CAROL MARINELLI - Putting Alice Back Together

Well, maybe not Kids with Cancer, just underprivileged or burn victims or something and I’d be there, radiant and smiling all ready to meet the love of my life.

I added a few little extra requests, and then I wrote MR.

It stood for Mr and Massive Ring.

Clever, huh? No one, if they found my list, would work that out.

I followed the instructions as best as I could, but I didn’t have a compass, so I guessed as to the south-west corner of the flat. And then, given I was sorting out my love life, I decided I might as well go the whole hog so I went back to the computer and read again the application procedures and the qualifications required to be a music teacher. I even filled in some forms to ask for them to send me some forms. It was all so daunting—the more I looked, the more overwhelming it seemed. Impossible, actually.

I had barely scraped through my exams at school. Even if by some miracle I was accepted, how could I give up my job? I was in debt to the eyeballs as it was.

I thought of the pile of unopened envelopes stuffed in my drawers and under my mattress, the credit-card statements that were too scary to open—let alone think about—so I didn’t.

While my credit card was behaving I bought an online tarot reading and then poured another margarita instead.

I woke at two.

Just shot awake, wondering what had woken me, my heart racing and trying to catch my breath, sure that I must have had a nightmare—except I still couldn’t breathe.

I was soaked in sweat, and I dragged myself into the bathroom, gulped icy water from the tap—it didn’t help. I had to concentrate on breathing. It wasn’t happening. Every breath was an effort and I couldn’t seem to get enough in.

I rang Roz—I knew she was on a date, but surely she’d be home by now. I didn’t even care at that point.

‘Roz…’ I could barely get the word out as her voice came on the phone. ‘I can’t…’

‘It’s okay…’ I could hear she was groggy and asleep but just the sound of her voice calmed me. At least someone knew, I mean, if I collapsed this second Roz would send for help. ‘I’m on my way.’

She didn’t even dress—mind you, Roz’s sleepwear is pretty much the same as her day wear: tracksuit bottoms and a vast T-shirt, except, horror of horrors, she wasn’t wearing a bra.

All this I noticed as she bundled me into her little car. My breathing was a bit better. Since I had known help was on the way, it had improved a fraction. And as we drove to the hospital I managed to get my breathing into some sort of a rhythm right till we got to the doors. Security was waving her on.

‘You can’t park here, love.’

‘She can’t breathe!’ Roz said.

‘Then she’s in the right place, but patient drop-off is down there.’

Roz was muttering and swearing and then I saw my hands do this strange thing: they were tingling but it was like my hands were spastic, my fingers all curling up, and I couldn’t straighten them.

‘She’s going unconscious…’ I could hear Roz panicking, but the security didn’t panic, he rolled his eyes and got a nurse, who helped me out of the car. She didn’t seem to be particularly worried either.

They took me straight into the triage room; the nurse put a little probe on my finger and told me to calm down.

‘I can’t breathe…’

‘Your oxygen saturation is ninety-nine per cent’ There was a bored note to her voice which infuriated me as she wrapped a blood-pressure cuff around my arm. Did she have any idea how hard it was to get it to that? Breathing should be natural, you shouldn’t have to think about it, but I did. I had to pull in air and hold it in, and it still didn’t go deep enough. My hands were doing strange things, and she was giving me a bloody paper bag and telling me to breathe in and out slowly.

‘You’re having a panic attack.’

‘No!’ I pushed the bag away.

‘How much have you had to drink tonight, Alice?’

What did that have to do with anything? ‘I’m allergic…’

‘To what?’

‘Hazelnuts.’

‘Okay…’ the nurse said, ‘you can wait in the waiting room. Just keep breathing into your paper bag.’

‘I can’t.’ I couldn’t. I could not face going out there, but the fucking nurse wouldn’t budge. ‘Your girlfriend can let us know if you get worse.’

Now, a quick explanation here. In Australia, and it took me a while to get used to this, but a friend who’s a girl is called your girlfriend. I’ve been back to London and it’s used more that way there too now, but there was something about the way she said girlfriend that had me frown. I looked over at Roz, who was blushing bright red and then she led me out.

‘She thinks we’re…’

‘I know,’ Roz mumbled, blushing to her roots. ‘Just breathe into the bag.’

It wasn’t helping. My lips were tingling, there was just so much noise, so much going on, I couldn’t stand it. I stood up and paced. I honestly didn’t feel safer in the hospital. I actually thought I might die here, and then they’d be bloody sorry. Panic attack indeed!

I was up at the big plastic shield that separated the staff from the waiting room now, and the nurse was refusing to look over. I could see stars and spots and I was like a cartoon character then, pressed to the glass. I thought I was dying and Roz was calling for help. Finally they realised that I wasn’t putting it on, that their stupid paper bag wasn’t going to work, because a buzzer went and a nurse came with a wheelchair and I was sped through.

Okay, not sped, and I didn’t end up in Resus with George Clooney saying, ‘On my count…’

Instead I was given a gown and told to get undressed and put it on, and Roz helped. I couldn’t have done it on my own. My lips were completely numb now. Then this twelve-year-old that was dressed up as a male nurse asked me to explain what had happened.

I wheezed away as he put an IV into the back of my hand, which hurt, I might add, as Roz did the talking for me.

‘We were in with the same last week. She’s got a nut allergy…’ And finally I got a response, because the twelve-year-old looked worried. He checked my blood pressure then dashed off to get a doctor as Roz wrapped her arms around me and told me I was going to be fine.

‘Just keep breathing into the bag, Alice.’

‘It’s not helping.’

Well, my ten seconds of concern lasted till the arrival of the emergency registrar, which coincided with the arrival of my old notes. He listened to my chest and confirmed the triage nurse’s diagnosis.

‘She’s having an anxiety attack.’

‘No…’ I shook my head. I was crying, and not able to breathe. ‘I woke up and my lips were swollen and tingling…’ Well, they hadn’t been then but that was what they had asked me last time. The emergency doctor sort of hummed and haaed for a minute before he wrote me up for 10 mg of diazepam and some oral steroids. ‘In case a mild allergic reaction triggered the anxiety attack.’

Bastard.

Still, I didn’t argue, I didn’t have the breath. And in a moment the twelve-year-old had returned with a little plastic cup with six pills. The white ones, he explained, were prednisolone and I would have to take a reducing dose for the next few days. The blue one was Valium.

I took the blue one first.

It took about twenty minutes—actually, maybe a bit less. Roz was so kind and reassuring, and the bright lights and all the equipment were starting to reassure me too, and when twelve-year-old took my pulse and said it was slowing down, I forgot about my breathing for a moment. I lay back and it was such a relief to not have to remember to breathe. Of course, as soon as I remembered, my breathing got harder and I had to remind myself to do it, but gradually it was just happening, even when I thought about it.