Sitting around in the emergency room, panicking on an escalator

Going to the hospital by ambulance certainly has its advantages. There's virtually no wait - though I was not the #1 priority upon arriving as I "met" the pedestrian from the previous post. Her needs at that moment were much more important than mine. Once she had been moved to the operating room (I guess) it was my turn.

It seemed that while I was still very puffy due to the hives that covered me from head to toe, I was stable and had to wait for an ER physician to come to my bed and check me out. Knowing that I was going to be OK had the effect of turning the next half hour into what seemd to be hours due to utter boredom. I asked my father who had now just arrived to go get me a newspaper or something to read while waiting.

Moments later, a doctor came to speak with me and more fully explained what had happened to me. I had experienced one of the worst possible anaphylactic reactions to something I had eaten, and had been mere minutes away from major trouble. It turns out that all actions taken to that point had pretty much saved my life. We no longer were dealing with what first seemed like minor inconvenient reaction after leaving that downtown restaurant...

After quizzing me about what I had eaten and once he heard that there was a progressing history of allergic reactions to food, he advised me to get tested. Upon explaining that I had already done so and nothing seriously dangerous to me had been identified, nor had any common thread in any of my incidents been identified, he impressed upon me that it was imperative that I get to the bottom of what was going on.

I was given a prescription for Prednisone - no more Benadryl for a week for me - and was cautioned that this particular drug had interesting side effects: weight gain due to constantly being hungry or not being able to feel full, as well as some mental effects. I seemed to make it through the week without too much trouble, though I could not have predicted what would happen the first day I left the house after finishing my prescription and feeling somewhat normal once again.

While I can't remember why I went to the shopping centre, I distinctly remember having an overwhelming sense of fear and anxiety as I stepped onto an escalator. I had driven the short distance to get there without any incident, but as soon as I set foot on the moving staircase, I immediately felt some sense of impending doom! More interesting was the fact that I almost had to have this little internal debate where I rationalized that I had been on that escalator dozens if not hundreds of times in my life and everything would be fine, yet the "other side of me" was having this irrational mini panic attack that wouldn't go away. By the time I made it to the bottom I was fine, shaking it off with a new-found understanding of how people with mental disabilities must feel at times, with a distinct lack of ability to control one's own thoughts. I was very thankful that I had worked with mental health issues at the office over the years and could easily cope with what I hoped would be a simple blip. It was.

Anyhow, the bottom line was that once the medication had been taken and time had a chance to heal my body after a wild experience, it was now time to figure out once and for all what was doing this to me. Back to the drawing board...