Incident

Mornings can be hectic or calm, depending on how much prep I did the night before. On this particular lazy morning I was taking things a bit slow. It was the last day of school and work before winter break; I'd had consecutive early mornings the two days prior; and the boy was happily watching some toddler thing while practicing removing his socks. I was getting dressed while talking to a friend on the phone. We were wrapping up the conversation when I got an alert on my phone: a reminder for a meeting starting in 10 minutes that I had forgotten about. We quickly gather our things, locate the missing socks, get feet in shoes, and are out the door. 

We have a fairly short commute and while I was in a rush, I was not speeding. About halfway to our destination, we're almost hit by another car. I was able to swerve out of the way, honk extremely angrily, and be on our way. I was going straight and someone from the other direction was trying to turn right, across from me. The sun was behind me so it's possible there was glare? Or they're a terrible driver? Or distracted? Any of this is possible; I didn't stick around to find out. I just know I had the right of way and am extremely grateful that there wasn't more to that story. 

This was followed shortly by a simple drop off and scramble to get to my desk in time for my meeting. I was only a minute behind, and the meeting was on zoom. So I feel like there's a grace period of about 5 minutes anyway. 

As I'm settling in, putting my stuff in drawers as my computer boots up, my head is down. When I raise my eyes, a coworker had stuck her head in between the wall and my partition, locked eyes, and said, "Boo!" Maybe it was supposed to be funny or goofy. In my mind, rushing from the morning's adrenaline and with my head focused on the task of logging into that zoom meeting, it caught me completely off guard and FREAKED. ME. OUT.  I was so surprised and startled that I couldn't breathe. I didn't know it at the time, but it basically triggered a panic attack. I was silently dry heaving, trying to get air. Meanwhile this coworker looks away to someone else and says, "Oh she loves when I do that haha," not realizing I was in distress. I finally get some air and start sobbing. Just full-on ugly crying and heaving huge gulps of air. People start coming over and I'm trying to tell them to go away because I need space, and I'm not wearing my mask, and I still have this meeting! Someone gets me water and I shoo everyone away to log in. I'm only 3 minutes late to the meeting and it turns out I was first.

Throughout the meeting I kept my mic on mute and tried to take deep breaths. Occasionally I stopped the video to wipe tears and blow my nose. For the most part, and thanks to some low-light filters, no one could tell my face was blotchy. An hour later the meeting was wrapping up and I still wasn't anywhere close to calming down. Every time I thought about it, I would start to tear up again. Clearly in a fragile place. The meeting ended and I left the office. As I was walking out, the offending coworker was like, "Oh please don't be mad!" and I responded: I'm not mad, I just don't feel well. Still crying.

I went home to check my blood pressure. It was pretty high at 150/100. I tried to relax and checked it again - it was fluctuating but still high. Every time I thought about the morning again I got wound up and started to cry again. I debated whether to call the doctor. I knew there was nothing physically wrong but I was having a hard time calming down and it was concerning enough to keep my bp up. I knew I would sound dumb on the phone trying to explain it. I gave it a little more time and then called. They said to come in. They were so busy that I was in the waiting room for about 45 min before they called me back. That may have also been intentional to give my bp time to get back to normal. 

Thankfully, by the time I saw the doctor on rotation, blood pressure was fine. They checked out baby's hb and all sounded ok. I'm so glad they squeezed me in and I appreciate that they didn't make me feel stupid for coming in. I knew it was a waste of time but I wasn't able to calm down on my own at home and the reassurance was calming. 

Because it was a busy day, being the last one in office before break, I went back to work. That coworker kept trying to make it about herself and I just cut it. 

"Do you not want to talk to me?" No, I'm not ready. I'd rather just put it behind us. 

"Well can I ask a work question?" Sigh. Sure. Comes over, asks work question, then starts going into it. and I cut it short again - I'd really rather just put it behind us. 

Then I put a barrier between our desks so I wouldn't have to see her face. Maybe I was mad. Maybe I was just trying to get through the day without triggering tears again. Before she left for the day she came over again and I was thinking that she's just not going to let this go if I don't get through it. She said her piece, I told her to please not do it again - I don't enjoy surprises in general - and have told her not to do that particular thing in the past. She apologized profusely, said "I never would have done it if I had known you'd react that way." Well no duh. Whatever, over it. Will need time to forgive.

It was the first time for me experiencing something like that - where I couldn't get enough oxygen and just feel the wind knocked out. It also possible that the other pieces of the morning contributed to it and had the sequence of events been different, that wouldn't have affected me as strongly. It started with the smaller fear of being unable to breathe and then escalated to a bigger fear of 'is my baby ok?' when I realized I wasn't breathing. The whole thing was seconds long but in your mind it feels like forever. 

When discussing the incident with my husband I remembered that at 19w last time I also had an incident where I tripped on a loose brick during a family bbq. I fell with a glass bowl in my hand which shattered and got shards in my fingers. Good times.