Today was my first day at my new job. I only kind of want to kill myself, so it must have been a good day.

You don’t? That’s probably because it happened on Saturday. And I’d been so good, Lo these past three months, avoiding and fearing very much being followed by any member of a variety of different Utah-related law-enforcement agencies and their very handsome, armed representatives. I guess you could say I’d been “driving” without “current” “registration,” but it’s not like I was concurrently engaging in illegal Diet Coke trafficking or clubbing baby harp seals, too.

So yeah, I guess I was a little taken aback on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. when I was, at last, struck down, flashed, and apprehended by clandestine copper, one Officer D. Teeples. I was just short of the intersection of 200 North Main Street, admiring the Logan Temple peeking out from behind the trees, when I caught the reflection of the lights in my rearview mirror.

I was already in the lefthand lane, so I thought I’d avoid further embarrassment by quickly turning left through the intersection and then into a parking lot just past it. But that was hilarious because there was too much in the way of oncoming traffic and we had to wait through another cycle of the stoplight. With the lights still flashing on the paddywagon behind me.

He wrote me a ticket. I’d be willing to remodel your kitchen or patch drywall for a little extra change. And, by “remodel your kitchen” and “patch drywall” I mean “rearrange appliances” and “hang a few picture frames,” respectively.

Yes, I guess I am grateful that he didn’t impound the car like he was quite sure to let me know he was quite capable of doing. But, I’ll also admit that “Remember that one time Dawne & I went to Logan and I got a ticket?” doesn’t have quite the same ring as, “Remember that one time Dawne & I went to Logan and I had to be bailed out of the poky while Dawne sat outside on a bench crying?”

But I’ll stick with what I’ve got for now.

In other news, because I don’t want to spend an entire post on it, and emboldened for emphasis, I gave my two-weeks’ notice today. I’m starting a new job with a new corporation two weeks from today, in fact. I am both thrilled and terrified all at once. It is a feeling that has me wanting to throw up more than dance or laugh quite yet.

History & Pictures.

I said I’d write about what happened Monday and I said I’d do it before Saturday at 11:17 p.m., but really, who was waiting to hear it? No one. And really, how much will my posterity care that I had an acute asthma attack one day and then I was better and maybe had cancer but then didn’t, unless I do and I don’t know it til my follow-up on Thursday? How much? Not much, I say.

I just took my dog out and my downstairs neighbor invited me over. In fact, her exact words were, “Um, sweetie? Do you wanna beer?” and while I was extremely flattered, I declined, citing the dog attached to the leash and my jammies but, “I’m good. Thanks so much.” Which I guess may be an overly sucrose-doused response when beer is involved.

(Ethel did accept the invitation, citing her love affair with the Michelob in the can, and is getting too loud for her britches outside on the front lawn. I may or may not have just called the police.)

So yeah. Here goes.

Last weekend, I had an awesome allergy-induced head cold, which was awesome and filled with awesomeness. It slowed me down and gave me some extra snot, but life was manageable. By Monday, I was worn out, what with the snot everywhere, though, and called in sick for half the day to get my life in order and rid my life of the snot once and for all.

I worked a productive half-day and around 6:00 p.m., I ran merrily around dropping off papers and it was off to the Camry I skipped. The walk was exhaust-filled, as usual, and I experienced some asthma-related ticklings in the hearty ole bronchioles, as was not far from normal. I had a slight reprieve before performing another fume-laced jaunt through another parking structure. By the time I got to the car, the need for an inhaler was apparent and seemingly unforgiving. I hopped in the car and found myself without the jacket that had, at most recent, held my Albuterol.

No good, I thought—but manageable—because I’d been in this position only a few weeks ago (we’ll get to how not having an inhaler does not make me an idiot) and what with my mad skillz at Biofeedback, I’d be back in business in no time. By the time I got the car on the road, I was having the full body heaves associated with a biggun. Traveling down West Temple, I tried short breaths with minimal bronchial involvement. I attempted deep breaths with sharp pain-filled lungs. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t ease the tension in my shoulders and I knew I was dealing with something more than I could handle on my own.

I remembered a cute little inhaler residing in the cosmetics bag in my desk at work and came to a point in my commute that the promise of life outweighed risking oxygen-deprived insanity and I turned around to head back to work. I parked in the nearest parking structure and tried to remain calm as I approached the elevators. I passed some men I know and waved, tensely and nervously.

I made it to my desk and started rifling. I wasn’t having much luck before I realized that, “HELLO YOU FREAK THIS IS MORE THAN YOUR NEW AGEY BIOFEEDBACK CRAP CAN HANDLE. I NEED DRUUUUUUUUGS,” and called work’s emergency number.

“It’s Ashley. I’m. Having. An asthma attack. It’s gotten. Out. Of. Control.”

“Ashley, they’re on their way.”

“O. K. Bye.”

The phone rang again.

“Ashley, do you want to talk to me? The paramedics are on their way too.”

“No. Talk.”

It was then that I had no doubt the camera in front of my desk was on and focusing in on my visually dramatic struggle for oxygen. Thusly, I turned my chair around and waited for the stripling young men to approach. And what would you know, it was the two guys who I’d greeted on the way upstairs. I checked the blanching on my fingertips—during a normal attack, which a normal Albuterol MDI can help, if my fingertips are pressed, they blanch for longer than usual but become pink again, showing a decreased aptitude for obtaining sufficient oxygen, but manageable recovery time to the extremities. It’s an awesome party trick. During this attack, they couldn’t be blanched because they were already white. I think the guys thought I was checking my manicure.

About 7 minutes and 15 liters of oxygen later, I was being administered a sweet, sweet nebulizer treatment by a good, good-looking paramedic and his four or five equally deliciously good-looking counterparts. I may or may not have crossed my eyes, watching that the life-filled mist made it to my mouth safely. My shoulders, still tense, were hunched forward, trying to pull all the air in front of me deep into my lungs. My body and mind knew what was happening but didn’t really want to have to deal with it.

It was when the treatment had finished that they finally popped a pulse-ox monitor on my index finger and I was stable at 91%. An entirely acceptable number, but low, post-neb. I still felt short of breath and my lungs, they hurt. I maintained that I would under no circumstances be transported to the hospital and one of the guys—did I mention I knew two of them, because, awkward?—asked if they could override my obviously silly pleadings. Since I only look twelve, and am in fact four years past legality, all they could do is offer to have me sign a refusal of treatment to have me rethink the situation.

Something about having a really good-looking paramedic standing over your desk—the one where you work, for pity’s sake this isn’t supposed to be happening and PLEASE, SOMEONE, TURN OFF THE CAMERA—and hearing him saying things like “respiratory arrest” and “death,” gives you an intimate awareness of your sustained lung pain and status as someone who is not too good to not go into respiratory arrest, and no matter how much you bat your barely-oxygenated eyelashes, Dr. McCuteGlasses will probably not accompany you home to save you from said arrest. And since I wasn’t comfortable enough in my body’s ability to survive the trip back to the car and all the way home sans respiratory arrest and/or death, and did I mention my lungs really hurt? I conceded to be transported and was fed all kinds of crap about how that was such a good decision and pardon me ma’am, but may I give you a wedgie while I walk you to the gurney? And smile pretty for the camera.

They strapped me in, which didn’t work so well because WOW everything feels so tight and my lungs really hurt guys, and I don’t remember that happening and that man upstairs said respiratory arrest and that’s scary, please make it stop.

I work way up high and there’s one elevator that services the entire building. They’d called that sucker to carry me down to the street and MAN WAS THAT TRIPPY. My body was high on the equivalent ten-plus-concurrent-drags-of-albuterol it’d had and I didn’t remember signing up for the roller coaster ride down, but wee! a freebie! I was wheeled out the way I walk into the building every morning and I became painfully aware of how cold the outside air was as it stung my innards. I wished the 10 liters oxygen I was sucking on like candy were another albuterol treatment and maybe also a shot of adrenaline because I felt my airways closing in around the coldness and the way everything seemed to give me a jolt of fear and gasping.

I faced the rear of the ambulance with two EMTs on my left. The one with the firemanish pants called the ER with my details and sounded downright bored with his current lot in life. I’d envisioned maybe a little more feeling in his delivery, what with the way I was feeling much worse again and why wouldn’t my body stop shaking? And my watch is backwards and why am I thinking about this and why won’t they help me breathe? Because every time we hit a bump it startles me and makes it worse.

EMT Delicious McYummy requested the supplies to start an intravenous drip and blessed my soul with a smaller gauge than was originally offered. I apologized for the lack of any apparent blood flow at all in my left arm, what with the downright freakiness of the lack of veinage. I rolled to my side as he leaned over me and I considered proposing marriage while we were so very close, but he was otherwise engaged (ha) in putting a TUBE in my HAND for me to consider interrupting it. Because those things freak me out way more than any blood draw, shot, pelvic exam, or closed MRI ever will.

Also, everyone stop breathing because you’re using up all the air.

We arrived at the Emergency Room in minutes, if you’re measuring with air in your body and in days, if you’re measuring the way I felt. I was wheeled in to a curtained corner of an exam “room” and manhandled to the hospital bed. Before I knew it, a woman who may or may not have been named Kim but who was certainly not my hero the paramedic, was stripping me down—and excuse me, have we met? Except then I didn’t really care because. So. Tired. Still. Hurting.

My clothes were strewn about my lap and I was haphazardly “dressed” in a drape of a gown. Except why didn’t she put my arm through the sleeve since she had me unhooked from the drip anyway? A random EMT covered me in a sandpaper-reminiscent blanket and admonished me that I might not lose sight of it or allow anyone to take it from me, ever, because that, my girl, is your blanket. The doctor came in, warned that they were chock-fulla-dudes and sorry for the impending wait, but we don’t think you’re going to die so please just continue fondling that oxygen mask until you either die or begin breathing in an acceptable manner. Then he left. Another EMT came in and helped himself to a chair and started asking questions while a registrar-type gal peeked in and asked if a “coworker” could come in.

I’d been in the “room” for all of ten minutes and wondered why one of my work-related responders might be there, but figured it was a mission related to information-garnering and agreed to have him come in. But not before you, missy, cover me up in an acceptable fashion and please, someone, hide my bra. I don’t care if you type things in the computer for a living—you know how to put a bra in a bag, don’t you? She did, as it turned out, and left to retrieve my “coworker.” She returned and pulled back the curtain to reveal my boss, suit-clad and beaming, as I wheezed, “Go. Away.”

He laughed and took a seat. That’s the kind of guy he is.

Then, we were alone. The elderly couple, whose female portion had insisted that her blood pressure was way too low to be released, were gone. Kim, who’d only moments before had brazenly undressed me and never said goodbye, was gone. The paramedics wheeled right on outta there. And there we were. George and me.

He explained that when all that went down at the office, he’d been called or paged or telekinetically summoned or something, and then been given a play-by-play over the CAMERA, DID I MENTION? He’d left nearly immediately to join me at the hospital where he was given the warm welcome I offered at first sight.

He asked if I wanted him to call anyone. My family? (No, that’d open a can I’d rather leave closed on the back of the shelf for now.) My bishop? (No, he probably wouldn’t remember that one girl who’d transferred her records only weeks ago and came into Sacrament Meeting late that one time.) My home teachers? (No, I am well on my way to being the only convert never offered home teachers [even when requested, I promise], ever.) A friend? (No. Because really, I’ve been here and done this before and they’ll do a chest x-ray and send me home in three more hours and calling people just makes it dramatic.)

Kim resurfaced to shove a prednisone down my throat and Greg the bed-pusher did a bang-up bed-pushing job all the way over to radiology where I clung to the x-ray machine and doesn’t anyone else see that I am still shaking? And when do my lungs stop hurting because it’s been a while since I did all this but aren’t they supposed to stop now? AND WHINE WHINE WHINE THEY STILL HURT.

Back to the room, where I discovered George had disappeared to find Law & Order on TV somewhere and where I met the paramedics delivering my roommate. My drunk, overdosed roommate who was out of it beyond all recognition of human function and demanded to know how many milligrams of oxygen they had him on. Milligrams. The young EMT called out to the hall, “He wants to know how many mg O2 he’s on.” His seasoned counterpart responded, “Well, you better tell him something.” “Um, ok. Sir, you’re on forty milligrams oxygen.” “Ohhhhhhhhh. Fo. Fo. For-ddddddddddy sounds ab-about right. I’s. I’sa gonna be a suuur. Suuurjewcal tech.”

I caught the eye of a paramedic enjoying the show across the curtain and summoned him to retrieve my purse from across the room. He delivered it, laughing, “We brought you some good entertainment,” while Drunky McGee maintained that he had, in fact, downed 30 lortab and told his newly-acquired nurse he was a looker.

The doctor returned and sat with me a moment shooting the breeze about prednisone and blood pressure before telling me that there were some shadings on the chest x-ray which may be the beginnings of bronchitis—but it’s definitely not pneumonia or anything like that. And is there any reason you might have acquired some blood clots? And really, wouldn’t that be ironic if you really did pick some sweet DVT up while traveling East to the funeral of your cousin, whose life was abruptly and all-too-soon ended by a clot only weeks ago? And why are you crying?

And then the IV, which EMT McLookyummy had inserted became misplaced in my vast, cavernous hand and infiltrated. Kim returned and whined, “Look, my expertise is really in derobing my clients, not so much in repairing IVs.” And then Cute Boy the EKG tech entered the scene with, you guessed it, an EKG thingy. Better than any Law & Order episode was the way the EKG guys and Kim the Derober concurrently EKGed and IV catheterized me right on up. She had to try twice, but got a good line and took four tubes of blood to test for PE’s. Because I could have clots. Which may have been dancing their way north to plant themselves with whatever may be the beginnings of bronchitis—but definitely not pneumonia.

And now I go to sleep because it’s 1:56 a.m. and this is the third commercial I’ve heard about, “Interactive Male. You’ll find it here,” and the poor homosexual man who comes to town and wonders where all the guys are. They’re on missions, Frank. And really, they’re mine first when they get back, so back off.