Then, last Tuesday around eleven at night, I got up from my computer intending to go to bed and had trouble walking because one of my legs was close to fully asleep, the other partially asleep. I've had this problem before, but two or three times in the past week or so. For that reason, I immediately worried about my circulation. My legs came around but I got feeling very much out of it in a way I still have trouble describing. Something like one feels after being on a bus for three days straight. It's like you have a shell of a body around your regular body and it's become ever-so-slightly out-of-phase with your regular body. The feeling wasn't much different than I'd been feeling much of the time of late--but slightly worse physically. Psychologically, it was a lot worse, for I felt like I had to keep my inner head in phase with my head-shell, and might not be able to. I was afraid to go to sleep. I was afraid to move quickly, too, because it worsened the feeling of disequillibrium. My only working phone (thanks to the hurricane) is in my computer room, not in my bedroom, so I was uncertain about even lying in bed because of its distance from the computer room in case I had to call 911. I thought I might be having a stroke. I felt no pain, but I took my blood pressure with a home bp kit and it was high: 155 over 93. Ten or fifteen minutes later, I took it again and it was higher. By Midnight, I decided to call 911. Talking to the lady at the other end made me feel better--just the talking. She told me me there'd be no charge for the ambulance if I didn't use it after it came and the paramedics checked me out, so I asked that it be sent.

The paramedics treated me very well. My blood pressure was now something like 162 over a hundred and something. They found nothing obvious wrong with me but advised me to go into the emergency room, so I did. I got a cat scan of my head, an x-ray of my chest, and bloodwork. My heartbeat was slightly irregular but normal. (I had taken my pulse myself while at home and noticed that I it was skipping beats, another thing that disturbed me.) The only thing wrong they found was that my THS level was high (12.6, give or take a few tenths)--which indicates hypothyroidism. My blood pressure was going back down. The diagnosis was anxiety, so I got a shot of Ativan. I guess it helped. I walked home (a distance of a mile or so) without trouble and went to bed, going right to sleep. The next day I saw my doctor, and he thought I was okay. He gave me a prescription for Ativan, and changed my synthroid dosage very slightly. I didn't feel he needed to see me again until my next scheduled appointment, which is in March.

I felt okay the next few days though not great. But my dizziness when lying on my back went away (and hasn't come back)! Then, two nights ago, I awoke after only an hour and felt severe chills. This has happened to me before, but the chills have never lasted more than a half hour, max. These lasted almost all night. I suspect that was due to my thyroid problem, ssuceptibility to cold being a symptom of that, and it had gotten cold during that night. In any case, it pushed my anxiety level up, I'm sure. I had a crummy day afterward that included a headache I took aspirins for. I took an Ativan a few hours before going to bed, too. It was the second I've taken since my hospital visit. Whether it helped or not, I don't know, but I woke up this morning feeling near normal! Ergo, I may survive.

I have had one other diagnosed anxiety attack in my life. It occurred five-and-a-half years ago after I'd learned I had prostate cancer. It affected my arms: I suddenly couldn't raise them above my head without considerable pain. That attack was cured simply by my doctor's telling me I was suffering from anxiety. He gave me some pills but I only took a few of them. I am sure I had another anxiety attack back when I was thirty or so. I was at a night school class and suddenly felt an out-of-phase condition like my recent one except much more pronounced: when I did anything, I saw it happen faster than my brain felt it happen. I adjusted to it, and--to save money--didn't have a doctor check it. For some reason, I felt much more healthy out-of-phase then than I did this week. Youth, I suppose. The condition gradually faded, disappearing completely within a week. I attribute it to the stress of working during the day and going to college full-time plus having gotten serious about a girl who turned out to be a lesbian (or so she thought at the time; actually, she was a severely screwed-up heterosexual) plus worries about the house I owned and was renting to a (very nice) druggie couple with two little kids who had stopped paying the rent and were subletting rooms without permission which was overloading the septic system and eventually caused the house to be condemned. A neighbor had caught the kids setting a corner of it on fire, too, to make matters even more interesting. The mother was zonked out on her bed.

Here's a (probably incomplete) list of what stressed me out this time:

1. Hurricane Charley. One newspaper report that I scoffed at, at the time, said the full emotional effects of disasters like hurricanes reached their peak three months after the event. Charley was three months ago.

2. Getting my hurricane devastated roof taken care of and worry about paying for what FEMA didn't cover.

3. Finding out the house had termites and getting that taken care, plus worry about paying for it.

4. Recent expensive dental problems.

5. Simply being an old man, which magnifies my perception of the danger of any health oddities, like dizzinesses.

6. Being behind in fulfilling my obligations as a publisher to many poets.

7. The regular literary stress of deadlines to make.

8. Having to get together the presentation for the Miami Art Museum, driving to Miami and doing it, and then two local presentations.

9. Being bludgeoned as a poet and critic by Dan Schnieder. This is a joke--I hope. Actually, it's part of no. 7, which should read, "the regular literary stress of deadlines to meet and having to expose oneself to the judgement of others, negative or positive, sane or ridiculous."

10. My life's continued disorganization.

11. My inability to win frequently enough at Civilization.

No one need feel sorry for me. After all, I didn't need to be institutionalized. In fact, I continued subbing and going through my normal life, seeming the way I alwuz iz. And I was pretty much the way I alwuz iz. And it looks like I'll be okay for a while. I plan to take an Ativan every night before bed for the next few days, and try to relax. And avoid stress. I actually consider myself good (!) with stress, but not at its recent levels. I believe susceptibility to such attacks, in my case, is an unavoidable side-effect of artistic sensitivity and emotional intensity, so I don't feel too sorry for myself. And nothing really bad happened, except the hit my bank account will take due to my emergency room visit. I haven't seen any bills for that, yet.

Wotta life.