geographical tongue and crêperie-bound pompiers

date: 23 mars

time: 16h

location: the 7th arrondissement, and surrounding area. start, musée rodin. end, the terminus of line 8.

persons involved: chelsea from harvard and erin from yale. pompiers, around 17h30 til arrival at hospital. crazy sick people, 18h30 forward. doctor who gave me his cell phone number, 23h.

i have never experienced this before in my life. i think i had an anxiety attack yesterday. it was basically a cascade of unfortunate events: the start of that time of the month, exhaustion from not sleeping enough because of the small dosage of prednosone (steroids for the sinus infection), really cold weather (plus rain), stress froma long week of classes and studying, the medium-sized stress of planning spring break with darcy...basically, as one of the pompiers said, "it's just not your day."

needless to say, i started having cramps at the musée rodin and had to take a couple of sitting down breaks, and by the time erin arrived the museum was closing and i was feeling worse. we tried to make it to a café, but a lot of places were closed, inexplicably for a friday mid afternoon...eventually i found a place to go to the bathroom and erin ran and got me some meds close to ibuprofen to ease the pain.

we got to a creperie, where i proceeded to slump to the floor (i was very sleepy and just wanted to lie down, but was also nauseous). this couple in the corner was terrified for me. one of the people working there called the pompiers (an ambulance, i guess), and 4 guys rolled out in uniform with a gurney, and a first aid kit and everything. they tried to calm me down - by this point i was shaking, my hands were numb and trembling, and i was basically just freaking out - and thought maybe it was my blood sugar, so they tried to have me drink a coke, but i don't really like coke, so i was sipping it very slowly.

then i asked if i could just lie down, so they sped me off (chelsea and erin included) in their ambulance-type vehicle to the emergency room (by this time i had not vomited, was still just convulsing). i was lying on my stomach, and they convinced me to turn my head towards them and not fall asleep.

when i got there, i was slightly calmed down, but i had to check in and get seen my an initial person who evaluated the state of my emergency (not very grave, i guess). while she was taking my blood pressure, i felt much more nauseous and proceeded to give up my lunch (there was a little warning), which was a camenbert sandwich. maybe it was food poisoning?

after that, we waited for 5 hours, and honestly i felt a lot better after vomiting. we waited until 11 pm at the georges pompidou hospital, where we saw all sorts of types come in and out - broken bones, one guy foaming at the mouth, one older man yelling at the hospital people fairly insistently, one very depressed marching philosopher who talked to me about his anorexic girlfriend and his metaphysical despair and his hypersensitivity - lost of people who needed to get seen before me.

when i finally did get to see the doctor, he diagnosed it as an isolated incident of vomiting, and gave me a scrip for something and his cell phone number (is this typical?). i recounted my life story, including my psychiatric diagnosis 3 years ago, my stomach flu history when i was in high school, and my utter lack of panic/anxiety attacks. all in french. i think he was impressed that i was american, maybe for the fact that i could so lucidly explain myself in french.

we all bounced at around midnight, and i hope that erin was able to catch the train at porte de versailles alright. they're troopers, man...i was hungry when i left, and of course madame cheminal left me a complete dinner: crepes with ham and mushrooms (delicious), a salad with balsalmic vinagrette, ratatouille, avacado slices (which i love), and yogurt. i had some orange juice and drank some water and went to bed around 1 am.

a story for the grandkids, people. and erin and chelsea will take a pompier each. i failed to notice their charm at the time. i think i was thinking too hard about trying not to convulse and/or vomit.