“911. What’s your emergency?” “I’m having a brain hemorrhage.” I was lying on the terra-cotta next to the treadmill in our converted garage. “I’m sorry?” “I’m a doctor. I know.” The worst headache of your life, they taught us in med school. The pain exploded between my eyes just as I rounded mile two. After 911 I crawled to the white tiled bathroom just inside to get a trash can. I was queasy. Then I called my ex, the babysitter, my mom. “I need you to come. The kids are asleep, but I’m going to the hospital. It’s an emergency.”
Eve Louise Makoff is an internal medicine and palliative care physician. She writes personal essays, poetry, and narrative medicine pieces. Find Eve on Twitter @evelouisemakoff.