I am lying in my bed, staring up at the ceiling of my dark room. The clock reads 11:30 p.m. Everything seems hazy and unclear. My full attention is given to the intense pressure in my chest. I feel nothing but unbearable pain. I try to fall asleep, but that seems impossible. My heart beats uncontrollably, like my heart is choking me from the inside. I’m gasping for air, taking in anything I can. I can only sit and endure the pain. Finally, I can’t stand it anymore. I yell for help. My door flies open as my dad rushes into my room.
” Do we need to go to the ER?” my dad asks as he sits down on my bed.
I don’t answer. All I can do is nod my head.

My dad and I head for the hospital at about midnight. I’m tired, and in pain.  I have never liked hospitals. They remind me of sickness, and always give me a sense of sadness. In some ways it feels like a prison. They are too uniform, and bland. Each room is the same. Each hallway is bathed in the same fluorescent light, that sears your eyeballs. At this time of night, the hospital is the last place I would like to be, but I have to go. I want to go if it means resolving this torturous pain I am experiencing though. My dad helps with the pain and talks to me the whole way there. He knows I’m scared. He knows I’m stressed out. He is just as scared as I am, and he is worried about his youngest son. He doesn’t know what the future holds anymore than I do, but he knows he must put on a brave face for his son, and that is what he does. He wants to find the silver lining in the situation.
The night is cold, and fog clouds the road, like it is trying to keep us away from safety. Confusion floods my thoughts and nearly blocks out reality. I desperately try to understand what happened in the last hour. All I know is how much pain I feel. My dad puts on AC/DC, trying to distract me. He talks to me, giving comfort, and calming me down. We pull into the lot, and make a beeline for the door. A receptionist checks us in, taking about a half hour. When we get to the ER, and they make us wait for another half hour. My agony grows by the minute. The on-call doctor opens the door and I hear my name called and feel relief.

Once we get into the exam room, they send me to get multiple x-rays and a battery of tests done. I wait in the exam room for a while, lying in the bed. My eyes are tired, and my whole body is heavy. I’m nodding in and out of sleep. At about 1:30 the doctor comes into our room. He wants us to drive to a hospital in North Dakota immediately to get admitted into the hospital; The doctor sounded urgent. They wanted me to go in an ambulance, but my dad said it wasn’t necessary. I wanted to scream at the doctor. I still don’t know what’s wrong, but now I know it must not be good. We got into the car, and started the journey to North Dakota. At this point, fear and anxiety take over. It was only a ninety minute ride, yet it felt like an eternity. It’s my first chance to sleep, so I take advantage of it. Maybe it will let me escape from reality.

Before I know it, we arrive at our destination. They put me in a room on the pediatrics floor, surrounded by little kids. I’m the oldest one there by at least 10 years.  I feel embarrassed by it; Ashamed to be so weak that I am treated like a child. The first thing they do is put in an IV. The nurse tries three times before she finds a vein. Each time she pricks me, it hurts more than the last, adding to my  pain. When she did find one, my own blood sprayed all over me, making me queasy.

I couldn’t believe this was happening, but finally to my relief, they leave us alone. Monitors beep in the background as I take a deep breath of hospital air. The smell makes me nauseous, reminding me of sickness. I want to be anywhere but here right now. I lie in the bed staring at the ceiling, longing to be in my own bed. It’s hard to believe a mere four hours ago, I lay in my bedroom trying to sleep like any average Wednesday night. It began to register in my mind what happened.

I’m awakened hours later by a nurse who needs to take an echocardiogram. An echo is basically an ultrasound of my chest. It was immediately sent to Cardiology to be evaluated. A few hours later, there’s a knock on my door, and doctors pour into my room. Among the doctors is a cardiologist, a rheumatologist, and even an infectious diseases doctor. I think to myself, finally, we are gonna get an answer.

“Well, we looked at your echo”, said the cardiologist.
“And?” my dad says, obviously just as tired as me.
“You have acute chronic pericarditis”, the doctor explains. “That means you have fluid building between your heart muscle, and the protective sleeve on the outside of your heart. It swells and puts pressure on your lungs and heart, which is why you couldn’t breathe.”

“Am I going to be ok?” I asked, feeling stressed out and worried.

“Yes, you should be fine as long as we get you on an aspirin/chemo regimen. You are lucky you came in when you did. If you’d waited much longer, it could’ve been fatal.”, said the ID doctor.

“..it could’ve been fatal.” Pericarditis.

I let that sink in for a minute. I’m now finding how serious this is. Inside, I feel nothing but fear, and worry. I don’t show it however.

I spend the next day letting them do all the tests necessary. The focus is to find the cause, so I can start treatment. They take blood, they swab my sinuses and my throat. I do whatever they ask of me, in hopes I will get out of there sooner. I eat bland, tasteless hospital food for the next four meals.

After another thirty-six hours in the hospital, they gave me the medicine I needed to keep it under control. They’ve determined I’m stable enough to be discharged. I don’t think I have ever been more excited to go home. Though I am happy to leave, I’m still scared of what the future holds. They didn’t know what caused it, and they said nine times out of ten they never know why.

I never had to deal with something like this. I was completely unprepared. You never think it could happen to you. It was a whole new feeling for me to fight my own body. Why is my own body attacking me? Are there other problems with my health I don’t know about? In the midst of the stress and fear, I began to question everything. No person should ever have to fear their own body. The world looks completely different when you aren’t even safe from yourself. What do you cling to if you lose your sense of security? I remain unsure of how this will affect my future, until the moment arrives.

For the most part, I have a fortunate life. This is probably the worst thing to date. However, I don’t let it drag me down. It taught me to find the best in life. I’m still as scared as I was the first day I found out about my pericarditis. I think about my dad in the car that night. He didn’t let the fear in. Instead, he put on a brave face; One of the many reasons I look up to him. I’m not going to sit around crying about it. I am going to take whatever life throws at me, and show it who is boss.