I’m a pretty spiritual person. So I’d like to think that all of the advancements in medical technology are divinely inspired. I can not begin to STRESS how luck I am.

Enter July 28th, a balmy New York Sunday. I’d had on a pretty denim dress and white cotton top from the GAP. I was chatting amicably with my beau when before I knew it, my vision began to swim. It felt so hot that I began to have trouble breathing. I felt like someone was sitting on my chest, then I couldn’t sit up anymore. I gasped for breath as I slumped over. My darling, let’s call him Ursa, began to panic. He was asking me questions, shaking me trying to get me to answer, because apparently I wasn’t.

Later, I found I had been slurring my speech and just wheezing like a beached guppy. It wasn’t a good situation. He managed to get me into an Uber, thinking that perhaps it was too hot for me ( my asthma flares up terribly in the summer). He got me to use my emergency inhaler and sta me up. The Uber pulled up and he lifted me in, looking like the biggest kidnapper in Midtown on Sunday night lol. I even heard a woman asking suspiciously if ‘everything was alright”.

That was pretty much the last thing I heard. I woke up in the lobby of the ER, to a nurse thumping me in the chest and telling me not to fall asleep. They kept asking my me my name, what day it was and if I knew where I was? I answered each time and was only met with furrowed brows. I heard the phrases ‘syncope’ and ‘altered mental state’ tossed around.

I was scared, and FREEZING cold but my head was on fire. I went out again…

When I came to again I was surrounded by no less than 8 medical personnel, two fo them with blazing red lipstick. I focused on the lipstick, watching their lips move and the sounds melt into each other. It was a Peanuts moment, I didnt understand anything anyone was saying. Frantically I searched for Ursa. He was right beside me, his lips moving too. Then, suddenly as if emerging from a pool of water, muted sounds transformed into booming voices. The machinery was no kinder to me, it myriad of beeping, whirring and automated sounds were painful.

An MRI was ordered…

I had been speaking Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, English and straight up gibberish. THAT was why no one would nod whenever I answered their questions. I had been answering all along, but it was in other languages and I had no idea. They kept me overnight and ran a series of other tests on me. An electroencephalogram, cardiac tests, the works. I wanted to faint just thinking about how much it would cost me. I have insurance, but America is greedy. And in the heart of the Big Apple, I was terrified lol…

But my Ursa held my hand, stayed overnight and visited as often as possible. All hell broke loose when my Paramedic older brother showed up, the tension in the room was palpable. When they came back with the results, I was glad I was already sitting.

So stay tuned for Part 2! ( Click here for Pt 2)

Stay trendy, stay you.

–TBG