When Panic Attacks

|help me|

"Mommy! I really need to pee!"

"Kitty," I sigh. "Did I not ask you if you needed to pee right before we got on the airplane?"

Kitty gives me her signature innocent smile, the one she saves for when I catch her painting her "murals" on the walls "just like daddy".

I sigh again. "I'm sorry sweetheart, but I don't think they're gonna let anyone use the restrooms until the plane's in the air. Do you think you can hold it for a while?"

"If I must," Kitty laments. "I'll be strong!"

A chime interrupts my reply as the captain informs us that the aircraft is ready to take off and warns us to expect a slight turbulence.

"It's nothing to worry about," he assures.

I make sure Kitty is all belted up since the little monkey has the tendency to stand up on her seat and carry a conversation with the strangers behind her. 

It feels like I've just dozed off when I'm being shaken awake hastily by Kitty.

"Mommy, the flight's in the air now. And if I have to hold it any longer I'm going to have an accident," she hisses at me.

All signs of sleepiness shake off at her last few words, and I quickly pull to the restroom. While we wait for the occupant to come out, Kitty chats with an old woman and a lady I'm guessing is her daughter.

"Your girl is a real delight," the old lady informs me, chuckling. "You're really lucky."

"Right here, mom," says her daughter, whose name I learned was Alison. But she was laughing too, so it was clear she thought Kitty was an angel.

"Wait till she starts asking you to donate to her express charity. It's called 'Kitty's candy fund'," I respond, ushering her into the vacated bathroom before she soils her new floral skirt. 

Just as we're finishing up, the aircraft rumbles and a bottle of hand soap goes skidding across the counter. Turbulence. 

There's another resounding rumble, and the hand soap falls to the ground. The toilet seat slams shut with a sharp sound that makes Kitty yelp.

"Kitty," I whisper urgently. "We need to get to our seats."

She nods quickly and takes my hand, and we hurry out of the washroom.

"Attention passengers," announces a disembodied voice. "The seatbelt sign has been turned on. Please take your seat immediately as we are experiencing some problems. Your oxygen mask will drop-"

I didn't wait to hear any more. I pull the door open and prepare to rush back to the safety of our seats, my heart pounding in rhythm with the aircraft.

"Mommy!" screams Kitty shrilly, tugging hard on my hand and bringing me to a stop. I follow her line of sight to the old woman who Kitty was talking to earlier. My heart almost stops.

Her frail body is curled up into a tight ball. I can see her eyes are closed but her eyeballs are moving with a frenzied speed that makes me dizzy. And the poor thing is shaking like a leaf. Her poor daughter looks like she's on the verge of hysterics as she shakes her mom.

I drop Kitty's hand immediately and drop down so I'm eye-to-eye with her.

"Listen, sweetheart," I tell her seriously, looking into her panicked eyes. "I need you to go back to our seat okay. You know where it is right? Good. Buckle yourself up and ask the nice lady next to us to help you with your mask. And don't move."

Kitty nods, quickly hugging me and planting a kiss on my cheek. 

"Be safe," she whispers. 

Then she's gone. I spare a second to see her running back to our seat as I turn to the old lady and a hysterical Alison. I pull on the mask from the empty seat next to them.

"What happened?" I ask, taking charge of the situation as only a trained nurse can do.

"She's having a panic attack," Alison tells me shakily. "We usually have to wait for it to pass but there's a lack of oxygen and she's so stressed already."

I nod, checking her pulse, which is a little slowing down already. I curse.

"The lack of oxygen is going to stop her pulse completely if she doesn't wake up soon. We need to get into her head."

Alison looks at me helplessly. 

"I don't know what to do."

We take turns shaking and talking to her, even shouting in her ear for a response, but nothing seems to work. And all the while, she's becoming stiller and stiller. I steel myself. 

No way am I going to let her die. Not on my watch.

"E-Excuse me," says a voice from behind me. I turn around to face a flight attendant. She's holding some sort of weird headgear. At first glance, I can tell it's something high-tech.

"We have these for emergencies," she explains to me quickly. "They're called Telepathic Electroencephalography Communication Headsets, T.E.C.H for short. They send radio waves directly into the wearer's brains to communicate with them."

I blink at her, impressed. T.E.C.H was advanced machinery. I didn't even think the public had access to this stuff.

"No," declares Alison firmly, any signs of despair replaced with rigidness. "I'm not going to put shock waves into my mother's head."

"We have no choice," I tell her apologetically. "Her fits show no signs of abating."

She sets her mouth in a hard line. "You know that if something goes wrong the waves can affect her brain and leave her paralyzed forever. Assure there's no chance of that happening."

The possibility had occurred to me, but I had hoped she wouldn't know. One of the most important lessons I had learned in nursing school was that sometimes making quick decisions could save a life.

Just, the aircraft plummeted, making my stomach drop like I was on a rollercoaster in Coney Island. The old lady screams, and her shaking becomes even more prominent.

Alison's expression switches back to fear.

"Oh my god, save her! Please!"

The flight attendant wastes no time in fastening the piece of headgear on the old lady. For such a complicated looking piece of equipment, it was surprisingly easy to fasten. 

"Wake up mom," says Alison shakily, but clearly into the headpiece. She keeps repeating the message over and over.

We watch the minutes tick by with bated breath. The old lady's expression changes from one of fear to confusion, and after a moment, she slowly opens her eyes, her breathing hard. I didn't wait to hear the cries of relief and elation from the group.

 By the time Alison raised her head to say thank you, I was already running into the little arms of my Kitty.