At the ER

I'm not usually one of the people who jump to go to the Doctor at the first sign of trouble. I just try to wait it out. But this time it was different.

I don't think at any stage in my whole life I have come this close to a brush with death. Just breathing was a challenge so great and so painful that I really had to put a lot of effort into it.

What's going on my mind asks my body. Which is now aching. All I hear back is "PAIN" excruciating pain trying to breath! And that noisy loud noise associated with wheezes. Unbelievably loud. Signaling more pain is on the way.

3 hours later, the clinique was open, I called, and the nurse tried to brush me off with "the doctor is busy", but I insisted, and my good doctor, may god bless her answered, "Ha ya Samer, Izzayyak" (She's Egyptian-American). So I explain and she manages to squeeze me into her tight schedule for the day. "Are you sure you can drive"?. I said yes. But I really shouldn't have

Somehow, I got to the clinique. Few minutes later she was listening to the wheezes. "We need to take you to the ER". I was shocked. Yes, I was in a lot of pain but why! She's not sure, it might be a big number of things. "We need an X-Ray", meanwhile, she brought this little contraption that hooks up to all sort of hoses and stuff and told me to breath into it.

Frankly, it felt like I'm blowing through a hookah (Argeeleh), and I started to feel immediate improvement. Few minutes later she has prepared everything with the ER at a nearby hospital, but she insisted. "I don't want you to drive", "Call a friend". So I did, and thank god for good friends. I was there in no time

If anyone has these delusions about ER in America being similar to that TV Show, they are absolutely mistaken. The nurses are MEAN! So mean, they shout, the make it absolutely CLEAR that anyone protesting or asking for help is "Stopping them from getting their work done". They're completely cold.

Anyway, couple of hours of waiting, then I get to go to a corridor where I sit for the next 2 hours. Yes, in the corridor, no room. Nothing. They took an X-RAY of my chest (and goddamn it they didn't even give me that lead skirt to cover my "valuables"). The "nice" nurses insisted on me wearing a mask so I complied and was looking like a Man in Khimar for the rest of day. (God it's so hard to keep those on for so long) and they scare kids.

Few hours in the corridor of the ER Section of one of the rather prestigious hospitals, are just really not my idea of health care (when you know that I pay close to thousand dollars for medical insurance a month, you'll know why this is really not acceptable)

So anyway, they ruled out that I have a stroke, pneumonia and a bunch of other rather nasty health problems and it came down to Asthma, but I have no history of Asthma! Anyway, they prescribed an inhaler and now I am breathing again. But it was one hell of day!

I went to the doctor at 9 AM, arrived home at 5 PM. (It takes the pharmacy 25 minutes to fill a prescription, 25 MINUTES for an inhaler they're going to grab from the shelf and hand to me). It was 5, and I was feeling fine, I had scheduled to watch a movie with my good friend Albert. So I went out to the movie :), With the mask on, and the hospital name-tag bracelet on. It was interesting to see people's reactions. They're fine with someone with a million tattoos and a million piercings but found it odd that someone has a face-mask on!

So here I am again, alive... Thank god... Now the hunt begins, how, and why did this happen.... This was one of the many issues that face single people in the US, NO BODY cares about you. You could die and no one would even know! Thank god for good friends