It begins with a panic attack

Welcome to my new blog. It will chronicle the beginning of a new journey for me. And this journey begins with a panic attack.

On November 29, 2023, I’m sitting in my church office. It seemed to be a very ordinary Wednesday studying for my next Lord’s Day sermon. But then something weird happens. My vision is disoriented and I feel dizzy. Other people in the office are sick, so I figure that I’m coming down with what they have. So I decide to drive home to rest, but then the vision thing gets worse and I have to pull over. I recline in my chair, look up to the sky, and the clouds start spinning. I text Soojin, “I have a headache.” I sit there for a few minutes, the clouds don’t stop spinning. Soojin calls me, asks how I’m feeling, and then recommends that I go to urgent care. I agree, and I call my trusted friend and co-worker Hoon Kang to come pick me up. He arrives, I walk toward his car, but then have the urge to puke. I think this is vertigo.

I get in the car, and we start driving to Sunset Kaiser which is 23 minutes away. Hoon says under his breath, “I think 23 minutes might be too long.” I think to myself, “You might be right!” Hoon tells me to breathe, and I start breathing deeply. Inhale, and big exhales. My hands start to feel numb; like they’re falling asleep. My feet also start to feel similar. The numbness increases in intensity. “Am I having a stroke? Is this a heart attack?” These are the thoughts racing through my mind. I see a notification on my phone. It’s from Soojin to the church leadership team, “Please pray for SJ, he is on the way to urgent care…” For some reason this makes me super emotional, and I have to hold back the tears. We’re still on our way to the hospital, but there’s traffic, and Hoon is driving super slow. I keep breathing. My numbness increases. We’re now 2 minutes away from the hospital. More traffic. I call 9-1-1 because I think this is it. I think my life is over. I’m panicking because I don’t know what to do in a situation like this. We arrive at the final signal light. It’s red. There are no cars crossing the intersection, so I tell Hoon, “Just go! Just go!” He obediently submits to my command, and then we’re at the emergency room entrance.

At this point, I expected the nurses to be running out with a portable bed, and they would immediately attach an oxygen mask to my face, and the doctors would take care of me. Instead, I get there, and wait. A few minutes later, some nurses walk out, and they ask me a few questions. They hand me a barf bag and tell me to breath slowly. “What? If I’m having a stroke, why are they so chill? Why aren’t they rushing me in?” I follow their instructions. I take a deep breath in. I breathe out slowly. I take a deep breath in. I breathe out slowly. I had been unaware that on the drive my hands had stiffened up so severely that I could not move my fingers. As I breathed slowly, I could see and feel my hands starting to relax.

At this point one of the nurses took hold of my hand to comfort me. “What a nice nurse,” I thought to myself. But then the “nurse” spoke, and I recognized the voice. It was my wife. She had made her way over to the ER and saw me sitting in Hoon’s passenger seat and walked right up to me. I look up at her face and break down in tears. Soojin asks me, “Awww why are you crying?” I continue to cry.

They eventually bring out a wheelchair for me, and as I am being wheeled into the emergency room, that barf bag became useful. One bag fills up. I need a second one. My entire breakfast unloaded into those green bags. Later, Soojin told me she saw the look of utter disgust from the other emergency room patients. Sorry about that, haha.

I’m triaged by a young Korean-American man. He asks me what I do for a living. I say, “I’m a pastor.” We have a brief conversation after that, I wait in the ER a little more, then I’m admitted. I see the doctor. He asks me what I do, I say, “I’m a pastor.” They run every possible test on me just to confirm that nothing is wrong. Blood, two CATs, MRI, urine. Everything is negative. It was just a panic attack for the pastor.