![]() In the pharmacy downstairs, I fill the prescription, take two Xanax, and start the long walk home. Then I get dressed and walk out of the hospital. ![]() ![]() I stand there, staring at him until he leaves. “I haven’t confirmed either one of your diagnoses, you know.”Īs an exit line, it pretty much blows, but it’s all I can think of. See someone about your menopausal symptoms and your depression.” He writes a prescription and tears it off for me. He is thinking about them as well, I think. That’s when I remember about his wife and daughter who were killed. “But I know how depressed sounds and how broken looks.” I know I should tell him that in the past year, I’ve gotten these prescriptions from several doctors and that I am taking higher dosages, but I don’t. “My prescription ran out a long time ago.” This is a lie. God, I hate feeling stupid or pathetic, and something about this man and the way he looks at me makes me feel both. I put the glass in a cupboard and forget it’s there. “Some people see a glass as half empty some see it as half full. “There’s no proof I’m in menopause,” I say. I throw the flimsy sheet back and climb out of bed, not realizing that my hospital gown has flashed the doctor a shot of my middle-aged ass. Granola here can take one look at me and know I’m drying up from the inside. ![]() I have no real family, and my best friend is gone, and Dr. I’m unemployed, apparently unemployable I am fat. It’s the hormonal imbalance.”Īnd just like that, it gets worse. “All kidding aside, Tully, panic attacks are a common experience during perimenopause and menopause. “Are you the only doctor in this hospital?” “You know, Tully, you don’t have to go to such lengths to see me. Behind him, a lackluster blue and white curtain gives us what little privacy exists in a big-city ER. He is wearing the kind of cheater glasses Costco sells in a multipack. “Heart attack!” I scream at the woman at the front desk.ĭr. “Sacred Heart,” I gasp, fumbling through my purse for a baby aspirin, which I chew and swallow, just in case.Īt the hospital, I throw a twenty-dollar bill at the cabbie and stagger into the emergency room. I get up, stumble forward, flag down a cab, and get in. My legs give out from underneath me and I fall to the sidewalk hard. More than anything I want to call my best friend and have her tell me it will get better.Ĭalm down, I tell myself, but I feel sick to my stomach and feverishly hot and I can’t catch my breath. This is what I have fallen to? Getting called fat and being fired by a talentless teen? As I leave the studio and step back out onto the Seattle sidewalk, I am consumed by a sense of failure. I can feel the drizzle of sweat on my forehead drying up and my cheeks are cooling down, but my shame is not so easily retracted neither is my anger. If you don’t know what that is, I don’t think you need to worry about it, but if you do…” “We were talking about sexting before the break. The red light comes on and Kendra smiles brightly. “The spoiled brat in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”īeside me, the cameraman takes his place. Did they tell you she’s already had four cohosts fired?” “But it really means she’s going to call daddy. The young producer is beside me in an instant, pulling me back into the shadows. Kendra stares at me as if I have just sprouted a beard and begun braying. In the meantime, you need to hit your mark. There’s nothing for me to do on today’s script, but we can talk about tomorrow. A hot flash tingles uncomfortably across my flesh. ![]() Unfortunately, my body picks this exact moment to overheat. “Go on,” the producer says, giving me a shoulder pat that might have been meant to be reassuring but feels more like a shove. Kendra rolls her eyes and starts playing with her phone. “Cut,” the director says, and the cameraman breathes a sigh of relief. Face it, girls, boob shots to your guy are a no-no-” Tully hears the cameraman curse under his breath. “I’ve come up with a list of five things that should never be texted.” She moves across the room, misses her mark again. There is a blue X on the floor-her mark-which she misses. So Kendra is going to step in to the rescue.” She smiles and moves away from the dresser, walking casually toward the bed. In the old days, there were, like, books to tell you what to say and how to act, but we, like, don’t have time for old school now, do we? Teens today are on the go-go-go. Some of the kids I know are, like, making Herculean mistakes. She is leaning back against her dresser, talking to the camera as if it is her closest confidant. ![]()
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