Being There

For once I was not a contributor or a victim in an emergency room visit.

Yesterday while minding my business at work, an associate and friend of mine just completely freaked out and had a severe panic attack. Now I've never been around someone who just couldn't breathe, was vomiting and crying relentlessly in my life, so I was 100% shocked and shaken at the sight. It's possibly the scariest thing I've seen in real life. Once the ambulance arrived and our victim was situated on board, she pleaded with me to accompany her to the ER.

As tempting as it was to get a free ambulance ride, I decided that driving my car there would be a better option than having both of us stranded at the hospital 25 minutes away from work and near both of our residences. It pained me to not be on board while she was afraid and hyper ventalating, but I more than made up for it by sitting in the ER with her for the next 6 hours. Yep, six fucking hours. Took 3 hours just to have a doctor come by for the consultation. We passed the time by talking, me being funny to take her mind off the madness, and with her trying to relax and rest as much as possible considering.

All in all, it's not how I would have wanted to spend a Thursday night, but sometimes in life you have to just be there for someone else. I know that if the roles were reversed and something happened to me, I would want someone to be by my side while I was sitting in a hospital. This might be the biggest hurdle to deal with associated with relocating to a new area of the country. You are forced to bond with people who will get your back when the shit goes down. I'm sure she would have much rather had her Mom or boyfriend there with her instead of me, but at the same time she was elated to have someone be there for her. And I was happy I could be there for her. Selflessness is empowering, and I don't live my life like that enough.

Like I was remarking at work today, I'm still probably going to hell, but I may have gotten an upgrade by my actions yesterday. Where I'll be will be slightly less hot perhaps?