Personal Narrative: A Moment From My Anxiety

One notable hospital experience that is still on my mind deals with a woman in her 80s, who had been admitted for a few days. The unit secretary informed me of this story. While she was hospitalized, her family came to visit her everyday, and one of those nights the patient asked

Living with anxiety is a battle everyday. I wake up and I’m not sure if today will be good or bad. It can start out good, but the next thing I know, I’m having a panic attack. The world around me starts to cave in, and the noise I hear becomes static; it’s as if I’m being swallowed whole. Suffering from a panic attack is incredibly embarrassing. Nobody understands what I’m going through, they all think it’s in my head or that I’m being dramatic. What they don’t understand is that, it’s a real problem. Just like any other illness, anxiety is paralyzing; so are panic attacks. There are days I don’t want to get out of bed because I’m afraid that today is the day everything will end, so it’s just safer to stay in bed. My anxiety is unpredictable,

In my junior year of high school, I enrolled in Shasta High School’s medical CTE program. This program helped me to see if a career in medicine was I wanted to do. For this reason, I applied for the HESI (Healthcare Exploration Summer Institute) program. This program had allowed the students to volunteer at Shasta Regional Medical Center to follow and assist various professionals with their roles in the hospital. I remember this elderly patient was admitted to the floor I had been assigned to and this particular patient had just warmed my heart. I followed the patient care technician into the patient’s room and they asked for a simple warm blanket, to this, the PCT told me to get a heated blanket. When I returned, they smiled and politely said

My mom scheduled for it to be in 2 weeks. the day comes and i am nervous, i don't know why because i know what they do, i just was. They put my IV in and put medicine in my system to make me loopy. They wheel me back to the operating room, lay me on a table and put a mask on me. the anaistgyolygest say “ count down from 10 buddy” i say “10, 9, 8-” i am out cold. about 13 hours past, its 8 o'clock, the thing i remember most is how my throat was drier than the dessert. my nurse asks “how you feel buddy?” i reply “it hurts” she told me she would take care of that, i'm not being facetious when i say this, but she turns me on my side and puts a shot in my butt. i rest for another hour then they wheel me out to the car and take me home. getting upstairs was the hardest part,

I woke up startled and didn’t know where I was. I had an IV in my arm and my parents were staring at me. The doctor came in

“Thank you, I just know that she’s not doing well and I don’t know if this surgery will go well”

I couldn't believe what was happening. My dad turns to the doctor and says "What do you mean ICU?" That's when she tells us I have bleeding in my brain and that I can't eat or drink and need an IV right away. I'm still so mad at my dad to this day because he promised me I wouldn't need an IV. After they get the needle in, they put a bunch of medicine into me and said that it would make me a little weird. "A little weird" wasn't even close to what it did to me. I thought I was going to have to get moved in a mental hospital after taking that medicine. I couldn't spell or talk and when I did talk nothing I said made sense. People were constantly texting me and I didn't know what I was typing so everyone responded with "what is wrong with you?" Honestly at this point I had no idea. My boyfriend was still here and was laughing at me because of how crazy I sounded but I was honestly scared and thought I was going to be this way forever.

Before realizing what was happening, a nurse was trying to put an IV in my arm. The needle compared to my little arm looked huge and too long to go in my arm. I refused to let them touch me and tried to run to my mom. When they had a hard time succeeding at putting my IV in, they decided to get help from my mom. She calmly told me to lay down and to watch her, while they put the needle in. It was hard to ignore the pain pulsing through my arm and all the commotion happening all around me. I looked at my mom and saw the tears that were falling down her face as they held me down. When they were done, there was an IV and a cast on my arm, so that I would not be able to pull the IV out. Then they wheeled me into another room where my mom held and comforted me, while we waited to hear the results.

"Nothing's the matter." Boy, was I getting nervous. "The thing is, I had an operation very recently."

Three months later, we were arriving at the hospital for the surgery; as we walked in I started to cry and get more and more nervous.

Waiting for my twelfth surgery to begin, the nurse struggled to get the I.V. to work. She had tried numerous times without success and as I cried, a kind woman came in, held my hand, taught me techniques to calm down and helped get me a numbing shot. The nurse suddenly got the I.V. in on her next try! I was in awe of this angelic person whom I have since learned was a Child Life Specialist. I decided right then I wanted to be just like her.

When I went in and sat down, I waited for Dr. Stanpole to call me. As I looked around to try and distract myself. Immediately I heard the footsteps of the nurses running past me like a horse in a race. I was confused, then got up from the bench and tapped one of the nurses passing by and queried "What's going on and why is everyone in such a hurry?". She passed me like if I wasn't even there so meanwhile I decided to wait here until I saw Dr. Stanpole coming. I asked him while hesitating, "What's going on, but mainly how's

Mom is trying to tell us what happened but she's crying, then she makes out the words that she's having a double lung transplant. I start running around screaming because she has a disease that she has to be put on oxygen. Also she has to get new lungs.Most people die without ever getting the call to get new lungs but my mom did.I was full of joy and yet super scared I didn't know what to feel so I screamed . My whole family was crying tears of joy, especially me.

“Doctor, you must think I’m a terrible mother, not to be here at a time like this. What did you find out? Please tell me-it was just a fluke, right?” I ask and apologize.

On the day of surgery, August 5th, my mom woke me up early. The car ride to the cities was quiet besides some encouraging words my mom tried to cheer me up with. She told me it would go just fine countless times, knowing how scared i was. When we finally arrived