The floor of the vet's office is cold, it chills me through to the bone. Slowly voices start to weave in and out as I try to remember why it is I'm lying here. Do I need to call an ambulance? No, no she's done this before. Give her a minute, she'll come to. But although this isn't the first time I've collapsed in public something seems very different to me. The fuzziness isn't dying down. My stomach hurts. I feel my body convulse and try to expel whatever is doing this to me. But nothing comes up, not even a liquid.

There is nothing to bring up.

The voices around me change, there is a note of panic in them now. My mother is trying to talk to me. The vet is calling an ambulance. My brother is sure it's no big deal, but nobody listens to him. I can not blame him, we were just discussing putting the cat down. This detail comes to me and immediately I wish I could take back whatever's just happened. Did we really need another emergency?

I don't have much time to dwell on this, soon I'm cornered by two paramedics. They're very gentle as they try to coax me into consciousness. They manage to get me sitting up, but this victory is pushed away once they begin working. Her blood pressure is really low. We may need to take her to the hospital. It's dropped again. We're taking her now. They don't bother to ask if I can walk to the ambulance, they just wheel the stretcher in. I see my mother's face, panicked at watching them wheel her daughter off. Heartbroken that she has to finish her business here before she can follow me. She knows how much I hate hospitals.

Inside the ambulance things don't improve. My pressure has dropped again, and I can see this is really starting to worry them. They stick my finger to check my blood sugar. It's practically non-existant. No surprise there, I haven't eaten in four days. I tell them I was out drinking the night before and that I was so stressed out about finding my cat sick that I had forgotten to eat. At least half of that is truthful. I'm handed a tube of glucose and told to eat it all. I almost ask how many calories it has. I almost flat out refuse. But where will that get me?

For whatever reason, the emergency ward is filled with sick children. Really, really sick children. I can't take it, I want to run. But there is a doctor hovering over me, pressing the crook of my arm trying desperately to find a vein. Had I been fully conscious the IV he finally sticks in me would have freaked me out, but as it is I am far too gone to care.

My mother arrives in time to watch them prod the other arm for a vein to draw blood. By now the glucose and cookies I've been forced to ingest have done their job, I'm fully aware. I hate needles, I pass out at needles, but this time I don't. They paste circles on me to monitor my heart, it thoroughly creeps me out.

Finally they are finished, and we are left to wait. My mother is worried but I know there is nothing physically wrong with me. I've let myself get dehydrated, and what is causing the panic in me is that I'm about to be found out. And then where will I hide? By the time the doctor comes back with the results I have a long list of excuses lined up.

She's severely dehydrated and her blood sugar is incredibly low. The glucose has brought it back but she needs a good meal or she'll be right back where we started.


She was out late last night, she's been stressed out about school, her cat is dead.


A million excuses made for me. Am I really that good at keeping this hidden or is my mother just this oblivious? For a moment I am outraged. How can she not know? She's my mother for god's sake. Then I remember that this is a good thing. For me, at least.

I feel much better.


I'm sure it was just stress...