mandie west

Somewhere at the end of September 2009 The moment the fork left my mouth, I knew I should have just spit out that bite of food and give up trying to get anything down my constricted throat. Shaking, I closed my hands around my glass of water, again, and chugged it trying to force anything down my throat. It was not working. I started coughing. Dad started patting my back, more out of moral support than a life saving maneuver. We were sitting in a restaurant for my uncle Dwight's birthday dinner. The only reason I was here was because I had a panic attack just thinking about not being around my dad. The attacks had increased in frequency and severity, something I didn't even think was possible. I had stopped driving, working, and had not re enrolled in school after the summer. The reason I could not stand being around anyone else, was because they either reacted to my panic or they just stared at me completely unable to reassure me by talking to me because they would stay

July of 2009 The swivel stool squeaked as my doctor shifted his weight from left to right, a line forming between his brows as he listened to me, but mostly my mom, explain everything. After taking a deep breath, his shoulders sagged a little, "Well, Mandie... You're in rough shape." I just nodded. I was in some sort of shape and it was far from good. I'd never been here before, a full blown agoraphobic who couldn't stand the thought of taking a shower or peeking through the blinds, the anxiety had closed in around me so tight and thick that except for breathing and my heart beating of its own accord, I'd stopped living. My doctor started jotting down notes and scrolling through his little screen thing that let him look up any pharmaceutical medicine and its details. The exam room was so quiet, I could hear myself breathing. Sitting in the chair next to the doctor was my mom, while I sat wringing my hands on the exam table. It was like awaiting a d

Early July of 2009 I'd been walking through my mom's empty house, when a foreign sensation punched me in my chest. Stopping dead in my tracks, I tried to take a deep breath but found my chest too tight for that. Immediately, I rushed to the couch to sit down. My heart felt like it was skipping every couple of beats and every time it skipped, it felt like I was being punched in the chest. Over the years, I had experienced these strange senstations in my chest but they were so infrequent and never happened more than once or twice in a row. I remembered vaguely a doctor telling me they were harmless. But this time, they sure didn't feel harmless. After laying down on the couch, my heart returned to the rhythm of predictable beats. But after a few minutes, it returned to the skipping and the punching sensation in my chest. I was scared and starting to shake. My heart started to beat faster which made the skipping and punching come faster too. It wouldn't stop. M

June of 2009 When I opened my eyes, I saw Alex sleeping with his arm thrown over his face shielding his eyes from the light that was starting to come in the window. Behind me, on the nightstand, one of our phones was buzzing, probably getting ready to fall off the edge onto the floor. For what felt like an eternity, I laid there staring at Alex. I already knew it was my phone. I already knew who was calling. And I already knew I had to answer. Quickly before it went to voicemail, I rolled over and hit the green phone button. "Hey dad," I laid back on the pillow. Alex started stirring. "Hey," My dad paused just a second and then, "He's gone." Nodding at the ceiling, I forgot for a moment that dad couldn't see me. Dad was silent for a moment. "Me, Dwight, and Momma were all with him when he went." "Okay." "You need to get out here." "Okay." As I let my phone fall to the bed, I was still

April of 2009 My grandfather didn't die that day. After many blood transfusions, he made a miraculous recovery. I'm not sure if it wasn't his time, or if he had just made up his mind that he wasn't ready to go yet. There was someone who hadn't had the chance to say goodbye yet, and I wonder now looking back if he was waiting on him. Whatever it was, I was so thankful to have more time with him, no matter how limited that time. Even though he was suffering and in a great deal of pain, selfishly, I wasn't ready to let him go. And so after him nearly bleeding to death, I didn't miss a day seeing my grandfather. Not knowing when it would be the last day, I never skipped a day again. He was weaker than before this last hemorrhage. Today, like everyday, he was sitting in the livingroom with the shades pulled up so he could see the pastures outside. Trapping a lifelong farmer indoors will kill him faster than any disease in existence. The news was on th

Late March of 2009 There was blood everywhere. We had passed the ambulance, going way over the speed limit like us, heading the opposite way down the road as we neared my grandparents driveway. As the ambulance disappeared, I was afraid that that might be it. That I might never see my PawPaw alive again. Now, staring at a puddle of his blood in the living room with towels laying discarded in a random piles soaked through with the vital fluid, I was sure this was the end. No one could lose this much blood and still be breathing. The shaking turned into full body tremors as I walked down the hall, streaked with more blood. I couldn't pull my eyes away from the crimson pools. Dad called me out of my trance as he ran into the house, hollering, "Get out here!" He jerked his thumb over his shoulder and was running back through the house to the door. Weaving through the house full of neighbors already starting to clean up the mess, I followed him out the door. As

Late March of 2009 Watching it rotate above my head, the massive rattan fan was spinning my worry-ridden mind into a trance. My panic attacks had increased in frequency and I was beginning to avoid life again. I had stopped driving almost completely if it was what I considered too far from home and was finishing what I could of my college classes for the semester, online. Even riding to college with Alex had become too much for me to handle. Except being around my dad was a sort of buffer, being the only one I knew who knew what it was like to feel paralyzing terror all of the sudden for no apparent reason. Instead of reacting to my panic, he had a way of calming my inconsolable mind, or at the very least to ride it out with me without escilating my terror. Alex tried, but he did not understand the fear the way my dad did. So it was here sitting in this booth seat, in a steakhouse the next town over from my hometown, that the end of March 2009 found me. It was my dad and Marcia&#