Brain Fart. March 13,2022

"A temporary mental lapse or failure to reason correctly"

What an inelegant phrase. I never ever thought it could or would pertain to me. Even "panic attack" is not any way I have ever thought of myself. At the risk of sounding arrogant, at 83 I do not feel I have ever felt so out of control as I did yesterday. Except of course, for my infamous trip to club Med in Martinique when I was recently divorced and 32. At that time, a fellow shared his hashish with me. I watched him open a cigarette after removing the filter, mixing the tobacco with the other brown material and rolling the same paper again and lighting it with his lighter, before offering it to me.

Actually that was the second time I was given an hallucenogenic substance after which I became so fearful and paranoid that I slept, in a communal room on a pallet at Su Casa in the Catskills, holding my shoe to protect myself from imagined perpetrators.

But neither of those experiences approached what I felt yesterday.

All of a sudden, I couldn't remember  simple responses to the question "What time are you being the docent at the ASU library tomorrow?"

My gym instructor was planning to listen to me discuss Father Patrick DuBois' investigations into the deaths of whole towns of Jewish residents by Nazi firing squads in Eastern Europe during WWII.

I checked my phone, finding the correct information, but the calendar felt alien to me. I didn't understand that it was March, not that it was Saturday. 

I said nothing and I walked, kind of dazed, to the elevator with a woman who had taken the class with me. She asked what floor I lived on and I had to struggle to find the appropriate answer. She pushed the elevator button for her floor and mine and I  exited first.

I had to orient myself in space to get tenuously, to my space, but I did.

I went to my tablet and reviewed the day. It was shortly after 2 PM. I was trying to program my phone's calendar to match what my synagogue's programming said I had participated in that morning, but I had difficlty translating EST into MT. Did I wake at 6 to get to the discussion by 7, or was it 8AM?

I couldn't figure it out. I asked my phone to clarify it for me. Next, I decided I must be hungry, so I made myself an English muffin with melted mozzarella cheese, spead both halves with tuna salad, set the table, poured myself some V-8, but sat instead on my sofa, feeling shaky.  I had no further plans for this sunny, brisk Arizona day, but I could not relax.

I was no longer hungry; I felt I did not want to be alone. I called my son Steve, I explained how I was feeling and asked him to keep me company for the afternoon. He said he understood I was feeling scared. I began to cry.

I knew it would take him at least a half hour to get himself together to come  with Chipper, "our" dog, who Steve was at that time walking in the park.

Meanwhile, I planned out all the horrible scenarios of Alzheimer's disease I had experienced with my husband. I reviewed in my head the trust agreement I had signed and the apartment transfer in New York which I had not yet signed, worrying that I would no longer be able to accomplish these end of life goals.

As I was waiting, I remembered that I have the availability of an on call nurse from my Blue Cross/Blue Shield Federal health insurance plan, whom I could call for advice. I had done so once before, when my husband had fallen out of bed in the middle of the night and I knew calling 911 would be so disorienting for him, I could not expose him to tha trauma.

The nurse advised me not to eat the lunch I  had prepared, in case I needed some emergency treatment; she asked for my address. I could not remember it. I went to this trusty tablet and looked it up, quite aware that a good part of me was functioning normally, but that my 

memory was failing me. After listening to me, she called  911 and put me on the phone with them.

I intended to sit until they arrived, but I got my belongings together if I had to go to  the hospital with them. I unlocked the door for them; I saw the white fire truck pull up in front of the entrance to the building. I also transferred the load of clothing from the washer to the dryer, having a great deal of difficulty figuring out which cycle, which duration, which button was the "on."

Meanwhile I am beginning to shake as I write this; I feel I am reexperiencing the panic.

Five handsome black-clad young men arrive, masked for Covid .They are well coordiniated. As one guy asked questions, another took my blood pressure, one pricked my finger for a blood sample . All this happened while one of them was listening to my story.

They then asked if I wanted them to call an ambulance or if I wanted to wait for my son to take me. I hesitated; Steve would be very upset to see me get taken anywhere by ambulance. I decided to wait for Steve and to go by car.

One guy said, "You know, we wouldn't give you the choice if we felt you were having a stroke or a heart attack, right?"

I kind of woke up at that moment. I was not going to be incapacitated yet. We could figure this out at leisure. I was actually ok.