last breaths of the man you love.  It’s something I never wanted to know, and never hope to feel again.  The experience has left a deep emotional mark on my psyche, while all Patrick has is a bump on his head.  Fortunately, everything has turned out fine… he simply fainted.  Thank goodness for small miracles.