My Norwegians, Part II

At midnight the Norwegian lady from the previous post phoned, begging for a housecall. Something terrible was happening. This was a full-blown panic attack, she informed me. She knew for certain that she was dying. When I assured her that she would not die, she did not deny it but pleaded tearfully for me to come. Victims of panic attacks are not psychotic. They know they’re behaving irrationally, but they can’t resist.

These calls are not rare, and I usually handle them without a visit. Ten minutes of soothing reassurance and the knowledge that I’m immediately available over the phone generally works. Reassurance also works when I visit a guest whose complaint unexpectedly turns out to be a panic attack. Unfortunately, these successes are guests who don’t know they’re having an attack or suffer them rarely. This lady was a hard-core, locked-in panic attack veteran. Her attacks followed a strict pattern, and no reassurance would change matters.

If I came, examined, and found everything normal, she would express gratitude, but even before I finished counting my money, she would be pleading for another exam. Yes (I know you’re asking) there are shots, and I give them, but they don’t work. I hate walking out on a guest who’s begging me to stay, and these attacks may last hours.

This guest’s conviction that she was dying was clearly wrong. Yet every doctor has heard of patients who announce that they’re dying and then proceed to die. No doctor wants to be the source of such an anecdote, so this lady needed at least one exam. As I was agonizing, she broke in to say she would ask the hotel to call an ambulance. Then she hung up. I phoned the front desk to make sure they had done so. Like me the paramedics have encountered plenty of panic attacks; in the unlikely event something bad happened, they were the last medical professionals the guest had seen.     

My Norwegians

Oil gives Norway the world’s highest standard of living because, unlike oil-rich countries in Africa and the middle-east, Norway has an honest government. Besides putting away money for the future, it invests heavily in infrastructure and services such as universal free medical care and college education. Many Americans consider such government programs soul-destroying, but Norwegians tolerate them pretty well.

A  Norwegian tour arrived in the city last year, and I cared for four members. Thanks to a good education, all spoke English.

They were guests at the Hollywood Heights hotel in my least favorite part of Los Angeles. Despite our legendary freeways, none reach from my neighborhood to Hollywood, so I drove nine miles through the city. Planned in the 1960s, the Beverly Hills freeway would have solved my problem, but it vanished from maps when the city insisted it be built underground, an excellent idea.

The first Norwegian suffered a urine infection, common and easy to treat. The second had a hacking cough, present several days, which tormented three roommates almost as much as the patient. I handed over cough medicine. The third had been vomiting. Everyone with an upset stomach blames their last meal, so I listened to a recital of everything he’d eaten. I gave medicine and told him he’d be better in a few hours.

The last had been to Universal Studios and thought she had sunstroke. Sunstroke is life-threatening, but there are lesser sun-related conditions, none of which she had. She did not even have the painful sunburn that northern Europeans acquire almost as soon as they get off the plane. Universal City is in an area hotter than Los Angeles proper, but weather hadn’t been abnormally hot.

Hearing my reassurance, she admitted that her nausea and anxiety may have represented a mild panic attack. She suffered them regularly. This one seemed to be receding…. The story continues in my next post.