That Is So F***ing Messed Up...

I need to process through something that happened to me a few months ago because it has not only affected me the last couple of months physically, but also mentally and emotionally.

***Trigger Warning***

A few months ago, I had a very bad allergic reaction to a medication and was taken to the ER in an ambulance.

I had gotten home around dinner time - I didn't see anyone else at home (I lived with two roommates at the time). My doctor had prescribed me a new medication for my migraines and instructed me to try this particular one while I was at work. For whatever reason, I didn't feel comfortable trying it at work so I had made the decision to try it on a day I had a migraine and was at home. It happened to be a weekend day that I got a migraine so I tried the new medication a few minutes after I had arrived home.

My throat instantly closed up, making it very hard for me to breathe. I reached for my cell phone and called my mom. When she answered I barely managed to tell her I was having trouble breathing - she told me to call 911 and that her and my dad would be over right away (they lived about 25-30 minutes away). At this point my lungs had started hurting and I was becoming light-headed and dizzy. My throat was very swollen and I had started coughing. I dialed 911. I again barely got the message across that I had taken a medication that caused me to have a severe reaction. She transferred me to the fire department. By this point I was lying on the floor, almost passed out.

Unknown to me at the time, my mom had called one of my roommates who happened to be home asleep. The phone call woke my roommate - she didn't answer her phone but saw that my mom had called her. She came in my room to see what was up, and saw me lying on the floor.

My memory of the events that follow are a little hazy, but from what I do remember and what was told to me from several different people - the fire department, police, and paramedics showed up at my house. I had stopped breathing at this point. Shot of epi. Nothing happened. Oxygen mask. Put me on a stretcher, loaded me in the ambulance.

At this point, I remember being put in the ambulance and seeing my parents running up to me. I hear my mom say to one of the paramedics, "Are you sure it's bad enough for her to go in the ambulance?"

I remember thinking (at first) "Mom, I can't breathe!" and then I thought, "Maybe I will be okay, I'm just imagining it to be much worse than it is."

The paramedics told my mom it was necessary to take me in the ambulance because I had stopped breathing. I blacked out. Next thing I remember, I'm in the hospital trying to breathe but I couldn't. It felt like someone was holding me down underwater, only I wasn't wet. I blacked out again.

I woke up with the worst stomach pain and head pain I have ever had. It felt like my head was going to explode - like my brain was swelling and pushing against my skull. My stomach was burning and twisting and all I wanted to do was throw up everywhere. I remember saying over and over, "I just want to die, I just want to die..." because I was in so much pain. The pain meds they were giving me at the hospital weren't helping at all.

Eventually I threw up all the contents in my stomach, and then some. The pain meds helped my headache enough to help me calm down. The swelling in my throat was going down, but it was very sore. My chest, lungs and heart hurt. The scare was over and I was stable. The doctors told me that if I ever came into contact with that same medication again, it would kill me. I heard them say that I had stopped breathing for almost an hour, they had given me two epi's that didn't do anything for me, and every counteracting medication they tried had had no affects on me. They said it was a medical miracle I survived.

And yet... I still struggle with that little voice in my mind, repeating over and over again: "Are you sure it's bad enough for her to go in the ambulance?"

How does my mom continue to make me doubt every traumatic memory in my life?

Here I have a memory that is very recent, a memory several people witnessed, a memory documented in hospital records, a memory my roommates and several close friends lived through with me, and yet I still doubt the seriousness of the whole thing. I f***ing almost died and I still question the seriousness of the events that took place. All because of my mother doubting and denying everything that happens in my life.

Why does her life have to be so perfect and normal? Why can't she just accept that bad things happen and let me remember and heal and move on?

Instead, I'm left with one of the most concrete memories I will ever have and I still find myself doubting. That is so f***ing messed up.


*Bee