Panic
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I was driving home from work a few days ago, when I heard the faint sounds of a siren. I turned down the radio and looked around. There it was—an ambulance flying towards me, sirens blaring.
As I sat there, pulled over to let it pass, I could feel the panic starting. My hands felt tingly and sweaty and numb. My breathing became shallow and quick, not nearly enough to fill my lungs. My eyes became watery.
Ten years out from my loss, the sound of an ambulance can still send me straight back to that gut-wrenching panic of losing Henry.
Upon arriving to the hospital, the receptionist at the ER took one look at her computer and then paged the social worker. We kept getting shuffled from one small room to another, all filled with those generic tissue boxes that are worthless. Our baby boy was covered with wires and tubes and tape to hold everything in place.
It’s not nearly as bad as it used to be, but it still feels scary and suffocating. The real irony is that I was never around the ambulance that took Henry to the hospital—he went from his daycare. But my imagination over the years has seen it.
It’s interesting the things one’s mind picks out to focus on, to remember, to make up details about. If an ambulance (that I have no personal ties to) sends me into a panic, I wonder if I really can trust my memories of that time.
Looking back, things are fuzzy for me. I think my mind could only handle the blurred edges of things, not the fact that I was leaving my braindead baby at the hospital. My mind had to protect itself so that I could function, though just barely at first.
Gradually, I moved from just putting one foot in front of the other to living more fully. But it took time and it’s still hard some days. Especially the days when I have to practice my breathing to stave off a panic attack on the side of the road.
What triggers you? How do you cope with these moments of pure panic? What helps you keep putting one foot in front of the other?