Very Early Morning

Last night (well, this morning, actually) was a little more eventful than I had planned. At about 4:00 a.m., I awoke to the sound of tapping on my sliding glass door. And there's only one person that could have been: Bud. Great, I thought, this is just what I need. Bud showing up drunk.

After a quick peek to confirm that The Tapper was, in fact, Bud, I took the stick out of the door (my high tech security system) and slid open the glass. Always the very picture of hospitality, I believe the first words out of my mouth were "I don't want you here."

Now, before you go thinking that I'm a total bitch (debatable), let me explain. Bud has been showing up at my apartment, drunk, in the middle of the night for years. Much less so in recent years, since I entered the Real World and he began working weekend nights, but it's still not entirely out of the question, especially when he knows for a fact that I'm single.

Also, last night/this morning, he was carrying something in his hand, which I mistakenly thought was a partially consumed six-pack of beer. Have you not had ENOUGH, I thought. What he was actually carrying was some sort of machine that he uses to do "breathing treatments," because poor Bud suffers from severe asthma. "I'm so sorry to wake you up; I know you have to work tomorrow, but I really need you; I think I'm having a panic attack," he said.

As it turned out, Bud was having a panic attack, and if you've ever had one, then you know how terrifying they can be. He told me that he had almost gone to the ER because "he thought he was dying" (sure sign of a panic attack), but then he decided to just come over to my place, as I (unfortunately) have become somewhat of a expert on the phenomenon, having suffered numerous panic attacks myself. Also, he knew that I would have the good drugs. (I'm kidding; Bud hates taking any kind of medication.)

Along with thinking that you're dying, another symptom of a panic attack is feeling like you can't breathe. That's scary for anyone, but I would imagine that it's even worse for someone who has asthma and for whom not being able to breathe is a real possibility. I felt so bad for Bud, knowing that he probably felt like he was actually suffocating.

I finally got him calmed down, assuring him that his health was fine and that his poor brain was just in overdrive. We also had a good laugh, which I think helped to get his mind off the attack. He was telling me that, when his panic attack had started, he began thinking that his "neighbors below me" had poisoned him. Still half asleep, I thought he said that "his neighbor's bologna had poisoned him," and my immediate response was, "why in the hell were you eating your neighbor's bologna???" Hehehe. (I mean, who would eat their own bologna, much less anyone else's?) (Oh, and in case you're wondering why Bud would think that his downstairs neighbors were poisoning him, apparently they smoke a lot of weed, and Bud was convinced that he was getting "poisoned" by all of the smoke. No, it doesn't make any sense, but when you're having a panic attack, you don't exactly think logically.)

Honestly, I'm kind of glad that I've experienced a few panic attacks and can be there to help someone else who's going through one of these awful episodes. Although I do wish that Bud would have had his attack at a reasonable hour.

By the time I got him tucked in on the couch, it was about 5:45 a.m., which gave me a little over an hour before I had to start getting ready for work. Needless to say, I'm a little drowsy at the office today.