I lean back in my chair, staring at the ceiling tiles until they start to blur. The room tilts—just slightly at first, then more.
“Shit,” I say to myself. “Not again.”
I’ve been through this enough over the last few weeks to know what’s next. Sure enough, a wave of nausea moves up my throat, sharp and sudden. I grab the edge of my desk, holding onto it for dear life, and breathing through the nausea and dizziness until they fade.
Finally, they do. I’m lucky—the last couple of times this happened, I’d needed to run to the ladies room and toss up my Sweetgreen.
When the feeling finally fades, I pick up my phone and check my calendar. It’s still there—the doctor’s appointment I booked a few days ago, when I realized these spells weren’t going away. It’s two hours from now at a clinic in Lincoln Park.
I hate the idea of taking time off to go to the doctor today, wasting precious hours right before the deadline. But the last thing I need is to get sick.
I run my hand through my hair, feeling a little clammy and chilly.
“Stress,” I tell myself, trying to manifest in the most desperate way possible. “Has to be stress.”
The clinic is in a building with a hip bar at ground level, a comic book shop on the second, and the doctor’s office on the third.
The office smells faintly of antiseptic and coffee. It’s one of those quiet weekday afternoons, when everything feels just a little sleepy, a little rundown. February in Chicago always seems to have this gray, worn-out sort of vibe.
I sit in the waiting room, one leg bouncing, my free hand scrolling through my work inbox to make sure I’m not missing one of Sasha’s classic, cryptic one-line emails.
The receptionist calls out a name that’s not mine. A baby cries somewhere down the hall. I press my fingers to my temples again. I feel so weird, like my head’s full of static and tissue paper.
“Ms. Resse?”
I look up. A nurse stands there smiling, a clipboard in her hands. I follow her down the narrow hall to an exam room that’s a little colder than I’d expected. Pale blue walls, a motivational poster about self-care, the familiar crinkle of exam table paper underneath me.
The nurse takes some preliminary info, getting a handle on the symptoms. Her eyes flick down to my leg as she speaks.
“A little nervous?”
“Huh?” I glance down where she’s looking to see that my leg is bouncing up and down. My hand shoots to my knee, stopping it. “Well, nervous habit.” I should stop there, but I can’t help myself. “And a little worried about this being something worse than it is. I’ve got too much work to take any sick days, you know?”
She smiles and nods, as if she knows exactly what I mean. “I get it. I’ll let the doctor know you’re ready. She should be here in just a few.”
“Thanks.”
The nurse leaves, and I’m alone. As soon as she’s gone, my leg starts bouncing again. A few minutes later, the doctor comes in. She introduces herself with a handshake that’s professional and comforting all at once.
“So.” She glances down at her chart. “Nausea, headaches, all that good stuff.”
“I’m 90 percent sure it’s just stress. Has to be. I’m totally bogged down at work, in the middle of the biggest project of my life. My career kind of hangs in the balance here.”
She nods. Maybe she gets it, maybe she thinks I’m crazy. Maybe a little of both.
“And how’s your appetite?”
“Barely having anything that’s not caffeinated. But now that I think about it, certain foods have been sounding awful to me, like, totally unappealing.”
“Such as?”
“Well, booze for one. I’ve never been a huge drinker, but even the thought of having a drink makes me sick to my stomach.” And so does even talking about it. I place my hand on my belly, trying to calm down the lurch.
“And your sleep?”
“Erratic. Restless. But that’s not new.”
She nods, jots a few more things down. “Alright. We’re going to run a few quick tests—blood pressure, maybe some labs. And a urine sample, if you don’t mind.”
