Panic in the Cradle of Liberty
I Couldn’t Help It! I Don’t Know What Came Over Me.
Story written and narrated by: Glenn Vanderkloet
Tunes in this Episode: “Hazlehurst” - Pale Cricket
“Aquarium Floor” - Futurebirds
“Transition Instrumental” - Pale Cricket
Photo Credit: Courtesy of a Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster T-Shirt Design
Panic in the Cradle of Liberty
It seemed like a pretty straightforward plan but I have a knack for complicating even the simplest of endeavours. My partner and I had booked a five day holiday to Philadelphia. It was the end of summer in 2013 and we were looking for something to bookend the road trip season. We had two objectives that we wanted to accomplish on the excursion. One was to become better acquainted with the city. We have always loved wandering aimlessly in major cities, people watching, sipping local coffee, and getting a sense of the intricacies of daily life in a different place. Philly was a blindspot for us and we wanted to rectify that. The other was to watch Roy “Doc” Halladay pitch. Halladay, who tragically perished in a plane crash in 2017, was an idol of mine in my teenage years. He pitched for several seasons with my favourite baseball team, the Toronto Blue Jays, and now in the twilight of his career, was pitching for the Phillies. On a bright, early September morning, we pulled out of our driveway and headed for the U.S./Canada border.
The motel we booked was in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, a town of about 20,000 people and situated a half hour from the city center. We chose it because for starters, King of Prussia is a fantastic name for a town. It was given that moniker in the 18th century after a local tavern called the King of Prussia Inn, which in turn was named after King Frederick the Great of, you guessed it, Prussia. The other reason we chose it is because the town is home to one of the biggest malls in the U.S. I don’t generally like malls or shopping, apart from the necessities of life, but I’m a curious person and as I mentioned, I love people watching and malls are great for that.
We crossed the border into New York State without issue and shortly after merging onto I-81, I felt some scratchiness in my throat. Great, I thought. I’m getting a cold on the first day of vacation. I have a penchant for worrying at the best of times but in the summer of 2013, I had an additional reason for being on edge. I had kicked a lengthy alcohol addiction about a year earlier and I was still learning how to exist in the world without that crutch. The primary cause of my alcohol dependence was a struggle I had as a teenager with health anxiety or hypochondriasis, which on the worst days escalated into panic episodes. What I discovered back then was that drinking went a long way towards wiping out my imagined fears and panic so I carried on with that remedy for years afterwards. Now, without alcohol to temper my racing thoughts, all kinds of hypothetical, worst case scenarios floated around in my brain. What if I have to go to the hospital while I’m down here? If so, will they accept my Canadian insurance? What if it’s something more severe than a cold? As we headed south on the interstate, I stacked these and other worries on top of each other until I had worked myself up into a lather.
The throat scratchiness evolved into soreness by the time we pulled into our motel several hours later. Exhausted from driving and worrying, I fell into bed with the hope that I would feel better after some rest. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be that lucky.
When I awoke in the morning, my sore throat was still going strong and I had developed a bit of a cough. Determined to not let my obsessive worry over a probable cold virus derail our trip, I decided to purchase some potent cough medicine and power on. After chugging some Extra Strength Dayquil in a Walgreens parking lot, we set off to make the most of the day.
The baseball game in which Halladay would be pitching was scheduled for 7pm that evening so we had the whole day to explore the city. We decided to visit the Reading Terminal Market followed by a stroll through Fishtown. As we wandered through the market, checking out the various food stalls, I began to feel feverish and very tired. A sore throat and mild cough was one thing, but once I had it in my head that I might be running a fever, my anxiety went into overdrive. Compounding things was my recollection of a commercial for a healthcare organization I had seen on television once. In the ad, a middle aged gentleman recalls that what he thought was a harmless sore throat actually turned out to be the first symptom of what was an eventual Leukemia diagnosis. My anxiety was quickly turning into panic. I told my partner that I was starting to feel worse and that a nap back at the motel before the ballgame would hopefully help matters.
As we departed downtown Philly for the half hour drive back to the motel, I couldn’t stop thinking about that man from the commercial. My fucked up brain began to convince me that I was dying of leukemia, right there on the interstate. As cars whizzed by on either side of us, my mouth became very dry and I was having trouble catching my breath. My partner handed me a bottle of water and was coaching me to breathe deeply but it seemed to be too late. I was in the throes of whatever this was, likely a panic attack, and I couldn’t wrestle back control. When I started to feel like I was going to throw up, I knew that I needed to pull off the highway.
I yanked the car onto the narrow shoulder right beside an “Emergency Stopping Only” sign. This situation solidly met that criteria. Once stopped, I jumped out of the car to see if some fresh air might settle things down. It did not. My nausea intensified, my heart was beating out of my chest, and I still couldn’t produce any saliva. Perhaps the most distressing part though was that I genuinely believed that I was dying. I thought it was only a matter of time before I collapsed into a heap, never to awaken again. You can laugh if you’d like. It was all quite surreal and farcical to my partner as well. She hadn’t a clue what to think, having never seen me or anyone else in this state before. We needed a plan and fairly quickly as vehicles were flying past us only a few feet away.
The biggest obstacle we faced was that my partner didn’t drive and there was no way I was getting back behind the wheel. She did have her license, but tried to avoid driving at all costs. Still, with the breath I had left, I was screaming at her to take the wheel and get us off the highway. There happened to be an exit ramp not far from where we were. She was understandably hesitant, having limited driving experience, and now being summoned to navigate our way out of trouble in the 6th biggest metropolis in the U.S. Unable to patiently await her decision on the matter, I started flagging down oncoming traffic with the hope that someone would stop and safely drive our vehicle off the highway. Car after car after car drove by, some visibly laughing at me, others ignoring my desperate plea for help. Philly’s a tough town. It must’ve been quite a sight. I probably wouldn’t have pulled over either for some dude with crazy eyes, flailing his arms in dismay. After resigning myself to the fact that the calvary was not coming via a good samaritan from Philadelphia, I returned to begging my partner to please, for the love of god, drive us off the highway. With no other good options, she finally relented and very carefully proceeded toward the exit ramp and mercifully, off that extremely busy stretch of road. I knew she had it in her.
There was a gas station immediately off the highway so we pulled in to try and de-escalate the situation. But there was no de-escalating to be had. I could not for the life of me get a hold of myself and we asked the gas station attendant to call the paramedics. A short time later, we were in an ambulance heading for Bryn Mawr Hospital.
The emergency personnel in the ambulance were peppering me with questions, wondering what the hell was wrong. Once in transit to hospital, I began to calm down a bit and I was able to deliver a somewhat lucid response to their inquiries. I told them that I had a suspected cold virus and that suddenly, that cold turned into severe dehydration, nausea, and hyperventilation. After taking my vitals, they assured me that I would be fine and we started shooting the breeze about matters unrelated to my health. After telling one of the male paramedics that we were in town to watch Roy Halladay pitch, he informed me that his scheduled start had been postponed due to injury. Goddamnit, I thought to myself, another dagger to the heart after what had already been a shitty start to the day. If somehow I was released from hospital in time for the game, the guy I came to see wouldn’t even be on the mound.
We arrived at the hospital around 3pm. The staff expeditiously wheeled me into a room and set me up with a saline drip. They took a few other tests and determined that everything looked fine. As soon as the saline had replenished my fluids, we were free to go. I have to admit that I felt pretty foolish laying in that hospital bed. My panic had completely subsided and I was left feeling exhausted and slightly embarrassed. I tried to explain to my partner that my attack was truly frightening and that I was powerless against its assault but I still felt like I had more explaining to do. These are the kinds of circles that severe anxiety drives you in. It’s not bad enough that it puts you through the wringer in the form of an out of control episode, it then makes you feel guilty about going through it. The mind is a powerful thing and sometimes in a profoundly negative way.
Once released, my mind immediately went back to the ballgame. Even without Halladay to watch, I still wanted to have an enjoyable evening at the park. God knows I needed it. It was now around 5pm and rush hour traffic was the main obstacle standing between us and arriving at the park by 7. Before we could worry about traffic though, we suddenly realized another problem. Amidst the chaos of calling an ambulance and trying to get to the hospital as quickly as possible, we failed to make note of where we left the car. We didn’t know the name of the gas station, the town, or even the general vicinity or direction that the car was in. We hopped into a cab at the hospital’s main entrance and told the driver that we were going to a gas station we didn’t know the name of located directly off a highway exit ramp. “Which highway is that?” he asked. I didn’t have a clue.
We spent the next 45 minutes driving around the area looking for this mysterious gas station. I could tell the driver was getting irritated, asking us the same question over and over. “Does this look familiar?” he’d ask.
“No,” we’d reply.
“How about this?”
“Nope.”
Finally, after asking a number of his colleagues over the CB radio if they had any ideas or suggestions, we got some help and found the car. At this point, I was wondering what else could possibly go wrong. Thankfully, that would be the worst of it. We got in our car and drove straight to the ballgame. Incredibly, we only missed the first few pitches of the opening inning.
After that traumatic experience, Philly had left a bad taste in our mouths, albeit through no fault of its own, so we decided to spend the remaining days of our trip in New York City. Ultimately, we didn’t achieve either objective we set out to accomplish. We didn’t get to see Halladay and we didn’t get to properly tour the city. Oh well, que sera, sera. Someday, we’ll endeavour to go back and when that day arrives, I’ll make sure to pack the Xanax.