Panic Attack

I had a small panic attack in bed Thursday night, surely brought on by the recent stresses of five children in the house, including two teenage girls, not to mention the fact that I thought I was about to die. I have been trying not to take any Zanax to get to sleep and I often succeed in dropping off all by myself, tired as I am these days. I am taking Celebrex daily for my hip/back problem, which has not yet been officially diagnosed. The Celebrex works, though, and I’m glad for it. Merck is once again in the news as a man died from a heart attack after a month on Vioxx and the proceedings of his widow’s lawsuit are splashed across the papers and heard on radio and tv reports almost daily. Some think that Celebrex and Bextra are similarly dangerous to the heart, though this seems to be disputed by the medical profession. My own doctor, Dr. Spiekerman, said I shouldn’t worry about being on it, especially for the short time I would be taking it – originally three weeks. I’m back on it, though, as three weeks apparently wasn’t enough time to heal whatever is causing my mystery pain. That’s a whole story in itself. I’ll save the details of the bad hip for another time.

So, Thursday night I am lying in bed, no Zanax in my system, trying to fall asleep. Success seems imminent as I am so very tired and have almost dozed off. Suddenly there is a sharp pain in my lower left leg. It is a very localized pain in the middle of the front of my leg, a bit off to the outside of that long bone that runs down to the foot. It doesn’t feel like a nerve and it doesn’t feel like a muscle acting up. It’s just a razor sharp pain of medium intensity that lasts only a few seconds. I give a jolt and am now wide-awake again. Dean feels me jerk and shifts in bed next to me. I calm down, wonder what the heck that was and try to recapture my sleep. 20 or 30 seconds later – there it is again. And again. Every 20 or 30 seconds I get this little jab in my leg. Now I remember the Celebrex and all those late night lawyer ads recommending anyone who has taken Vioxx, Celebrex or Bextra to call this 800 number and get into a class action lawsuit to defend their health rights and receive the compensation possibly due them. Geez. This doesn’t help my emotional state at all. I imagine a blood clot, just about to let go of whatever it’s holding onto, poised to jump into the stream of my circulation on its way to my heart or lungs. Which would come first, the heart or the lungs? Which one kills a person – a clot in the heart or the lungs? I thought it was the lungs. I remember one episode of that old crime show, Reasonable Doubts, with Marlee Matlin and Mark Harmon, when one of their co-workers had surgery and was recuperating in a hospital bed when suddenly she couldn’t breathe and she coded and everyone rushed in to try and figure out what was wrong and to try and save her from what turned out to be a simple little old blood clot that had broken away from her surgery site and landed in her lungs like an unwanted relative on your doorstep during Christmas festivities. I remember the look on her face, the incomprehensible terror and the gasping for breath, the rush of orderlies, the whir of emergency machinery, and then the denouement as each doctor and nurse slowly backed away from her lifeless body. She was acting, of course, but it was convincing and I cried. She wasn’t like a bit part on that show either. I was amazed they had allowed her to die like that. Maybe she had a better offer from some other show. Maybe she was pregnant in real life and wanted to stay home to raise her family. I don’t know. They cancelled the entire show some time after that and I never heard anything more. That is beside the point.

I am still lying in bed, having these evenly spaced out stabs of leg pain and imaging my own death from a Celebrex-induced heart attack or a tiny, little blood clot, knowing that my husband will sleep through the entire episode and I won’t even get to say goodbye to my children. The dog will probably be the only one aware of my demise before I’m cold under the sheets.

These thoughts aren’t helping. I get up and use the bathroom and play a few rounds of pocket Yahtzee, hoping the pain will slow down, lessen or disappear. Walking to and from the john doesn’t help, but returning to bed I notice that perhaps it is easing a bit. I make a concerted, oxymoronic effort to relax and finally do fall asleep, still Zanax free. In the morning the pain remains, off and on, though milder than the night before. It fades away by mid-morning, after the kids are on the bus and I am now home alone for the first time all week.