"You might have to raise Seth after all!"

Shulamith and her husband Mathew are our appointed guardians for Seth, should anything happen to Gerald and me. But now that he is 14, with just a few more years when he would need a guardian, I imagine they feel they are pretty much off the hook. I would have agreed, until last night.

To backtrack, yesterday afternoon, Shulamith and I decided to thoroughly clean our laundry room. It had been way too long, and the room was filled with dust and lint. My allergies went off the charts. I was coughing and sneezing, eyes watering, nose running. Not a pretty sight, but oh you should see our gorgeous laundry room. Well here, see for yourself.

A thing of beauty, right?

So all was well until early in the evening when I began to itch. And itch. And itch. I didn't think much of it until I actually looked at my skin. I had broken out in giant hives everywhere! Huge welts and bright red skin covered my body. It was disgusting! Gross! Shulamith had some hydrocortisone cream, so I put that on and took a Benedryl tablet and went to sleep.

A few hours later I awoke to the most horrific panic attack I've ever experienced. Now keep in mind, I'm the queen of anxiety, and I thought I knew everything about it, but I've never experienced anything like this before. My chest was tight and achy. My back ached. It's as though a band surrounded my torso, squeezing. I was terrified. I woke up poor Gerald, who never gets sufficient sleep, and made him get online to check symptoms. Truth is the symptoms of a heart attack and the symptoms of a panic attack are identical. One site even said, "Since there's no way for the average person to differentiate between a heart attack and a panic attack, if you have heart problems, chances are it's a heart attack, and if you have anxiety, chances are it's a panic attack." Well duh!!!

In the middle of all this, Gerald says, "Now I'm having chest pains." What? It's contagious? So here were, two completely healthy individuals, both in the middle of panic attacks, albeit mine considerably worse than Gerald's. So Shulamith, if you thought you were off the hook with caring for Seth, you might want to rethink that. Because your parents are losing their minds.