Free Putting Alice Back Together by Carol Marinelli Page A

was like a cartoon character then, pressed to the glass. I thought I was dying and Roz was calling for help. Finallythey realised that I wasn’t putting it on, that their stupid paper bag wasn’t going to work, because a buzzer went and a nurse came with a wheelchair and I was sped through.
    Okay, not sped, and I didn’t end up in Resus with George Clooney saying, ‘On my count…’
    Instead I was given a gown and told to get undressed and put it on, and Roz helped. I couldn’t have done it on my own. My lips were completely numb now. Then this twelve-year-old that was dressed up as a male nurse asked me to explain what had happened.
    I wheezed away as he put an IV into the back of my hand, which hurt, I might add, as Roz did the talking for me.
    ‘We were in with the same last week. She’s got a nut allergy…’ And finally I got a response, because the twelve-year-old looked worried. He checked my blood pressure then dashed off to get a doctor as Roz wrapped her arms around me and told me I was going to be fine.
    ‘Just keep breathing into the bag, Alice.’
    ‘It’s not helping.’
    Well, my ten seconds of concern lasted till the arrival of the emergency registrar, which coincided with the arrival of my old notes. He listened to my chest and confirmed the triage nurse’s diagnosis.
    ‘She’s having an anxiety attack.’
    ‘No…’ I shook my head. I was crying, and not able to breathe. ‘I woke up and my lips were swollen and tingling…’ Well, they hadn’t been then but that was what they had asked me last time. The emergency doctor sort of hummed and haaed for a minute before he wrote meup for 10 mg of diazepam and some oral steroids. ‘In case a mild allergic reaction triggered the anxiety attack.’
    Bastard.
    Still, I didn’t argue, I didn’t have the breath. And in a moment the twelve-year-old had returned with a little plastic cup with six pills. The white ones, he explained, were prednisolone and I would have to take a reducing dose for the next few days. The blue one was Valium.
    I took the blue one first.
    It took about twenty minutes—actually, maybe a bit less. Roz was so kind and reassuring, and the bright lights and all the equipment were starting to reassure me too, and when twelve-year-old took my pulse and said it was slowing down, I forgot about my breathing for a moment. I lay back and it was such a relief to not have to remember to breathe. Of course, as soon as I remembered, my breathing got harder and I had to remind myself to do it, but gradually it was just happening, even when I thought about it.
    I lay there thinking about hypnosis tapes as Roz held my hand.
    I’d bought loads, I had the lot, but I hated that they all, at some point, told you to concentrate on your breathing and the natural rise and fall of your chest, or the effortlessness of breathing. As soon as they said that, I swear, it didn’t happen naturally. If I could find a shagging self-hypnosis tape that didn’t tell you to concentrate on your breathing, I would have given up fags and booze and kept all my new year’s resolutions years ago.
    ‘Better?’
    The doctor roused me from my slumber. Roz had just gone to the loo, he explained, and he wanted to have aword with me. Now that I wasn’t dying I noticed that he was actually nice looking, in a sort of Hugh Laurie House -type way. Well, actually he was ugly, really, but he was a doctor and sort of crabby, and that reminded me, I had one coming to stay in the morning. I toyed with telling him, maybe it would give me reciprocal rights or something, maybe then he’d believe me.
    ‘Much!’ I said, but then I remembered twelve-year-old saying that the steroids might take a while to kick in. ‘Well, still a bit itchy,’ I said, scratching at my ribcage.
    ‘Itchy?’ He sort of hauled me up and checked my back then laid me flat on my back and looked at my stomach and then my legs, and then he scratched the inside of my arms with the end of his