The Vapors: An Examination Room Disaster

That first morning Morgan and I brought Guy back up the hill to the hospital for a follow-up, things looked okay. Guy was bright-eyed, and the staff at the vet, as usual, was very friendly. And even though Guy wasn't eating, both Morgan and I had become pretty handy with a syringe.

As we waited in the examination room for the doctor to show up, however, while the nurse weighed the cat and took his temperature, I started to feel unusually warm.

Sure, it was a small room, it was crowded, and I was wearing my coat?plus I'd just run up a hill with a heavy load?but this seemed a bit excessive. Sweat began pouring down my forehead.

The doctor came in and began explaining that if Guy didn't eat more, he'd have to install a feeding tube directly into his esophagus. That didn't sound good.

My head began to spin a little bit, and my shirt was soaked. I tried not to show anything, but eventually I had to sit down.

"I'm not feeling too hot," I told Morgan, as I took a seat in a corner. "I'm a little faint." She helped me off with my coat, then went to get me a glass of water.

I got the water down, but it didn't help. I put my head down, but that didn't help, either. My vision started to go dim, my hearing fuzzy.

"Do you want me to take you outside?" she asked.

Then she asked me again after I didn't respond.

When she asked a third time, I finally nodded. On the table in front of us, the nurse had Guy on his back, and the doctor was getting ready to take a blood sample from his left leg.

Morgan took my hand and led me out into the cool hallway.

I remember that things didn't look quite right. The lights were wavering, and they weren't where they belonged. Not that I remember. Then everything was very peaceful.

According to Morgan (who filled me in later), my face, which had been a little pale in the examination room, turned green out in the hallway. She'd been my strength through all of what had come to be known as "The Guy Debacle"?listening to me panic and weep and whine, calming me down, helping with the feeding and medicine, making all these trips to the hospital with me?but even she wasn't strong enough to hold my dead weight upright. As she tried to keep me on my feet, a nurse grabbed a chair and put it behind me. I sat down for just a moment, before my eyes rolled back in my head and I slid to the floor.

"I thought you were having a really, really bad seizure," she told me. But I wasn't. I just fainted. I've certainly blacked out plenty, lost minutes and days, but I don't remember ever fainting like this before.

Nurses began yelling, "Call 911," out into the waiting room, and someone put my coat, or something, beneath my head, as Morgan propped my knees up.

A few seconds later, I sat upright again, opened my eyes and asked, enigmatically, "When did this happen?" (I remember none of that.)

Morgan helped me to my feet, where I was still unsteady, but I could stand. Then an enormous man, whose face I never saw, held out an arm and walked me into the waiting room, where I sat on a bench, breathing deeply, feeling a bit better.

"Christ, but this is humiliating," I told Morgan, who was sitting next to me.

"It's okay," she assured me. "You just fainted."

"I know. Now everyone's going to think I'm some sort of a big sissy."

One of the women in the waiting room ran out the front door, returning a minute later with some orange juice for me. One of the nurses bent down and asked if I wanted her to call the paramedics.

"Oh, I really don't think that's necessary," I told her.

Five minutes later, the paramedics showed up.

"You wanna go to the hospital?" they asked.

I told them what I told the nurse.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"We woulda been here quicker?we were half a block away."

"Really."

"Yeah, but we just got the call."

"Uh-huh."

"So what happened?"

"Oh, I just fainted."

"Just fainted? That's a sign that something's not right in your body. Your body's trying to tell you something."

"Oh, I know that much," I said, then gave them a thumbnail sketch of the past 10 days, explaining the stress, the lack of sleep.

Then, as one of them took my blood pressure, the other started telling a long story about how his cat?22 years old, it was?had died a year earlier.

"Not a day goes by," he told me, "that I don't think about him."

"I can imagine," I said.

Then the police showed up and asked the paramedics if I wanted to go to the hospital.

"No, he doesn't," they said.

"No? Really?"

"No, he doesn't want to go."

Somehow, I felt that this is what most of the animals must feel like in that waiting room, their owners explaining pet maladies to each other.

The cops went away. The paramedic with the dead cat went over and started telling Morgan about his dead cat, while the other asked to see my driver's license and took down my vitals.

When they were both done, they had me sign a piece of paper that confirmed that I didn't want to go to the hospital.

"You know," the one with the dead cat said again, "it really is a sign that something's wrong. You should be careful."

"I'm fine," I said. "I just need to get some sleep. It's okay."

Then they left, too, leaving me alone with Morgan and a roomful of very nervous pet owners.

As expected, when we brought Guy back the next day, I was kindly asked to leave the examination room before they took the blood sample.

"It wasn't that at all?" I began in protest. Then I picked up my coat and went to wait outside.