This violates all the rules of having a cold, I thought. I should at least be able to concentrate on a silly comic book.
But the words on the page swam hazily before me as I sat in the recliner, drinking my coffee on a Saturday morning.
I could accept being physically tired as long as I could still perform mental tasks. A cold meant being too tired to do things I dreaded doing anyway, like house work or exercise. But now my mind seemed to be malfunctioning.
Plus, whenever I looked up suddenly, there was a visual lag between what I had been looking at before and afterward that left me feeling car sick.
Of course, maybe one of the drugs was to blame, like my OTC cough syrup or the Mucinex with pseudo-ephedrine I had taken before breakfast.
I put down my book and opened my laptop to write, but even the words I had written the day before jittered on the screen, meaningless. As I typed, my hands trembled. The words seemed to be shifting, and I was unable to get a visual lock on anything for long. I felt strange.
I Googled the name of my Delsym cough syrup to see if it had any weird side effects. The first thing I saw was a warning that an overdose could cause severe brain damage. I had not overdosed, and there was no good reason to think I had. But the word emblazoned itself on my mental screen. Brain damage.
The weight of the phrase bore down on me. Just seeing the term “brain damage” had a physical effect on me. A pins and needles tingling sensation ran through me, from my belly to my feet, followed by a muscle-deep burn that brought to mind tales of spontaneous human combustion.
I had never felt this kind of burn before, and my mind raced for an explanation. What if I had accidentally overdosed? Walked in my sleep somehow, remembered the yummy candied grape flavor, and downed it like Kool-aid? Or could I have absentmindedly filled the plastic measuring cup to the wrong line?
My heart beat out a hard, uneven rhythm, and I struggled to get a good breath. To calm myself, I decided to write in my journal, but the screen was sun-bright, and my fingers trembled.
I shut my computer and seized on the controller for my new Wii U that I had gotten for Christmas. Video games usually relaxed me. At the moment playing “Mario” seemed to be the only thing I could concentrate enough to do, but the springy, tingly flush of my legs distracted me.
I got up. On my way to the bathroom, my head swooned. My legs ached and felt wobbly. Looking into the bathroom mirror, I couldn\’t get my eyes to focus on the eyes staring back at me.
My trembling legs and feeling of wrongness was telling me to seek help, but I was torn. The doctors I had visited on weekends, I remembered, charged way too much.
My husband Donnie, who was getting over the same cold I had, was resting on the couch. Maybe he could help me make up my mind. “Donnie,” I said. “I’m really dizzy. My legs are all pins and needles. And I keep having this weird burning sensation.”
“Sounds like a hot flash,” he said. “Remember, you do have a cold.”
“I’m worried,” I said. “I\’ve had cold symptoms before, the cough and the running nose, all that. This is different.”
“I think we have the flu.” Donnie coughed. “It’s just your cold making you dizzy.”
“Just a cold?” I dropped into the recliner. “Nobody ever said ‘just a cold’ in The Stand.”
“That’s Stephen King. You’re fine.”
I tried to adopt his lighthearted attitude. Meanwhile, the reverberant red-coil burn deep inside my legs was insistent. My skull seemed to vibrate. I felt certain that if Donnie could feel what I was feeling, he would take my symptoms more seriously.
“If this is the flu virus, then I think it’s winning,” I said.
“It’s not winning.” Donnie sighed. “You’re just sick. It’s normal to not feel normal when you’re sick.”
I wondered if he would be comfortable including that quote in my obituary. I imagined a newspaper article: She complained to her husband about dizziness and tingling legs that morning, but he dismissed the symptoms as “just a cold.”
The thought sent a new shock wave through my legs, followed by another red-hot burning flush. While there was no pain, my agitation kept mushrooming. What if this is what it feels like to die? Never having died before, I had no way to answer the question.
Despite the alarms going off in my head, I was reluctant to go to the hospital. Going to the ER seemed impolite, among other things. It would cost money. It would ruin the day.
But what if something seriously was wrong with me? It would be horrible to die because seeking medical help was inconvenient.
Still, I thought I would try a more conservative approach first, lie down. “Just a cold,” I told myself. “I’m fine. Try to relax.” I stood from the recliner. The room lurched. A deep ache penetrated my legs to the bone. They were wobbling so much, I stumbled.
I grabbed hold of the arm of the recliner. The floor tilted toward me. “Donnie, Can you help me get to the bedroom?” Donnie got up and let me use him as a crutch to get to the bed. As I eased onto the mattress, the air seemed to shimmer as I was gasping unevenly for a good breath.
“I\’ve had the flu before. It wasn\’t like this. I was never this dizzy. I never had hot flashes.”
“Well, I have. Most people have. Just because you haven’t, that doesn\’t mean your symptoms are unusual.”
Talking was too much work. I fell back on my pillow and lapsed into a grim silence. I was used to every unpleasant symptom having a clear solution. For headaches, there was Tylenol; for a runny nose, antihistamines.
But what was the cure for springy, nerve-jangling legs and this uncontrollable agitation? The feeling, rational or not, that I was dying? It was unendurable. I wanted to see a doctor, at least. I wanted to be reassured.
Donnie must have read my thoughts. “Look,” Donnie said. He handed me my plastic insurance card. “Call this number and tell the nurse your symptoms. See what she says, and then if you still want to see a doctor, I’ll drive you.”
I wriggled myself into a sitting position and took the card. Maybe, at the very least, she could calm me down, which I was having trouble doing for myself. My hands were trembling so much I got Donnie to dial the number and hand my phone to me. A woman operator answered. After giving her basic information about myself, she asked what was bothering me.
I described the tingling numbness in my legs, my trouble getting a good breath, my dizziness, and my aching muscles when I tried to walk. And I told her how, the day before, I felt foggy and kept forgetting things I was planning to do as soon as I planned them.
“Any alcohol? Drugs?”
“No alcohol.”
“Any other drugs?”
I told her about the cough syrup and Mucinex.
“Keep in mind, this service isn\’t intended to take the place of your provider or expert medical opinion. But I am going to give you my opinion, based on the information you have given me. Are you ready?”
“Go ahead,” I said.
“Ma’am, could you be having a stroke?”
“A stroke?” Not the response I expected. I was no expert on strokes, but I knew Donnie’s mom had died of an aneurysm. I had vague images of lopsidedly sagging faces and vacant eyes.
“Ma’am,” the woman continued, “From all the symptoms you\’ve described, the numbness, the confusion, and your trouble breathing, it sounds like you are having a stroke.” It seemed to defy all logic, but the gravity of the word “stroke” resonated along with the sirens wailing danger in my head, with the feeling that my symptoms were exceptional, and my suspicion that Donnie was in denial.
“Based on everything you\’ve told me,” the operator continued, “I am recommending that you hang up and dial 911.”
The dangerous words coming from a medical professional sent new ripples throughout my body.
“A stroke.” I turned to my husband in bed beside me. “She said a stroke.”
I could see the disbelief forming on his face, a skeptical smirk and the beginning of an eye roll, but the word “stroke” found resonance with the alarm signals that had been going off in my head for the last half hour.
“I’m calling 911,” I said.
Donnie seemed taken aback by this announcement, but said, “Of course.”
I dialed 911, told the operator I thought I could be having a stroke, and spat out my address. I told her about my symptoms and what the nurse hotline had said. After asking a series of questions, the operator told me to lie down in a comfortable position and not eat or drink anything that would make it hard for the doctor to examine me.
The next twenty minutes seemed like hours. Who would have thought I could have a stroke? Maybe I had inadvertently overdosed on something. And Donnie. What would he do if I died? How would my family in SC feel if I died without saying good-bye?
I looked at Donnie, who was pacing the room and glancing at me now and then. “I love you,” I said. I didn\’t want his last memory of me to be me lying on the bed, taciturn, and wearing what I imagined was a deathly pallor that would one day haunt his dreams.
He returned my stare. “I love you, too.”
I turned my head and stared at the sunlight painting the window orange. I could see the parking lot and in the far distance the trees I loved, old oaks weeping with Spanish moss, a Florida vision that had charmed me the first time I saw Ocala.
My legs continued to vibrate, Novocain-numb as if they contained thousands of rubber bands being pulled taut and released. My skull was ringing.
What if I died? No fair warning. No compromise. Just a sudden, unceremonious end. I thought about all the novels still inside me that would never get written.
I began to make compromises in my head. Maybe I would live but be paralyzed, my legs dangling uselessly over the metal edge of a wheelchair. Not what I wanted, but I could cope, as long as I could still write.
The threat of imminent death put everything in perspective. Some friends were Beta-testing my new, as-yet-unpublished novel. I had edited it many times and weeded out all the plot holes I could find. But I was terrified that they would find some crucial inconsistency that would bring my brave edifice of words crashing down in a useless heap of debris.
Now it seemed not to matter; with a sigh, I thought that if I died, I would at least die enlightened.
When I heard footsteps bounding up the entrance stairway, I managed a long deep breath of relief. Three paramedics, all men, gathered into the bedroom, and one of them bedazzled my arms and legs with sticky-backed electrodes.
They asked me a series of questions, which I answered, then stood back and took a long, unnervingly calm look at me. I looked back. Was it so bad, they had given up all hope? I wondered: Where were the defibrillators, the crash carts, and the oxygen masks? Where were the clipped words of emergency?
“Have you ever had a stroke before, Ms. Henderson?”
“No,” I said.
“And how has your medical history been in the past?”
I searched my mind; feeling so ill at the moment, I half-expected to find a long history of physical trauma in the reference book of my memory. But it wasn\’t there. “Good generally,” I said. “Bipolar disorder. Other than that, I\’ve always been pretty healthy.”
“So what made you think you were having a stroke?”
“I called the nurse hotline on my insurance card. She said my symptoms sounded like a stroke, and that I should call 911.”
“Well, I can tell you,” he said. “You’re not having a stroke. If you were, your numbness would be in one leg, not both. One side of your face would sag. You’d be vomiting and you’d probably have a killer headache. Believe me, we see people dying all the time. However, we can still take you to the hospital if you want to go.”
The rubber bands in my legs became less springy. I vaguely sensed that I should be embarrassed. But my relief overwhelmed any shame.
“Just to be safe,” he continued, “we can take your blood pressure and heart rate before you decide.” I agreed and the blood pressure cuffs came out.
As he predicted, my vital signs were all normal, except for an elevated heart-rate. “Anxiety can mimic the symptoms of a stroke,” he said. “Elevated heart rate, tingling, trouble catching your breath. I think your anxiety played a large role here.”
“That being said,” the paramedic’s eyes locked with mine. “You know your body better than anyone. If you still want us to take you to the hospital, we will. It’s up to you.”
I looked at Donnie. “Your choice,” he said.
I was still reeling from a kind of emotional whiplash, thinking I was in danger and now discovering the danger was imaginary. The pins-and-needles feeling in my legs was still there. But I was no fan of the ER. “If it isn\’t necessary, I don’t want to put myself through that.” I looked at Donnie. “Or him.”
The head paramedic smiled with sympathetic approval. “I can guaranteeyou, you won’t die today. You’ll die someday. We all will. But not today.”
The words sank in. Tomorrow would come. I wouldn\’t have to think of any comforting or profound last words to say to Donnie. I would see my family in SC again. I would get to write more novels and eat chocolate and play Mario and walk beaches and stroke my cat. The Grim Reaper had leaned over me and stared at me with his dark skull eye sockets, only to stick out his tongue at me and go home.
“Although,” the paramedic continued, “I would talk to your doctor about getting your anxiety under control.”
At any other time I might have been offended at the suggestion that my symptoms had been fabricated by “nerves.” Instead, I thanked them all for coming and for reassuring me. I signed a form verifying that they had come and that I had chosen not to go to the hospital. I had to admit: The anxiety theory had credence; the white-hot burn inside my leg muscles was easing up, and my breathing was falling back into its normal rhythm.
The floor still tilted a bit but my legs had stopped wobbling, so I could walk without fear of falling.
After the paramedics left, I took a warm bath and ate a sandwich. Then I returned to bed and lay down.
Two weeks later, almost over my cold, I wonder: Did the pseudo-ephedrine precipitate my anxiety attack? I later looked at the box they came in. It says to stop use if you get dizzy or become agitated.
I now know that pseudo-ephedrine is a stimulant and considered a type of “speed.” Though I knew it was used to create Meth, I was used to cough medication making me drowsy, not wired. Maybe following it with two cups of caffeinated coffee was not the best idea.
Maybe if I had expected a jittery response, my symptoms would have alarmed me less, and Donnie would have been less tortured.
Later that day Donnie came into the bedroom and stared down at me, long and hard. “Know what you are?” he said. I stared back and waited to learn what I was. “You’re bad.”
“Bad? How can you accuse me of being bad?”
“You called 911.”
I tensed, feeling chastised. “Because the hotline nurse convinced me I was dying.And my survival instinct agreed with her.” He continued to stare at me. “I didn\’t go to the hospital, did I?”
“You scared me.”
“I’m sorry.” A hot flash surged through my legs but I reminded myself to stay calm. “It wasn\’t fun for me either.” After all, I had endured the same fears and denials and compromises I would have had if the danger of dying was real; I envisioned a future blog post: “Pseudo-strokes are Traumas, too.”
“You still have electrodes on you.” He plucked an electrode from my arm. “Lookat all those electrodes on the bed.” I looked at the bed covers, now an electrode garden full of scattered white, circular “blooms.” I felt like a dog that has just been told, “Shame on you. Look what you did.”
“Huh,” I said. “Did they really think I would need so many?”
A hint of humor flashed in his eyes. “I’m going to stick them all over you, every single last one of them.”
“Why would you do such a thing?”
“Do I have to have a reason?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think I do.” He picked up a new electrode, peeled off the backing, and slapped it on my inner arm.
“Does that make you happy?”
He gathered more electrode blooms from the covers and turned back to me with a look of determination.
“Yes,” he said.