I haven’t taken an official break all week and what better use of my time could I possibly find? None, I say. So here I am, wishing desperately for a really giant Diet Coke. With loads of grenadine in it. And wanting someone else to stuff envelopes for me. Will it be you?

I said I’d write about the visit to my Primary Care Physician (PCP) that took place last Wednesday, 12 April. I said that. So now I am. Writing about it. With lots. Of halting. Sentence breaks. Because. I don’t know why.

All that went down last Monday, 10 April. I was transported from my workplace to the hospital in fine style. I enjoyed the company of Overdose McGee, his family, and friend. Also, he snored really loudly.

Because George is nice and because he is smarter than whatever I will say to just make the experience go away, he suggested I take Tuesday off from work. So I did. Because I am nice. I stayed in bed all day and my dog was an angel and it was just … nice. Except for the anxiety and the heart palpitations and the lung pain, all of which didn’t seem quite right. I’d made a follow-up with my PCP for Thursday, but by the time I got into work on Wednesday morning, I still didn’t feel right and called to see if they could take me earlier. Like within three hours. And they did. So I gave them candy.

I arrived for my noon appointment and was seen quickly. The doctor came in and said, “So you’re here for your asthma?” I explained I’d had an attack (”Really? An attack? A real one?” Yes. So far as I can tell, there wasn’t an invitation or a “save the date” in the mail though I guess it’s a possibility since I recently moved.) and had been seen in the ER on Monday. She asked how I was doing now, after a few days. So I cried. Which seems logical, right? Of course. ON PLANET SOMEWHERE ELSE. I started to cry and said, “Listen … I don’t feel sick. I just don’t feel right.” She asked me to list my symptoms: Shortness of breath, sustained lung pain, anxiety, palpitations. Oh and did you notice? My emotions are a little out of whack.

She ordered an EKG and rhythm, which her surprisingly bland nurse performed with surprisingly flowing conversational skills—proving once again that once a boring nurse does not mean always a boring nurse. Kudos. Every other nurse, ever, take notes—and come quickly to the realization that the healthcare field is probably not best suited for grumps. Which is why I will never be the one performing your EKG. Apparently the EKG looked fine and the doctor returned momentarily. I asked about the x-ray from Monday and she said she’d check. She came back in with a piece of paper in her hand and demanded, “Didn’t they tell you Monday that you have pneumonia?”

Pneumonia?

Right. Because, well, last time I checked, someone kind of needs to be sick to have pneumonia. And yes, there are plenty of forms and varieties and flavors of pneumonia—but last time I checked, I had to be sick to have it. And maybe perhaps feel a little rumbling in the bronchioles to even suspect that there was fluid building up in my lungs.

I felt deceived, as it were. By my body—I try to be a little more self-aware than letting pneumonia get by on the bioradar—and by my experiences Monday. On Monday, both the ER physician and the radiologist said independent of one another that the patchy infiltrates resembled the beginnings of bronchitis but were definitely “not anything like pneumonia.”

And then I felt concerned. My doctor placed the piece of paper on the table across the room and asked, “What is your greatest concern?” I chuckled, really. Because what does she want me to say? I’m concerned that maybe my dog will not sleep tonight because I don’t want to take her to the park? I am concerned that my brother will remain so angry with me for so long that one day there just won’t be any more time and what else could I have done? Or would you like me to limit it to the health-related concerns? I have a slight concern that when I feel palpitations, that my heart is just going to up and stop one day and that will suck. I’m concerned that you’re telling me I have pneumonia, simple as that—whereas the physician and the radiologist Monday vehemently denied its existence, ever. I’m concerned that you’re telling me I have pneumonia and I don’t feel sick. I just feel wrong.

So that’s kind of where I went. I said my greatest concern was my confusion over the diagnoses. Also, let’s wander back over to the blood clots—because there wasn’t really any final say other than my blood was negative for PE, which blood test I guess is somewhere around 60% final, per Dr. PCP—and what about that? I don’t have any? Is 60% good enough? Because really, the irony is not lost.

I guess my concern was not unwarranted because she picked up the piece of paper off the table and handed to me and said she’d scheduled a lung scan for me at 3:00 p.m., and to go over earlier if possible. The test is 90% effective. If I didn’t have clots, she wanted me back in her office first thing in the morning to explore other symptoms. If I did have clots, she’d see me at the hospital after they’d admitted me. Also, another chest x-ray on your way out. And have Nuclear Medicine page me with the results—and I want to speak with you before you go home. And here is my pager number.

Which is when I guess it kind of became blurry—because my worries were at that point founded on actual possibilities, and I’m just used to being ridiculous, I guess. I didn’t know how to handle the reality of what was happening because I generally spend so much time worrying something into unreality—not the other way around. I went to Radiology for the chest x-ray. Afterward, I called George to explain what had happened and to tell him I may not be back that afternoon. He thanked me for the call and said he’d tell everyone when he got back to the office. I paced a lot. People passed me in the hallway and I may or may not have appeared capable of human interaction. And maybe also a little bit intoxicated.

I got into my car and amidst anxiety—which has somehow become this entirely separate beast, unreliably arbitrary and entirely devoid of emotion—I called some people. I spoke with Dawne and told her I’d call her later when I knew more. Camille said she had an appointment or she’d be there. Joe said to obey traffic laws so as to avoid being killed before I found out I was dying. Jane wondered if I was coming back to work.

I apparently regained consciousness around 2:00 p.m. as I found myself standing in the Nuclear Medicine Department at the hospital, where I was checked in VIP style and led to the procedure room by a stripling young Ivan. Those places—radiology procedure rooms, etc.—always bug me with their dim lights. I know it’s so the techs can see the screens better—or so they say. It just seems cheesy to me, like we’re forging this covert relationship in a smoky piano bar, rather than my being injected with radioactive dye. Or both I guess. Which would make for an awesome first date story. Someone marry me—and fast.

Ivan explained the procedure: I’d breathe through a mask—which may make it a little more difficult to breathe for only a moment—for a few minutes and then my lungs would be “injected” with a radioactive tracer gas. I’d then breathe through the mask for a little while longer and they’d watch how the lungs got down with their bad selves. After all that was finished, we’d move on to the IV dye. But for now, please lie down and put this mask on and breathe slowly. Also, don’t panic when you can’t breathe at all. Ever again. It’s no big deal. Did you hear me? I said not to panic. Why are you crying, lady?

I don’t even know anymore.

I put the mask on and I breathed in—except then I stopped because dude wasn’t joking about it being a little bit more difficult. He asked, “Are you ok?” and then I cried, some more, because I wasn’t. I was scared and worried and tired and feeling poorly and geez louise can’t I just put on my pajamas and cry in my own bed?

Ivan the Wonderful gave me another moment to regain my composure and I made it through the ventilation scan fine. The “injection” was more like a big scary metal thing attached to the mask and my holding my breath for maybe 6 of the 10 seconds I was asked to hold. It was interesting to see my oxygen-hogs showing up on the monitor beside me.

Next came the perfusion scan, or the One Where They Put Stuff in Your Veins. I told Ivan I didn’t have anything on my left arm, sorry, and the ER had done used up three of the five most-visited IV vacation spots on my right. The first attempt was a no-go. I felt the saline flush but then had stinging at the site and felt it dislodge. Which is a really wonderful feeling. Except here, wonderful=disgusting. That’s my medical code language. He said he’d try again and then have someone else try. I think mostly because he realized that the next vein he’d be trying may well be in my neck. I felt like Jack Bauer as the radioactive tracer dye coursed through my last remaining inner-arm vein and I may or may not have muttered something about how the terrorists were not going to get to me, dammit. They ain’t gonna squeal, man.

Then the camera did its work and wandered its way around my body, taking photographs of my very radioactive lungs. Which was really awesome until about 5 seconds into the first of five ten-minute-long views.

When I was finished, I left. Just like that. It was about 4:30 and I’d already said I wasn’t going back to work. I went home, crawled into bed, and slept until 7:30 a.m., with minor interruptions since my dog has not yet been trained to relieve herself into the toilet via telekinesis.

The next day was Thursday, 13 April. I had my follow-up at 7:30 a.m. with the PCP to review the lung scan results and explore the possibility of ordering an echocardiogram to quell any rumors my heart may have heard about there being a party in the chest cavity. It was reported that the lung scan was clear and that the chest x-ray showed no patchy infiltrates as it had Monday. Wee! So maybe only slight cancer instead of the overwhelming kind. Or maybe only a tiny pulmonary embolism instead of a massive one. See? The inappropriate joking really will continue. I warned you.

I was still experiencing anxiety-ridden palpitations so my echocardiogram was scheduled for 3:15 p.m., where one Scott the Registered Diagnostic Cardiac Sonographer (RDCS) violated me something awful. I did see my liver, though. It waved. It said, “Thanks for the Hepatitis! That was fun! Let’s do it again sometime,” and then I shot it. And now it is dead.

Scott, RDCS, explained what everything was in relation to valves and cuspids and veins and I nodded in agreement that yes, I did have a very nice valvey cuspidic vein, thank you for mentioning it. I don’t think he was on to me.

So yeah. Besides being sore from having the ultrasound probe shoved into my sternum, I was good to go.

Except first I got to see Yenta Kaufman react to discovering having locked her keys in the car before she went in for her stress echo. She was 82-years-old, this Yenta Kaufman, and she was in flesh-toned workout tights, and a turquoise ensemble including shorts too short for Eadie Gwen, who is three and would get called names on the playground if she showed up in something similar. Yenta called AAA and told them she was at the University Hospital (which she wasn’t) and that she’d been a member of “the AAA since, oh, the fifties.” And then I wanted to hug her and put her in my pocket and call her my little Jewish pocket grandma.

The end for now. My follow-up with the PCP to review the echo findings and to report that indeed, my heart is still crying out for attention, is at 11:45. Wee!